1st Grade Lesson Plans on Phonemic Awareness

Ask students to identify the letters that make specific sounds.

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to identify and hear the individual phonemes (sounds) that graphemes (letters) make. Being able to identify these sounds is one of the first stages of literacy development and is essential for success in reading and writing. During first grade, phonemic awareness is a large focus of literacy instruction. If you're a first grade teacher, there are several activities that you can use to promote phonemic awareness in your students.

Beginning Letter Sounds

This lesson requires students to use listening skills to identify the letter used at the beginning of a given set of words. Provide students with small dry-erase boards and dry-erase pens. Inform them that you are going to state a variety of words and upon doing so, they must listen closely to try to identify the letter that makes the first sound in each of the words. Once they think they've determined the letter that makes the sound at the beginning of each word, they are to write it down on their dry-erase boards and hold it up. For example, if you've said the word "cat," students should write the word "C" on their boards. Review what is written on each board and if students seem confused about a particular sound, offer clarification.

Find the Sound

In this lesson, students have to try to identify where a given sound is in a list of words. On index cards, write "B" for beginning, "M" for middle and "E" for end for each student in your class and distribute the cards. Explain to students that they you are going to tell them a sound and after stating the sound, you are going to state a series of words; after hearing each word, students are to hold up the card that illustrates where the sound was heard; at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the word. For example, if you are working on the digraph "sh" and say the word "fish," students should hold up the "E" card. Offer help if it is needed.

Rhyming Word Match

Rhyming is an important part of phonemic awareness, as it helps students relate words that share common sounds. Create rhyming worksheets for your students. On the top of the worksheets, include a picture of an item; a bat, for instance -- this is the reference word for the lesson. On the rest of the page, include pictures of items that rhyme and don't rhyme with the word "bat." Distribute the worksheets to students, review the key sound "at" in the word "bat" and instruct them to circle the pictures on the work sheet that rhyme with, or have the same key sound. Review the answers as a whole class.

How Many Sounds?

Students work on identifying the amount of sounds they hear in words with this lesson. Discuss how words are made up of two or more sounds. State a few words and discuss how many sounds each word has. For example, you could say the word "jug" and then slowly say the word, enunciating each of the sounds; j/u/g. State a word and as a volunteer to tell the class how many sounds are in the word.

References

• Literacy Resource Inc: What is Phonemic Awareness?