How To Develop Phonological Awareness?
Phonological awareness is the recognition of speech sounds, both when listening to them and when producing them. This skill is developed as a human being interacts with others through speech. Over time, the child learns that orality is made up of words, words from syllables and syllables from phonemes.
Once the identification process is complete, children can begin to manipulate the sounds in their oral speech.
When this happens, they have the necessary foundation for the process of visual recognition of the letters. That is why, for the development of phonological awareness, printed figures should not be used. This ensures that no steps are skipped during the process.
Below are some activities that help you develop sound recognition before starting the literacy exercises.
Exercises to stimulate the development of phonological awareness
the listening game
The first sounds a child learns to recognize are obviously those in everyday life. First, ask the child to sit quietly in one place for a few minutes.
So ask what she heard in that time. Depending on where you are, she might talk about the noise of cars, doors opening and closing, air conditioning, etc.
The onomatopoeia game
This activity is ideal for sharing a family time. First, sit in a circle and have the child sit in the middle with his eyes closed. Then, a person must get up, stop somewhere and imitate the sound of an animal aloud.
Then, the child should point with his finger where the voice came from. These games are beneficial because they help to improve hearing sensitivity and increase concentration.
the rhymes
Rhymes are wonderful tools for developing phonological awareness. This is because they help the child to notice that there are very similar sounds and to identify language patterns.
The best way to bring rhymes closer to everyday life is to sing songs, read poems and make riddles. Don’t be afraid to exaggerate when expressing and gesturing, as this will make the moment even more fun.
Image game
Once your child becomes familiar with the concept of rhyming, you can make the game a little more complex.
First, take a box and put in some illustrations of pairs of objects whose names rhyme. Then, the child must take the pictures from the box matching according to the sounds of their names.
Syllable Play
Understanding the division of words into syllables is important to have a solid foundation for good spelling and understanding of language units. The whole family can participate in this activity. The idea is simple. Everyone should sit in a circle, and everyone should say their name aloud while clapping their hands in rhythm with the syllables that compose it.
After everyone speaks their own names, you can propose other longer words to make the game more interesting. One idea is to think of a topic and say words related to it, or look around and say what objects are in the environment.
traditional songs
A great way to develop phonological awareness is using traditional children’s songs. Memorizing the lyrics of the songs makes the child learn the sounds in a more relaxed way.
As you can see, phonological awareness is a fundamental skill for the proper development of other communication skills. Therefore, stimulating through simple activities, like the ones you just read, is very beneficial for the little ones.
Remember that it is very important that you strive to encourage little ones’ listening skills in your daily life. With this, the child will have much easier in the literacy process.
