Phonemic awareness

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Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling

Phonemic awareness

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amother

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:01 pm

My 5yr old can't seem to grasp that the letters have a sound they make. She'll say g-g-ggimmel and when asked for a word with gimmel she'll say g-g-g-light! Or something else random that doesn't fit. Even if I give her a list of words before like gate, goat, gold... she can't add to the list.
Also when I ask her what sound a word starts with, she can get it wrong.
She's also not consistent at rhyming.
I had her hearing checked. What else can I do? She recognizes all letters by name and can label them.

amother

Navy

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:28 pm

You can play lots of phonemic awareness verbal games. Basically, where you play with the sounds that you say. Like "let's eat ch-ch-cho - clate!" "Or let's eat bocolate! What's bocolate?" You can integrate these into your day and give her a lot of very funny practice.

Google it for more.

Bleemee

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:28 pm

I don’t know what to do about it but I think it’s awesome that you’re noticing.

amother

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:31 pm

Thanks! I should mention that I tried getting advice from a speech therapist before posting here but nothing seems to help.
Gonna try switching the first sound and seeing if that approach will help.
I'm so scared this is an indicator that she'll struggle with reading.

babygirl

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:33 pm

Does she get language therapy? It should help bH

amother

Burntblack

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:34 pm

Does her school have resource room? The teachers there may have experience with this and have suggestions, even if it isn't a red flag for them yet at this point in the year.

amother

Navy

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:35 pm

https://www.splashlearn.com/bl.....ties/

Find yourself a speech therapist who will tell you what to do. Parent practice is much more helpful then weekly sessions.

Because reading is built off phonemic awareness.

amother

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:43 pm

She doesnt have speech therapy though I can try getting her approved it'll take a few months. I spoke to a friend who is an slp just for advice. She told me to overemphasize sounds and silly rhymes. Not doing the trick yet...

Thanks navy for the link!

Her school is completely not concerned because she's in kindergarten and they say if she doesn't grasp it by pesach they'll assign someone to help but this woman only does kindergarten then. Can't start before.

amother

Banana

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:45 pm

I waited with my son and wish I knew sooner. I would suggest starting with a good language therapist and if that doesn’t work going to a language based school for primary

mushkamothers

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:47 pm

Lots of I spy
Sound games (Google Montessori sound game)
Switching front letter like: if dina started with a /b/ what name would it be? Bina!
Harder than that is end sounds - if yosef ended with a /m/
Harder than that is switching the syllables. Take Bina, cut it in half and switch it (na-bi) that's very hard.

amother

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 5:51 pm

Thanks mushkamothers!

amother

Seagreen

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:00 pm

I'm a speech therapist and I've worked on this with a lot with preschool children. It's a crucial ore reading skills.

If you can't start speech therapy then I would suggest buying a workbook-Super Duper Say and Glue Phonological Awareness Fun Sheets.

You can do the sheets with your dd. They target all different skills in a structured hierarchical manner. There are clear instructions on each sheet how to do them

Also read lots of rhyming books with her. Books like Dr Seuss and Yossi and Laibel. Reread the same book several times and focus on her completing the sentences with the rhyming word

amother

Ginger

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:02 pm

Not sure if appropriate at this stage for her age, but when I started teaching my younger child phonemic awareness, I started by calling the names of the letters by the sounds. I'm doing it with English but same should apply to Hebrew.

So instead of calling gimmel "gimmel", I would say "this is a "g". Also make sure you're not saying "guh" or "gih". Try as much as possible to simply say the sound without adding a vowel. That way it makes sense when they learn to blend, which is the second stage of phonemic awareness.

(For example, if you taught a child that "g" was "guh" and she was reading "got", she would say "guh", "ahh" "t" and it wouldn't blend.)

The truth is that the name of the letter is less useful than learning the sound, which is its actual function. The reason I wonder if it's useful at her age is only because she's already being taught the letter name at school, so it might be confusing. But I still think you can drop the name of the letters for a bit and try to go back to just calling them sounds. You can go back to naming them later, and kids can understand the difference later.

Then you can also practice breaking down words throughout the day as a game. "We're going in the car. C-A-R. Car." Just repeatedly. That's the blending.

There are some good YouTube channels where they do this. There was a woman I saw who taught her child the names and the sounds and was able to separate it by using a dedicated alphabet chart for naming and word cards for sounds. But I personally think the naming is less important than the sounds and that it's easier to teach once they get the sounds.

amother

Mulberry

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:07 pm

OP, where do you live? I know of a fantastic school that helps kids with these issues.

amother

Junglegreen

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:12 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

Would you say that this would be an issue in a 3.75 year old? Or still normal?

amother

Mulberry

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:16 pm

amother Junglegreen wrote:

Would you say that this would be an issue in a 3.75 year old? Or still normal?

I'm not a SLP but I happen to be somewhat familiar with this topic and age 3 is the perfect time to start practicing phonemic awareness with your child. Practice emphasizing sounds in the beginning of words. This is the basic foundation for literacy skills.

happy7

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:24 pm

We have this with my son.
He was 5 and a half when we realized.
He is now 6 and a half and has a dislexia diagnosis.
He was able to put the letters and vowels together but only one letter and one vowel.
He is being taught Hebrew reading through a program called kinesthetic kriah.
The woman who did the academic evaluation and presented the diagnosis recommended an English program called fast forWord.
My son does not understand rhyming at all. We do practice and activities with him but he really doesn’t get it.
We had to get professional help.

amother

Seablue

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 6:52 pm

OP where are you located?

amother

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 7:23 pm

Thanks for all the replies. I'm in boro park. I'm Def going to apply for speech therapy and see if we Can make some progress. I don't think she needs to switch schools but maybe I'm being naive. I will keep it in mind as I try some methods and see how she progresses.
I really appreciate all the help!

amother

Seablue

Wed, Jan 03 2024, 7:35 pm

While it’s not a guarantee as your daughter is still young, the likelihood of her having phonemic awareness based dyslexia (or at least, a very hard time learning to read, plus poor word retrieval, etc.) is high.
Her phonemic awareness isn’t what it should be age 5, the school isn’t smart not to be concerned, and you are a smart parent.
Do you have to wait to be approved? Can you pay for someone out of pocket, (plus, often health insurance pays)? You will save $$ on costly reading help down the road.
I asked where you live because in Lakewood, they have some really good therapists who specialize in LIPS program which is very helpful for teaching the brain to ‘hear’ the sounds and manipulate them. I don’t know the therapists in Boro Park.
While all these suggestions are nice, they don’t come close to a LIPS trained therapist.
As an alternative, look at Hearbuilder.com and do the phonemic awareness program specifically, but a therapist is really better, though this can often be done in conjunction with real therapy.
Signed, an SLP who diagnoses numerous cases of dyslexia in older kids whose parents waited when their kids didn’t have proper phonemic awareness at younger ages…

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