Teaching Phonics to Preschoolers Using Phonological Awareness

Most of us are familiar with the term, phonics for kids, but are you familiar with the term, phonological awareness? Phonological awareness describes the perception of the sound structure of languages. A significant part of phonological awareness is phonemic awareness which refers to the knowledge of spoken words composed of phonemes, the fundamental units of language sounds. The components of phonological awareness are essential for phonics for preschoolers, a method to teach learners the relation between letters and the sounds they represent.  

While phonological awareness deals only with the oral aspect of language without associating with written script, phonics deals with language sounds as well as the language script or letters they denote. A prerequisite to effective phonics instruction would be prepping children with phonological awareness. 

Phonological Awareness and Phonics

How can we help children develop phonological awareness?  One way for them to start building phonological awareness is by singing songs that rhyme, like “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” or “Ba-Ba Black sheep”. From there, they learn how to breakdown the sentences in the song to words and  how to break up words into syllables or phonemes. You can then teach phonics to preschoolers. Once they can match the spoken sounds to written letters, syllables and words, they can then go on to add, delete or blend phonemes to read new words, and read fluently with time. 

Games to Teach Phonics

With phonics for kids being such a useful tool, there are digital games which let your preschoolers learn new words while having a whole lot of fun. Osmo Little Genius ABCs game  is an amazing phonics instruction based game.

Osmo Little Genius ABCs game teaches phonics for preschoolers about the magical power of letters and phonics. Mo the Monster takes children on a journey through his travel book. Children learn to build letters using squishy physical sticks & rings. They then see those letters pulled from the real world into Mo’s world, where the letter they created is transformed into sounds and a word. Mo then encourages children to create a picture of that word using the same sticks & rings.

From A to Apple to seeing their Apple come to life, Osmo Little Genius ABCs game let preschoolers practice phonics and pre-reading skills by letting kids poke, practice, and play with the magic of letters.

Using phonics games for kids is a great way to help children read fluently. It eliminates monotony in the learning process and helps make reading exciting. By playing those games often, children will stand better chances of reading fluently and might just start to read for fun!