BJU Press Blog

4 Tips for Developing Phonemic Awareness

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eye cream ice cream phonemic awareness
Have you ever found yourself correcting your toddler or preschooler’s diction? “No, Abby. It’s not eye cream; it’s ice cream. Ice sounds like nice.” Then you start hissing like a snake to emphasize the /s/ sound in ice. It’s in those moments (ignoring the snickers of the adults around you) that you’re beginning to develop your child’s phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness happens when a child becomes mindful of the distinctive sounds that make up our language and can manipulate them. It’s an important skill for communication, but it’s also important as a pre-reading skill. In fact, many reading experts cite phonemic awareness as one of the best predictors of how successful a child will be in learning to read.

So how can you, as a homeschool mom, help your young child develop phonemic awareness? Here are a few ideas.

1. Read books (or poems) with a strong rhyme.

Teachers that specialize in early childhood education have good reason to love Dr. Seuss books. Just think of how many rhyming words are in the opening few pages of his book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (which many a mom has memorized). Since many of his rhyming words are not really words at all, they’re great for helping children focus on how the words sound. Other books you might want to check out include these:

  • Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw
  • I Spy A to Z: A Book of Picture Riddles or I Spy: A Book of Picture Riddles by Jean Marzollo
  • Huck Runs Amuck by Sean Taylor
  • Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.

2. Play sound games.

Here are a few games that you can play with pre-readers to help them develop phonemic awareness.

  1. Choose a sound (such as /at/) and challenge your child to think of words that end with that sound.
  2. Choose a sound (such as /sh/) and challenge your child to think of words that begin with that sound.
  3. Make up silly sentences that have all the words starting with the same sound (like “Freddie Frog flipped flapjacks for Friday’s fellowship” or “Sandy Seahorse sorted six seashells.”)

3. Practice breaking words into syllables.

Sounding out words by syllables is also a good way to help children distinguish individual sounds. Encourage your kids to clap, jump, or stomp when saying each syllable so that they can get a sense of the word’s rhythm.

4. Consider a pre-kindergarten curriculum focusing on phonemic awareness.

If your child is four (or close to it), you may also want to consider using the K4 Foundations Distance Learning homeschool program from BJU Press to prepare your child for kindergarten. We’re using it for the first time with our four-year-old daughter, and she loves it. As a mom, I’ve been impressed with how well it holds her attention. And I love how she’s learning a lot of pre-reading skills, including phonemic awareness.  You can also check out the Footsteps for Fours curriculum (not available on Distance Learning)—my older two daughters used this program, and it’s also wonderful for developing phonemic awareness and other pre-reading skills.

How to Train Young Scientists with Science Hikes

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science hikes
Our family loves hiking. In fact, we think that any time except the dead of winter is the perfect time for a hike! We love the sense of freedom, of adventure, of separation from a too-busy world. And in the fall, hiking can be an even more enjoyable and educational experience.

Creation reveals its Creator, and what better way to train up young scientists than by turning your trek through the forest into a science hike? Here are five things you’ll need for a science hike with your kids.

1. Notebooks for Recording Observations on the Science Hikes

Notebooks and pencils are a must-have on any science hike. Every child, from the toddler to the teen, can take notes about what he or she sees.

For the little ones, making drawings or writing down one-word labels might be as far as they go. Older kids can draw more detailed sketches of animals or plant life and make a few observational notes. You can take breaks throughout the science hike to allow time for drawing and writing.

2. Cameras for Taking Photos

Taking photos of nature is a great way to hone budding observation skills. You may not want to hand over your smartphone to your five-year-old, but there are sturdy, kid-friendly cameras on the market that are ideal for small hands. Or maybe you have an old phone in a drawer, one that you never use and don’t really need. Why not repurpose it as a kid-friendly camera?

Plants, trees, seeds, nuts, buds, flowers, earth, wildlife, insects, and bodies of water are perfect photography subjects for young scientists. If you have been focusing on a particular science unit in homeschool, such as plant life cycles or different kinds of clouds, encourage the kids to photograph anything related to that topic.

3. Sample Collection Containers for Found Items

Kids love to find “treasures” in nature—sparkly rocks, twisted twigs, interesting flowers, dead insects, and brightly colored leaves. Bring along some resealable bags or plastic containers to hold all the samples.

When you get home, have your kids work on identifying what they’ve found. Can they match a colorful leaf to the type of tree it came from? What sort of beetle did they find? Which minerals make that sparkly rock so pretty? They can write their findings on an index card and slip it into the box or bag that contains their treasure.

4. Drinks and Snacks 

As moms, we all know what happens when the kids get hungry and thirsty. It’s not a pretty picture! Keep those hunger pangs at bay by bringing along plenty of snacks and drinks for the trek, even if it’s not a long hike. If you’re carrying a baby on your back, recruit your older children to help tote the provisions.

5. A Sense of Adventure

While it’s a good idea to follow certain safety rules (no running out of sight, no straying too far off the trail, etc.), there’s also a time to let the restrictions relax and just have fun! Nature is beautiful and exciting to your children, and they’ll learn so much from simply running, climbing, scrambling, and skipping through it! Take your time, and enjoy their delight in the big world God has made.

• • • • •

Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Life Skills Come from Life

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teaching life skills
As a mom, I wanted to prepare my two boys to be fully capable adults and help them show love for others. As they were growing up, I found that life skills—though, at the time, I didn’t think of them as life skills—were the best way to get my boys where they needed to be. Cleaning, organizing, cooking, handling finances—these are all key in helping children show love. And I learned early on that the best way to teach life skills was by keeping my boys involved.

