Learning Phonemes

 Sounding It Out: Beginning Our Phoneme Journey with our Skills Unit

This week in kindergarten, we began an exciting new part of our learning—phonemes! Using the CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts) Skills curriculum, we started exploring the different sounds that letters make. These sounds, called phonemes, are the building blocks of reading and writing.

We started by listening closely to the sounds we hear in words. Through fun songs, stories, and interactive activities, students practiced identifying beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words. We also started connecting those sounds to letters—an important first step in learning to blend sounds together and read simple words!

Students practiced saying letter sounds out loud, clapped out syllables, and even tried breaking words into their individual sounds. 

As we learned each new phoneme, we also focused on how to write the matching lowercase letter. Using proper handwriting strokes, students practiced forming each letter neatly and carefully. We talked about where each letter starts on the lines, whether it’s a tall, short, or hanging letter, and how writing the letters helps us remember the sound it makes.

For example, when we learned the /m/ sound, we also practiced writing the lowercase letter m, repeating the sound as we wrote to help connect the sound to the symbol. This multi-sensory approach helps students build strong connections between what they hear, say, see, and write.

We’re just at the beginning of our phoneme adventure, but we’re off to a great start!

We had a blast jamming out to Alphabet Jam by Cathy Bollinger! This week, we met some catchy characters—Abbie Alligator, Macaroni, and Tara Takes Tap—who helped us explore the sounds /m/, /a/, and /t/. These silly songs made learning our new phonemes feel so fun!

By the end of the week, all that listening and practicing paid off—our kindergarteners were sounding out brand new words using our chaining chart! It was so exciting to see their faces light up as they blended the sounds together to read words like mat, and at.