Phoneme Manipulation with Sticky Notes

Some(most kids) learn better when there is a fun element added to the learning, like these sticky notes. Such a simple thing, but it adds a bit of fun, doesn’t it? I use it to practice phoneme manipulation with my grade 2.

   
Phoneme manipulation, what is that? First let’s look at what is a what is a phoneme? A phoneme is a single ‘unit’ of sound that has meaning in a language. Phoneme manipulation  is when you play around with different phonemes to form words. This is (obviously) a skill a child needs to spell. A child needs to realize that there are 26 alphabet letters, but when some letters are combined you get different phonemes. For example: a t and a h makes the sound th.

I’ve written up a few combinations on sticky notes(ones we have been working on), and together with a white board we played around with these:

   
The older students have been working on other phonemes, or sound pictures according to the Phono-Graphix Method. For example, different combination of letters can give you the same sound.(variation)

When you write up a word, and leave out a phoneme, the child decides which one is correct by placing the different sticky notes in the space, until the correct one is selected. (Different way of doing scratch sheet spelling)

   
In the case of overlap, the same two letters make two different sounds. For example, in they, the ey is the sound a, but in key, the ey is the sound e. Students get confused easily when they spell a word purely phonetically. Give them the options of the different ways to spell a sound, and they will start to realize which one is correct. I need not stress the importance of reading to see to get acquainted with the written language and combinations of letters(phonemes).

   
I’ve written up just some of the combinations, and we played around with it.

   
With younger students, one could simply start of with single letters of the alphabet, like we did in this Word building activity, working first with CVC’s, then CVCC’s etc.
With older students, one could add multi syllable words, but still use the different combinations written on sticky notes.

There is just something about using sticky notes in learning that students love, perhaps it is the colors or the fact that mistakes can easily be corrected.

Have fun learning with sticky notes!