Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds of a word. It is a foundational skill for reading. Research has shown that students who do not understand that spoken words are made up of separate speech sounds have a great deal of difficulty learning to read. The Doggie, Where’s My Bone? activity is fun game for helping students hear sounds in different word positions. For this activity, I use a little dog bone (which I purchased at Walmart), but you can use a bingo chip. Simply say a word and then a sound in the word (“cat” /a/) and the student places the bone either on the head, body or tail to indicate the position of the sound within the word. For students who are a little more advanced, the Doggie Sound Switch activity is provided.
To download this freebie just click HERE or on the above picture.
Mel Coppoc says
Love this doggie activity! I added something spontaneously with my first graders just yesterday. I use the colored counting chips to push the sounds much like with the Elkonin boxes, which we had been using. I ended up giving them each a green chip for the beginning sound (the dog was standing on the green chip), yellow one for the middle sound, and a red chip for the ending sound-again, the dog was standing on the chip. We called this the Go/Slow/Stop way of blending the sounds in the word after we decided where the sound was that I voiced. They loved it! And, the laminated doggie fit perfectly in my small pocket chart for easy display, with the chips taped on. Thanks!