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Phoneme Substitution (With Letters)

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Activity Type: Introduce
Activity Form: Standard
Grade: K
Group Size: Small Group, Whole Class
Length: 10 minutes
Materials: Letter cards
Goal: Given a written and spoken word, the student can substitute a sound to form another word ( mat = "mat", replace letter m with c -> "cat" ).
Items: Items listed in the lesson--eg, sat, mat, cat, hat, rat, bat, ban, bad, bam, bag, big, beg, bug.

What to do

Note: This activity assumes students know the sounds for the letters used here: s, a, t, etc. It also assumes that students have mastered the activity Phoneme identification with sound-it-out chips. It is important that you do not attempt this activity until students are able to perform that earlier activity with ease, since this activity introduces print letters--a crucial step in learning to read.

  1. Use Letter cards to form the word: sat. You want students to see the link between this activity and earlier activities where they used blank chips to represent sounds, so use similar-looking chips but with letters printed on them. This is sat. Each chip stands for a sound just like before, but these chips have letters on them. This is /s/, /a/, /t/: sssaaat, sat. Sound out with me and then say the word fast: sssaaat, sat. Good.
  2. Now I’m going to change something here and I want you to tell me what the new word is. I’m going to change the /s/ for a /m/. Substitute the new letter card in full view of students. So we used to have sssaaat and I changed the sss to mmm. What word do we have now? Correct! Mat: mmmaaat, mat. If students have difficulty, help them sound out the new word slowly and then say it fast. You may need to go back and repeat the transition from sat to mat.
  3. Repeat with other first letters to form words such as cat, hat, and rat. End with bat. Don’t move to the next step until students have mastered substituting first sounds. (If you run out of time, pick up the activity here next time it is repeated.)
  4. Good! Now I’m going to do something different. I’m going to change the last sound /t/ for /n/. Substitute the new letter card in full view of students. So we used to have baaat and I changed the /t/ to /n/. What word do we have now? Correct! Ban: baaannn, ban.
  5. Repeat with other last letter substitutions—eg, making bad and bam. End with bag.
  6. Good! Now I’m going to do something different again. I’m going to change the middle sound /a/ for /i/. Substitute the new letter card in full view of students. So we used to have baaag and I changed the /a/ to /i/. What word do we have now? Correct! Big: biiig, big.
  7. Repeat with other middle letter substitutions—eg, making beg and bug.
  8. Continue with other substitutions. Vary the order in which you make substitutions so that it isn’t always first, last, middle. Watch for struggling students and give them an individual turn.
  9. For more practice, you can ask students to make a new word by adding a phoneme (eg, from ban to bang or from bet to best) or deleting one (eg, from brat to rat or from sang to sag).

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