Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and distinguish between sounds in spoken language, is important to the process of reading. There are many fun ways to give your children opportunities to practice this skill.
This week we are studying “p”. We created a box of things with the sound/letter of the week. We searched through our toys and found things to fill our box up. The kids need a lot of guidance and some direction in order to think of items that start with the focus sound. Our box was filled with people, pigs, pajamas, a princess, a puzzle, a purse, a pony, peas, a pot, and a policeman. The next day we went through our box carefully saying the names of the items and focusing on the initial sound, /p/. I wrote a list with the names of the toys. We read the list together focusing again on the initial sound.
In addition to the “sound” box we made a collage for /p/. We leafed through some of those catalogs that keep piling up in my house to find pictures of things that start with /p/. Catalogs are nice because they don’t have any inappropriate ads in them, and the pictures are organized. We cut the pictures out and glued them to pink paper (another “p” word). This is some great fine motor practice.
We combined phonemic awareness with handwriting practice as well. We made the letter “p” using die cut paper shapes (scrapbooking paper). I wrote the capital and lower case “p” onto a piece of construction paper. We glued the paper shapes along the outline of the letters. Then we traced over the outline with our fingers. Since the paper has a texture to it, it provides a nice tactile component to the activity. We also made the letter “p” out of play dough. Again, this is tacticle and kinesthetic.
Home School Handwriting without Worksheets
The beauty of home education is flexibility. You are free to try different teaching strategies to meet your children’s particular learning needs. I prefer to limit worksheets. They do have a place, and we do use them, but I want to engage my children in more active learning that is fun. It is also hard to motivate me and the kids to do repetitive practice that can be very boring. If you have an unmotivated, kinesthetic, or tactile learner, it can be particularly difficult to get him/her to do all of the practice that will help achieve mastery of skills.
This summer we have been practicing handwriting and have tried to practice without using worksheets. These strategies are quite useful and fun. Most of these ideas are great for unmotivated, kinesthetic, and tactile learners.
- Use several pieces of string to form a letter. Trace over the string as you say the name of the letter. Sometimes I talk about the direction that your finger goes as we are moving along the letter. You could do the same thing with spelling.
- We use tub crayons to write all of the letters that we know. We write both capital and lower case letters. We try writing the letters in different colors and sizes.
- We form letters with play dough. All of the rolling, smoothing, a movement helps my kinesthetic and tacticle kids stay engaged in the work. (Try making numbers, too.)
- Write letters in the sandbox using your finger or a stick. It is less intimidating because you can easily smooth the sand if you make a mistake. This is a great strategy for kids who are perfectionists.
- We have a “magic wand” to write letters in the sky. Ours is filled with colorful sand and sparkly stars that float in some liquid. I think that watching the floating things is good for developing eye tracking skills and adds visual interest. Any kind of pointer that looks magical and fancy will do, though. Girls in particular like the magic wand.
- Finger paint is another way of getting tactile learners involved in handwriting. You can mix colors and make the letters any size you like. It also works for the artist in your family.
- We use sidewalk chalk for handwriting practice. If you are like me and can’t find a place for all of the practice the kids do, the rain washes away the work. I think that the resistance also helps build certain muscles.
- Make the shape of a letter with your body. It highlights all of the parts of the letter so on paper the kids include all of the parts. This is particularly good for kinesthetic learners.
- We have a foam alphabet floor puzzle that has different textures on it. We trace those letters while laying on the puzzle. This position also helps build arm muscles and helps with motor control. The colors and the textures add interest and helps the kids remember the work.
Have fun with handwriting!
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