Working with English Language Learners

Find a Phoneme

For all age children who need practice in phonemic awareness.

Ask a small group of children to form a circle. In the center of the circle, place pictures of a variety of objects familiar to the children. (There are flashcards with pictures on them that will work well for this activity.) Ask children to pick out the pictures whose beginning sound (initial phoneme) is the same as the ones you want them to work on. "Which are pictures of objects that begin with the /m/ sound? Yes, you are right. Mouse, man, mouth and monkey all begin with the /m/ sound. Now let's find all the objects whose names begin with the /d/ sound. You are doing such a good job! You found all the /d/ sound words—dog, deer, door."

As a variation, using two sets of cards or pictures, you can play a matching game. Turn the pictures face down and ask one child to find pictures of objects that begin with the same beginning sound. The child turns over two cards and if they match, the child can remove the cards. If they don't match, the child turns them back over and another child takes a turn. When all the cards are gone, tell the children that they are all winners because as a group they matched all the cards.

For a higher level phonemic awareness skill, use pictures of objects whose beginning sound is represented by two or more letters when spelled, as in the words chin, sheep, dress and scrape. You might want to include words whose vowel sound is represented by two letters when spelled, but sounds like one when spoken, such as oil and boy and bout.

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