Basic
Components of a Phoneme Awareness Lesson
1. Choose one phoneme to teach. Consonants are usually easier
phonemes and typical of phoneme awareness lessons. However, phonics
lessons review vowel phonemes.
Example: /m/ or /l/.
2. Devise a meaningful name, picture, and hand gesture for your
phoneme, and display its principal grapheme.*
Example: Letter M is for /m/, the hummingbird
sound. The hummingbird is the smallest bird.
It hovers by beating its wings 50-60 times a
second. That makes a
humming sound. Gesture: Fingers as wings.
3. Make an alliterative "tongue twister." Have students stretch or
split off your phoneme in the twister.*
Example: Many mice make
music. Stretch it: Mmmany mmmice mmmake mmmusic.
4. Lead students to study the mouth move for your phoneme. Consider
using mirrors to see the mouth moves.
Example: L stands for /l/, the light saber
sound.
What's your mouth doing with /l/?
Raise your light saber!
Cut /l/ in our twister: Lisa lost
the lizard's large lemon.
5. Provide a model of how to find your phoneme in a spoken word.
Example: Let's see if
hummingbird /m/ is in pump.
I'll know it's there if my lips come together and
hum. P-p-p-uuu-mp.
P-uuummm . . . There, in the middle they came together and I
hummed. That was /m/! We do say /m/ in pump!
6. Add phoneme-finding practice by testing spoken words.* Have
students blend the new phoneme into words.
Example: Do you hear /m/ in Mom or Dad? In send or mail? In beef or ham?
I'll name some food. If they have
/m/ in them, go m-m-m. If they don't, say "yuck." Ham, fish, lima
beans, ice cream, cereal, chocolate cake, marshmallows.
What am I saying: roo-m?
crea-m? sli-me?
What am I saying: m-oon? m-ess?
7. Apply phoneme awareness in phonetic cue reading--decoding the
first
letters of rhyming words.
Example: We use L to write the light saber
sound. Is this like or bike? Light or fight? Land or band? Learn or burn?
* Minimal component of a barebones phoneme awareness lesson.