Segmenting phonemes is an important skill, that is often overlooked.
Segmenting phonemes in words is another one of those phonemic awareness skills that sounds so easy any student should be able to do it. Students who are missing this skill show weaknesses in areas long after they should have mastered it. Those segmenting skills can make or break student progress.
Students weak in segmenting phonemes may struggle with spelling, or understanding word families, manipulating phonemes, and eventually with writing in general.
So your students struggle with spelling? Poor segmenting phonemes skills could be the issue…
How many times have teachers complained about the poor spelling skills of students? It can be so hard to read student’s writing….yes handwriting is an issue, but also trying to decipher words with missing letters.
First and second grade teachers are amazing at deciphering their student’s writing. But as students get older, teachers have a harder time figuring out what students meant.
A few weeks ago, I was talking with an interventionist who has been working on phonics skills with a particular student who can read the words, but has an incredibly hard time spelling the words correctly when writing. The student knows the phonics rules, but doesn’t apply them was the concern. When we checked for phonemic awareness skills…guess what we found?
Yup, segmenting phonemes was the missing skill.
While the student had no trouble blending sounds together, segmenting the words to spell them out was a nightmare.
Segmenting phonemes sounds like such a baby skill!
Yes, in some ways segmenting phonemes, like blending phonemes, is a skill that is usually worked on in preschool or kindergarten. Unfortunately, a lot of students still struggle with these skills beyond kindergarten and early elementary.
Because all words are made up of various phonemes in different order, the ability to blend and segment phonemes helps students comprehend verbal communication. When students start moving into written communication, this basic skill is key. Breaking down words into the various phonemes is the basis of spelling. Therefore being able to segment phonemes is a critical skill for writing.
Many students pick up on this skill quickly and easily, but many do not. Students who struggle with segmenting phonemes may need to be explicitly taught this skill.
Additionally, segmenting phonemes is directly connected with manipulating phonemes, which is a more advanced skill. Manipulating phonemes is included in the standards for kindergarten and first grade for many states.
Is teaching this skill really going to help my kids?
YUP! Absolutely, supporting students in this area will help!
Segmenting phonemes links directly with being able to write words phonetically. It also links with manipulating phonemes, which is also an important skill.
Some students struggle to take a word and break it down into its parts. This means that when they phonetically spell words, they may miss letters/sounds in words, making it difficult for them to communicate through writing. Students weak in this area may also struggle to manipulate sounds in words.
This skill also builds into later skills such as adding prefixes and suffixes to words.
Ok, I get it, I need to teach segmenting phonemes….what do I do?
- Use the joints in your arm-say the word you want to segment and model saying the word then breaking the word into the individual phonemes.(bounce hand versus smooth swipe)
- Use the different body parts (head-shoulders-knees-toes) to segment sounds in words.
- Have the students say the word more quickly or slowly to teach them to break apart the sounds in a word.
- Practice it daily for 3-4 minutes.
- Make skill practice fun, make a game out of it whenever possible.
- Use down time and transitions to practice this skill throughout the day. The more students practice it, the quicker they will master it 🙂
I have to progress monitor….but how do I progress monitor this???
- Make charts to track how many words students can segment.
- Focus on a certain number of sounds in words to track, build as students get better.
- Check out my progress monitoring segmenting phonemes product for this to make it easier for you. Cards and tracking all ready for you to make it easier 🙂
- If you’re interested in all the phonemic awareness progress monitoring, I’ve also added a growing bundle. which I will be adding to over the next several weeks. It will include progress monitoring for all 4 phonemic awareness areas and all the pieces needed to track that data.
Phonemic awareness is an important set of skills for students to acquire to be successful in school. Make sure you check out Manipulating Phonemes to learn about another set of skills within this domain!