Sequence #3: Phonological Awareness (Primary School)

This activity is designed to help your child identify the position of words in a sentence, an important skill when learning to write, as it helps them recognize words and space them correctly.

Supplies : 

• Sentence bank in appendix
• Paper

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Understanding which word precedes or follows another in a sentence being read to them will help your child build a strong mental representation of sentence structure. This fun reading time activity (link in French) will help them develop an awareness of the logical word order in sentences.  

Supplies : 

• Image bank or illustrations from a picture book or board game
• Optional: Tokens or cubes to represent words

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

One of the essential skills in developing phonological awareness is the ability to separate syllables out loud (link in French). This activity gives you tips to help your child identify and segment syllables, which will improve their perception of the sounds in words. 

Supplies : 

• Box containing 5 to 7 objects representing familiar words of different lengths

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Playing around with syllables together, by merging syllables or taking syllables out of a word, for example, will help your child become more aware of the sounds that make up words. This skill is essential for writing and reading; it reinforces a child’s understanding of the units of sound in words.

Supplies : 

• Box containing 5 to 7 objects representing familiar words of different lengths, or
• Illustrations of everyday objects (from a board game, book, etc.)

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

The purpose of this fun game is to swap out syllables in a word to form new words; it will help your child understand how words are formed and how they relate to one another.  

Supplies : 

• Different coloured blocks: You can use Lego blocks, wooden cubes, or coloured tokens

 
By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Play is an essential part of making learning fun! During this activity, your child will discover rhyming sounds by exploring everyday objects with similar-sounding names. By playing around with rhymes and sounds, your child will become familiar with words and make connections between them. 

Supplies : 

• hat
• mat
• wagon
• dragon
• rock
• sock
• mitten
• kitten
• honey
• money
• Other small objects could represent: bag, rag, pen, ten, key, bee

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

It is important to practise manipulating syllables with your child to help them learn to identify and segment the sounds in a word. By breaking words down into smaller parts, your child will develop essential reading and writing skills. 

Supplies : 

• Cards illustrating words with one or two syllables (e.g., cards from a board game).
• Elastics
• If needed: Word bank in appendix

 
 
By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Rrrrrrr, mmmm, zzzz, iiiii . . . playing with word sounds can open up a whole new world of sound in language. By exploring how words change when sounds are added or removed, your child will develop phonological awareness, all while having fun.    

Supplies : 

• Tokens 

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

This activity encourages your child play with words by replacing certain sounds with others. By moving sounds around in a word or replacing one sound with another, they will discover that they can create new words! You can then look up their invented words together to see if they already exist. It’s a great way to enrich their vocabulary while stimulating their creativity and imagination. 
 
Supplies : 

• Tokens 

By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Encourage your child to learn that many French words are created from small units of meaning, and are often grouped into families. This activity allows your child to expand their French vocabulary, understand the meaning of words, and recognize the major units that make up the words.

Supplies : 

• If necessary: Examples of word families in the appendix 

 
By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

This activity introduces your child to the idea that words are made up of small units that give clues about their meaning, in this case, the units at the start of a word. It will also enrich their vocabulary and understanding of how words are formed by introducing them to prefixes.

Supplies : 

• If necessary: Word bank in appendix
• Everyday objects 

 
Rédaction : By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

This activity is a logical continuation of the previous activity, this time focusing on word endings and suffixes. It will teach your child that word endings sometimes give us clues about a word’s meaning, which is an essential strategy for better understanding the language. 

Rédaction : By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)

 

Pull out your favourite letter-based game (or print out an alphabet) for this special activity. The objective is to help your child recognize upper and lower case letters, as well as the sounds they produce. It lays an invaluable foundation for learning to decode words, read, and write.

Supplies : 

• Small pouch or container
• 26 lowercase letters
• 26 uppercase letters 

 
Rédaction : By the Learning Disabilities Institute (Institut TA)