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PSPKK12319 Comments

Word awareness activity

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We hope you love this new word awareness activity!

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

My Three loved doing alphabet activities with me last year. When she was about 2 1/2, all of it started to click, and by three years old she recognized most of the uppercase alphabet.

But one thing she didn’t grasp as easily as letter names was letter sounds.

In fact, I’ve noticed that she could use some support in a variety of phonological and phonemic awareness activities.

So … welcome to our phonological awareness series! Each of these activities will be print and play – that’s right, no prep! And you’ll only need one manipulative: poker chips (or another small object).

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

This week we are focusing on awareness of word. This is the understanding that a sentence is made up of individual words. Its a basic understanding that isn’t always easy to master.

One way to teach the awareness of word is to have students clap the words in a sentence. But I wanted to try something a little more hands-on.

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

So I created these silly sentence trains. Each page has a train with either 3, 4, or 5 cars (for 3, 4, or 5-word sentences).

All you do is read one of the silly sentences at the bottom of the page. Then your learner repeats the sentence and uses a poker chip to cover each circle. Each poker chip represents one word.

A tip: Read the sentences with breaks between the words, at least at first.

“Cow – swims – fast.”

“Rat – reads – books.”

If your learner appears to be ready, read a sentence at a normal pace.

“Fish dig holes.”

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

Make sure your learner repeats the silly sentence as s/he puts a poker chip onto each circle.

You’ll probably find that these 4-letter sentences add a new challenge, because many of them include small function words – such as a, to, and the. If you read the sentence too quickly, you’ll notice that your learners skip right over those function words.

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

Another tip: When finished, have your learners point to each poker chip one at a time and repeat the sentence back to you.

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

The 5-word sentence train was a real challenge for my Three. I tried to speak the sentences more fluently to see how she’d do, but she was easily confused. She would repeat the sentence, but she wasn’t using exactly one chip for each word. Sometimes she would say three words while moving only one chip.

Download this free word awareness activity to help your learners count sentences in words.

I decided to give my Five a turn. He had no trouble at all – no matter how fast I spoke the sentences.  This was no surprise; he’s a beginning reader and learned the concept of word with the voice to print cards we did when he was a preschooler.

More teaching tips

  • If you’d like, cut off the bottom of each train so that your learners have just a train mat and not the sentences.
  • Use the silly sentence mats during individual tutoring sessions or in small groups.
  • Does your school have buddy reading with kids in older grades? I’ll bet those fluent readers would love reading these silly sentences to help your learners master awareness of word!

You can grab the free download below. Stay tuned for more phonological awareness fun!

 

Get your free word awareness activity!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

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Nursery Rhyme Concepts of Print Pack – Set 1

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Since children love nursery rhymes, these classic poems are the perfect text for teaching concepts of print. This file contains 280 pages of printable activities featuring ten different nursery rhymes. The file includes instructions for how to teach concept of word, voice to print matching, and more.

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Free Reading Printables for Pre-K-3rd Grade

Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

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Filed Under: Reading, Pre-reading Tagged With: kindergarten, phonological awareness, Pre-K

You May Also Enjoy These Episodes:

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Reader Interactions

19 Comments

  1. Susan

    April 19, 2020 at 12:58 pm

    Hi Anna!

    This resource is FANTASTIC! Thank you so much for sharing your work!
    My granddaughter is not ready for this resource yet but it is definitely worth printing and saving for a few years.

    When I printed there was not a black and white option. Is it possible to that from my end?
    Thank-you again

    Reply to this comment
    • Kate Dowling

      April 20, 2020 at 3:20 pm

      Hi Susan!

      This is Kate, Anna’s assistant. There is not a separate file that is designed to be printed in black and white, but you can print using “gray scale” when you go to print the file. If your printer doesn’t have colored ink, the file should still print, but without color.

      Reply to this comment
  2. Inge Slabbert

    January 5, 2018 at 1:44 am

    Hi there Anna discovered your website yesterday and super excited as I will be teaching remedial kids from next week. I teach in South Africa

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      January 5, 2018 at 7:09 am

      I’m glad my site is helpful to you, Inge!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Laura Jones

    November 6, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    Thank you so much for the printables. I teach students literacy for students with cognitive disabilities and your resources provide me with hands on materials to support the curriculum.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      November 7, 2017 at 7:16 am

      I’m so glad my resources are working for your learners, Laura!

      Reply to this comment
  4. Cindy Ball

    October 21, 2017 at 8:17 pm

    Wow! What a confidence booster these can be!

    Grateful,
    Cindy

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 22, 2017 at 5:49 pm

      I hope they work well for your learners, Cindy!

      Reply to this comment
  5. j

    October 17, 2017 at 8:24 pm

    Love the Sentence Word awareness Trains. Kids have enjoyed also. After using all the trains mix up the sentences and use only the 5 word train. 🙂

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 19, 2017 at 5:36 pm

      I love that idea!

      Reply to this comment
  6. Marylou

    October 17, 2017 at 6:26 am

    Hi Anna,

    Many thanks for sharing your wonderful resources – much much appreciated.

    Cheers,
    Marylou (from Australia)

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 17, 2017 at 5:47 pm

      You’re very welcome, Marylou!

      Reply to this comment
  7. Noemi Nishi

    October 17, 2017 at 2:55 am

    Thank you so much for the freebies!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 17, 2017 at 5:32 pm

      You’re very welcome, Noemi!

      Reply to this comment
  8. maria

    October 15, 2017 at 10:18 pm

    Great idea. Thank you.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 17, 2017 at 5:51 pm

      You’re very welcome, Maria!

      Reply to this comment
  9. penny

    October 15, 2017 at 7:56 pm

    Hi Anna,
    Thanks again for your great resources. I agree that teaching the letter names and then the sounds is actually confusing for beginners. I have moved to not teaching the letter names first and just the sounds. Another method I’ve used successfully is to teach the name and’ it says’ at the same time. eg It’s name is b (bee) and it says b (buh).
    Penny

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna G

      October 19, 2017 at 6:56 pm

      I think it depends on the learner. My oldest four kids didn’t have any problem learning both letter names and sounds together. We definitely have to open to trying different things, depending on our students! 🙂

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. 5 Things You Need to Know about Phonological and Phonemic Awareness - The Measured Mom says:
    September 27, 2020 at 1:10 pm

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