Phonological Awareness Activities for Kindergarten

Rosey | Posted on July 15, 2022 |

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These phonological awareness activities help kids in kindergarten to develop phonemic awareness skills. They include task box activities that target syllables, rhyming, onset rime, phoneme substitution, blending, segmenting and isolating phonemes in CVC words.

The following activities came about because I wanted a generic set of resources (not themed) so that they can be used all year round and for many years to come!

What is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness refers to the ability to identify and work with the sounds (phonemes) of spoken language. Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness and includes skills such as onset-rime identification, segmenting sounds, blending sounds and substituting sounds to make new words. At this stage of learning the focus is on the sounds in words, so an emphasis is placed on oral and auditory learning.

Syllable Activities for Kindergarten

What is a syllable?

A syllable is a part within a word that has one vowel sound. It’s said as a single sound unit. When I teach syllables I love using techniques such as clapping or beating the number of words. For example, the word dinosaur can be broken into three syllables /di/ /no/ /saur/. To beat the number of syllables on your body, first you’d tap your head as you say “di”. Next you’d tap your shoulders as you say “no”. Finally you’d tap your waist as you say “saur”.

<< You can find these Syllable Clip Cards here >>

<< Learn more about these Syllable Counting Cards here >>

Rhyming Activities for Kindergarten

When teaching rhyming, I begin with rhyme identification activities before moving onto rhyme generation activities. Some of my favorite rhyming activities include puzzles, clip cards and picture cards.

Teaching Tip

When presenting kids with rhyming pictures, say the words out loud so the kids can hear which words rhyme. For example, show a picture of a cat, tree and hat. Then ask “What rhymes with cat? Cat, tree? Or cat, hat?” That way the kids can hear both of the words compared to the word “cat”.

<< Learn more about these Rhyming Puzzles here >>

<< Learn more about Rhyming Odd One Out Cards here >>

<< Get your Rhyming Clip Cards here >>

<< Learn more about CVC Rhyming Clip Cards here >>

Onset Rime Activities for Kindergarten

Onset rime refers to the two parts of a one syllable word. The onset refers to the initial consonant sound. The rime refers to vowel part of the word that follows it. For example, in bus /b/ is the onset and /us/ is the rime.

<< Learn more about Onset Rime Puzzles here >>

<< Find your Onset Rime Clip Cards here >>

<< Learn more about Onset Rime Blending Clip Cards here >>

CVC Activities for Kindergarten

If you’re wondering what a CVC word is, it refers to a word containing a consonant, vowel and another consonant. Some examples of CVC words are cat, hen and fin.

<< Learn more about Beginning Sounds CVC Clip Cards here >>

<< Learn more about Middle Sounds CVC Clip Cards here >>

<< Learn more about Ending Sounds CVC Clip Cards here >>

<< Get your CVC Word Puzzles here >>

CVC Blending Activities for Kindergarten

Blending is an important skill for teaching kids to read. It refers to being able to combine individual sounds together to say a whole word. For example, /f/ /a/ /n/ when blended together is pronounced as /fan/.

<< Learn more about CVC Blending Clip Cards here >>

CVC Segmenting Activities

Segmenting is a useful skill for teaching kids how to spell. This skill enables kids to break a word apart into it’s individual phonemes. For example, the word /map/ can be segmented into /m/ /a/ /p/.

<< Get your CVC Segmenting Sound Boxes here >>

<<Find your CVC Segmenting Sounds Boxes here >>

Phoneme Substitution Activities for Kindergarten

Phoneme substitution is a more advanced phonological awareness skill, so I usually teach this one last. This is when kids can swap a sound (phoneme) with another sound to make a new word. For example, if you substitute the first sound /s/ in sun with an /f/ the new word is fun.