I recently discovered The Reading Genie. I found a phoneme awareness test from the Reading Genie to find out if a child can hear the separate sounds in words.
Hearing separate sounds is words is a skill needed to read and write. This skill can be practiced and improved. Here's another post I wrote that might help. Teaching a Child to Separate Sounds in Words
Practice making the short u sound with a child. Make sure the child is able to make the correct sound. The C stands for consonant and the V stands for vowel. Explain which is which to a child.
The CVC rule gives a new reader a clue to use a short vowel sound. I explain it this way. The vowel is all alone in the middle. The vowel is shy and makes a short sound instead of shouting his own name.
There are exceptions, but they usually follow a spelling pattern. (find, grind, old, cold, sold, told, wild, child, mild) I've found that vowels alone in the middle of consonants usually make a long sound next to a blend or two consonants together. These seem to be the rule breakers.
Here's a video of me teaching how to blend the sounds and read the words using magnetic letters.
Recently I shared word flashcards to print and cut with phonics rules on the back. The words no, go, we, and me follow the CV phonics rule. This rule tells a reader to usually make a long sound at the end of a short word if it ends in a vowel. This set of flashcards has a few exceptions to this rule. The words are TO, DO, and WHO. They all have the same sound and can be taught together. You can call these rule breakers.
Check out this post for ideas to teach and practice the words no and go.
Make sure your child is confident in the long o, long e, hard g, n, w, and m letter sounds.
Put the flashcards NO, GO, ME, and WE in a ziplock bag for practice. As you teach new words you can add them to this bag for practice and review. Practice these words at least every other day. (Dads, moms, grandparents, and older siblings can all help a child practice and review flashcards.) After a child knows these four words, I suggest making your own flashcards for the words SO and HE to show more words that follow similar phonics patterns.
The first step is to show a child to make the letter sounds and blend the sounds together to make the sounds into a word. Here's a video of me showing how to blend the sounds in the words NO, GO, and SO using magnetic letters.
Magnetic letters have the added bonus of mixing the letters up and asking a child to put them back together.
You can share read the book Hop on Pop by Dr. Suess to allow a child to practice the words WE, ME, HE, and NO. You will read the book to a child. Pause and point under WE, HE, ME, and NO at the beginning of sentences and when they are written in bold type at the top of the page. Make sure your child knows which words he or she is expected to read. Some children want to take over all the reading in a shared reading and get frustrated.
Here are the pages from Hop on Pop you can share read.
Children will eventually learn these words by sight. The Reading Genie explains that children learn words quicker when they are taught phonics rules and how to decode words first. I'll help you do that. The learning that is done with the high frequency or sight word flashcards will transfer to new word learning. Very exciting!!!
by Dr. Suess to allow a child to practice the words WE, ME, HE, and NO. You will read the book to a child. Pause and point under WE, HE, ME, and NO at the beginning of sentences and when they are written in bold type at the top of the page. Make sure your child knows which words he or she is expected to read. Some children want to take over all the reading in a shared reading and get frustrated.
