Segmenting: A critical skill for phonemic awareness

Children participate in the process of segmenting when they are actively engaging in separating words or parts of a word into syllables or individual phonemes. This is one of the most critical skills that children need to develop for phonemic awareness. It is important for building reading and spelling skills.

For students with dyslexia or other language-based learning differences, a deficit in the phonological component of language is often at the root of difficulties in reading and spelling. Students need foundational skills explicitly taught and practiced moving systematically through the hierarchy.

• identifying the number of words within a sentence
• identify the number of syllables within a word
• segment or break apart the onset and rime pattern
• segment the individual phonemes (sounds) within a words

Segmenting is taught through explicit instruction, but learning can be extended and practiced through games and activities. There are many engaging, hands-on ways to practice segmenting with your students. These next 5 ideas will help build your students’ skills in a fun, yet educational, way.

Pompoms, or chips are usually in abundance in most classrooms. They are a useful small manipulative to use for teaching various concepts and skills. Students can use these items to practice  segmenting all of the skills mentioned above. As you move through the hierarchy of segmentation tasks, students will build their knowledge and application. For beginners, have students use two chips for words with two sounds. Students slide each chip as they say each sound. For more of a challenge, hand students five chips. Say a word with two to five sounds and instruct them to choose how many chips (sounds) they will use. Then, have them segment the individual sounds within the word. 

Unifix Cubes

These cubes are usually found in math centers, but they are also an engaging tool for segmenting and blending sounds. Unifix cubes are concrete manipulatives that can be used to teach word awareness and segmenting words into smaller units. Students will have fun clicking and unclicking the cubes as they segment sentences and words. 

Students can use a counting grid to place cubes in each box as a sentence is read. Teachers should start with 2-3 word sentences and build students’ skills towards identifying longer sentences. Additionally, pom-poms or chips can be used with this same activity. As students’ progress, cubes can be used in the same manner for segmenting words into individual phonemes (sounds). Cubes can be connected for each sound that the child hears.  

FREE Segmenting Cards

To go along with this week's ideas, I am offering a free printable that can be used with  pom-poms, unifix cubes, and more. When you subscribe to The Dyslexia Classroom Freebie Library, you will have access to activities, strategies, and tips that will help you support dyslexic learners. Click here to sign up and have access to the printable! There is also a video showing you the many ways that I use these within my dyslexia therapy sessions.

Students are constantly in motion, so put it to good use for learning segmenting words and sentences. Students use their fingers to represent words within a sentence, syllables within a word, or individual phonemes.  Teachers should model the process before each activity session. Breaking down the individual sounds also slows the word down which will help struggling spellers and helps the student keep each sound in their working memory as they move to blend the sounds into a word or apply the sounds to spelling. 

This hands-on learning tool can be used for more lessons than just math alone. Students can move each bead for segmenting sentences and individual sounds in words. The abacus is an especially useful tool for promoting left to right movement patterns as a predecessor to reading.

Sitting and learning has its place, but many learners process information best when actively engaged. As with tapping, students can hop each time they hear a word or sound. Many classrooms have hula-hoops that can be used indoors for this activity. Construction-paper circles also work well! Be creative and have students hop into a circle for each phoneme within a word. Students can also use a Hopscotch grid to jump for each word or sound. 

For more ways to bring movement into your learning sessions, join us March 27 for the Climbing the Ladder of Reading Conference. Connect with the science of reading as you engage with presenters and leave with actionable steps that you can use immediately with your students.

This workshop-style conference will be centered around the science of reading and social-emotional learning with access to the presenter in LIVE time!

Can’t join us live for the Climbing the Ladder of Reading Literacy Conference on March 27? Don’t worry! All attendees will have access to the recorded sessions for 6 weeks! 

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