THE FLOOR: Phonemic Awareness Block Challenge

• One-inch cubes are perfect.
• Use four or five different colors.
• You’ll need three or four blocks of each color.
• Play these at a table, or on the floor.

• Put the blocks back into the pile after each round.
• You don’t need to remember the colors from round to round. If the child chooses green to show ‘sh,’ she can choose a different color for ‘sh’ on another round.

Learn to pronounce the sounds correctly.

Can your child play some ‘Match First Sound’s games, and some of the ‘Basic Training for Blocks’ challenges? Then let’s play:

What’s New? First or Last

1. Ask your child to show you, with blocks, a single vowel sound. For example:

You say ‘ah’ -- and the child selects one colored block to show ‘ah.’

2. Then add a sound before, or after, the ‘ah’ sound. For example:

• You could say "If this [block] is ‘ah’, show me ‘ahf-f-f." (You added a last sound: ah --> ahff.) Yes, it sounds sort of like ‘off’--but you don’t need to use real words. Nonsense is fine.
• Or instead, you could say "If this is ‘ah’, show me ‘l-l-lah’" (You added a first sound: ah --> lah.)

3. The child adds a colored block -- before or after the ‘vowel’ block -- to show whether a first or a last sound has been added.

4. Then clear off the blocks, and do steps 1 to 3 again with different sounds.

HINT: S-t-r-e-t-ch the sounds at first to help your child learn the game: “Ah-h-h-h-f-f-f-f-f. “ Or “ S-s-s-s-s-s-ah-h-h.”

Here are S-t-r-e-t-ch-y Sounds you can use: Any vowel; f-f-f, h-h-h, j-j-j, l-l-l, m-m-m, n-n-n, r-r-r, s-s-s, sh-h-h, v-v-v, z-z-z, th-h-h, ch-h-h.

More on this topic: The Reading Treehouse -> THE FLOOR: Phonemic Awareness

List of Phonemic Awareness Games to Play