One of My Favorite Phonemic Awareness Tools: My Writing Boards

Most aspects of phonemic awareness are learned and tested audibly. For instance, children must LISTEN to a word in order to figure out how many syllables it has. They have to LISTEN to a word to know what the beginning sound is. They have to LISTEN for the middle and ending sounds, as well. They have to LISTEN to two words to decide if they rhyme. They have to LISTEN for alliteration and also for the parts of a word to figure out what it becomes when they put those parts together. It can be a dry process; although I find that they actually seem to like to answer those questions when asked. I can't recall a time when a student has complained when going through the exercise of answering these phonemic awareness questions. Maybe they love the time and attention- I don't know. However, a great way to combine these phonemic awareness questions and writing are "Writing Boards." At the beginning of the year I give each child a writing board that has two sets of lines on each side. It is a thin, wooden, rectangular board the shape of an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper. I insert the board into a plastic sleeve, then I insert a paper on each side. The top line has their name written exactly as they should be learning it. The bottom set of lines is blank.

On the other side we do the same with their "letter parts." The top is the model and on the bottom line they practice what is on top.

Eventually I replace the letter parts side with numbers 1-10 to practice writing. 

Tracing the model and then writing in the set of lines below is very straightforward. I always say "Trace it, then try it! Trace it, then try it."

But where the phonemic awareness skills come in is with the games we play with these boards. I make up a story (using the current habitat we are in as the setting) and then I eventually come to the word I want them to notice. "Once upon a time there was an astronaut who wanted to eat some food in the space shuttle. It was wrapped in plastic. When the astronaut unwrapped it, it began to FLOAT away." "The word is FLOAT. What does FLOAT start with? What is the beginning sound in FLOAT? Write the Ff on your board and then raise your board up so I know you are done. I will come by with a pretzel."(or a goldfish cracker or something) (I always reward them for writing because for so many children writing is a big effort and I want them to look forward to it.) So then they raise their board up and I can go around and praise them or ask them to fix what needs to be changed, always giving them a pretzel. By the end of the game they may have 5 pretzels, plus a smile on their face. We do this all year, through SPACE, OCEAN, FOREST, POLAR, DESERT, RAINFOREST, and the AFRICAN SAVANNA. By the end of the year they are not writing a capital and small letter (Aa)....they are writing CVC words and sometimes 4 letter words. They really help each other identify those beginning, middle, and ending sounds; and they get used to sounding them out and spelling them, writing their words in the correct direction, etc. rather than just reading them off a page. It sets them apart years down the road when they actively enjoy identifying the different sounds and parts of the words. You can use just the plastic sleeve with the papers in it if you don't want to go to the trouble of cutting wooden boards out. You should be able to have two papers in the sleeve, so the writing sleeve or writing board is double sided.

Get your FREE Writing Board Download HERE.