Enabling children to help when they’re young

Little kids love being involved, and they love helping. I may have been blessed with two boys who enjoyed being involved, but I also tried to encourage that love. Whenever my husband or I was cleaning, my boys would want to help out. But at first, there were a lot of things they couldn’t manage. Our adult dishes were heavy and easily chipped, the vacuum was large and heavy, and our broom was far too tall for a little kid to hold.

Instead of waiting until they were older, I just got more kid-friendly things. I traded out my big plates for light ones that the boys could carry, and I got the cheapest, lightest vacuum I could find. I even got little brooms and dust pans they could use to sweep up their crumbs after meals. They didn’t always do a good job, but they were learning motor skills and coordination—and they were helping Mom.

Teaching new life skills as they come up

I have boys. Boys eat—a lot! And, since we homeschooled, they thought they could eat pretty much whenever they wanted. They loved helping out in the kitchen, and since they enjoyed eating, I taught them how to cook. So when it was time to eat, and I was making one thing, they could make whatever they wanted for themselves. And today, they both really enjoy cooking all kinds of things.

As they grew older, they showed interest in watching their dad do taxes each spring. He would explain what he was doing and how he did it. Now that they both have jobs of their own, they know what to do, and my husband can advise them.

All these things that kids should learn as they grow up are a part of life. We didn’t have to spend class hours teaching life skills. Since my boys were actively involved in our lives, we had the opportunity to teach them new skills as they came up. And today, I hope they can see that cooking, cleaning, and other life skills are a ministry. My sons can show love to my husband and me by helping around the house. When they get married and have families of their own, they’ll be able to show love to their wives by taking on additional chores. But it all starts when they’re little and they just want to put the dishes away, saying, “I help, Mommy!”

Teaching the Constitution Early

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The Constitution of the United States
Recent surveys show that many Americans don’t know much about their own nation’s governing document. In our homeschool, one of our main objectives is to teach our children about the US Constitution. As believers, we want our children to exercise godly stewardship when it comes to voting (in the future). In order to help them understand the Constitution, we have decided to start early.

Framework

It’s important to provide children with an overview of the framework of the Constitution. A helpful place to begin is with the three branches our Constitution divides the duties of government into. Since our family is using BJU Press heritage studies textbooks, we introduce this concept in first grade. Every year, we repeat it—with more detail added each time. This might seem basic, but only one in four American adults can identify these branches, and even fewer can identify the duties of each. When children understand that the Constitution dictates who makes, enforces, and settles the laws, they have a solid working knowledge of what the it does.

If you’re wondering if your little ones are ready for something as big as the Constitution, remember that this is just an introduction. Also, you can teach them with hands-on-activities. I found that even our verbal learner was helped by doing an activity. You can read how we used Legos® to learn about the Constitution .

Narrative

One thing that often makes studying government documents dull is a narrow focus on the mechanics of governing. The learning is more engaging if you place the Constitution within a narrative context. The Constitution arose out of a certain set of historical events, such as Shays’ Rebellion. Studying the document within its historical context provides interest and understanding.

Narrative also helps us understand one especially critical part of the Constitution—the Bill of Rights. Throughout our history as a nation, various people, groups, and movements have attacked our liberties . For example, even our second president, John Adams, threatened our First Amendment right to free speech. Exploring these historical events can help children understand what their rights are under the Constitution and how they’ve often been threatened in the past.

Capstone

Even though we lay a framework and expand understanding, we need to pull it all together in a single course. When I was in high school, I joined another group of homeschool seniors and juniors for an in-depth study of American government. That class brought together the various threads of the Constitution I had learned through the American history I had studied over the years.

Teaching the Constitution enables our children to engage wisely. But if we try to pack it all into the final year of homeschooling, they’ll likely find it overwhelming and dull. Instead, we should attempt to give our children a foundation that they can build on all through the early years.

 

No Ordinary Night, September 12, 2001

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September 12 New York Skyline
On September 11, 2001, I woke up late on a Tuesday morning to find my mother in the living room, watching the news and crying. When we look back on a life-changing event, we can usually remember exactly where we were or what we were doing when we heard about it, but we don’t always remember much about the days that followed. As a ten-year-old, all I understood that day was that a plane had crashed in New York City. For many of us, fear and war scatter across our memories for the days that followed 9-11, and those memories are difficult to explain.

To help your children understand, share this pantoum by Morgan Reid Persun.

No Ordinary Night, September 12, 2001

No ordinary night, that, not with those fires smoldering;
the whole civilized world held out candles for us to see by.
And dawn’s early light found us standing, flags at half-mast,
the heavy artillery of the American spirit gathering. The silence ominous.

The whole civilized world held out candles for us to see by
as we looked through our ruined towers for a miracle,
the heavy artillery of the American spirit gathering. The silence ominous:
America had not gone down with the towers; she was revealed behind them.

As we looked through our ruined towers for a miracle,
the enemy believed we would crumble more easily within, but
America had not gone down with the towers; she was revealed behind them.
We looked up, one people, we the people, with terrible force.

The enemy believed we would crumble more easily within, but
we, sure that right would right itself, steeled to the cause.
We looked up, one people, we the people, with terrible force,
with liberty and justice for all. With justice for all.

And dawn’s early light found us standing, flags at half-mast,
we, sure that right would right itself, steeled to the cause:
With liberty and justice for all. With justice for all.
No ordinary night, that, not with those fires smoldering.