Customer Reviews

Phonemic Awareness Activities for Early Reading Success (Grades K-2)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Scholastics and Wiley Blevins have created a wonderful book that clearly explains the what's and why's of phonemic awareness. After Blevins convinces you that this will lead to reading success, especially for the 20% of students that struggle, he uses the buld of this book to present ready-to-use lesson plans. Also included is a professional bibliography and lists of books that you librarian can provide you for a literacy-based phonemic awareness program. The reseach shows that this is a critical process for problem readers, that reading is not a natural process, that phonics instruction without phonemics of little use. A great, inexpensive book that will have a very measureable effect on our students. Also great for home-schoolers and parents- or anyone tired of the endless phonics vs. whole langu age debate.

A wonderful book filled with fun activities for the K-2 student. Activities in the book include; phoneme discrimination, rhyme and alliteration, oddity task, oral blending, oral segmentation, phonemic manipulation, and linking sound to spelling. What I like best about the book is that each activity offers a suggestion box with ideas to help children who are having difficulty with the activity. Also, the activities are easy to do, do not take much time, and lots of preparation is not needed. I often hear my students say, can we play Higglety, Pigglety, Pop (a game from the book). This is a great book to use with any reading program.

I tutor kindergarten students in phonemic awareness and found this book to be an invaluable resource in preparing lessons for the children. While many books tend to emphasize phonics, the children that I tutor cannot yet recognize sounds within words, a necessary pre-requisite to phonics instruction. This book is one of a few that gives specific sound - related activities. One tool that I found to be very helpful is a scope and sequence chart that gives a suggestion as to when to introduce new concepts in phonemic awareness. The book also includes a variety of activities including songs, worksheets, and games that help keep kids actively involved in learning to hear sounds within words. The author also included extra picture cards which can be used to personalize and revise the worksheets and games to keep them fresh and interesting. I recommend this book along with Janiel Wagstaff's Irresistible Sound-Matching Sheets and Lessons that Build Phonemic Awareness, and Jo Fitzpatrick's Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills to anyone who works with children that need to focus on phonemic awareness, whether tutoring in small groups or in a classroom setting.

Activities are not organized in a developmentally appropriate manner. Does not cover some of the most basic activities to develop awareness of speech sounds (e.g. listening, discriminating) and includes an abundance of activities that would be difficult for children at the pre-reading/early reading level.

This book has helped me a lot with homeschooling. Unlike other books of prereading activities I have seen, many of the activities in this book can be done with just a parent and child, even around the dinner table (we are a weird family, I know).

I have also read Blevins other titles, and I particularly enjoyed Phonics A to Z.

Normally I would never deduct 2 stars for a single issue, but I felt this issue was critical. The activities themselves, with a few exceptions, are both varied and interesting, but there's no clear guidance as to sequencing, other than a chart that indicates which areas should be covered in which weeks. The problem is that the developmental levels appropriate for activities within each area are all over the map. Some activities in areas designated for early introduction are quite challenging, while some designated for later introduction are so simple as to be mind-numbing. I'm in favor of that kind of variety because all children are different, but not without some guidance - at a minimum they need to be explicitly organized by their relative challenge.

On another note, which did not affect my rating, if you purchase Wiley Blevin's Phonics from A to Z you might want to skip this book. Most of the material is duplicated in that book, including most of the best activities.

I found this book to be very helpful. It is full of fun learning games that target exactly what I need to be teaching at the begining of first grade. The children enjoy the activities and master the skills. A teacher can't ask for more than that!

This is a fair book for Phonemic Awareness Activities. However, As a reading specialist and first grade teacher, I prefer the two books below. I use them on a daily basis and find them indispensable! They both come with ready to use activities that are motivating and fun! The kids absolutely love the activities!!

Quick Small Group Reading Activities for Struggling Students by Sandy Turley Quick Small Group Reading Activities for Struggling Students
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Phonemic Awareness: Playing with Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Readers by Jo Fitzpatrick and Catherine YuhPhonemic Awareness: Playing With Sounds to Strengthen Beginning Reading Skills.

Lots of fun activities for enhancing phonemic awareness in this book. I have used it as a supplement to my kindergarten and first grade homeschool curriculum, to reinforce phonics lessons and provide additional practice. There are several games in this book that I have copied and used with my two boys; they love the games and ask to play them. We have used these games for extra practice on skills such as rhyming sounds and beginning and ending consonants. This book is an inexpensive way to supplement any phonics curriculum for homeschool or, in my opinion, classroom use.

I was hoping the book would have more "cut and paste" activities but they are more ideas and you have to go from that. I have ideas too! I need more concrete activities to work with.

The book came in decent time though.