Buzz to Where the Sound Is- Multisensory Monday

Hi everyone,

Welcome to Multisensory Monday!  This will be the last Multisensory Monday until the end of August.  My schedule is packed with teacher trainings and I will be having too much fun on the road, teaching teachers all over the place how to help their struggling readers with Phonics First.  I still plan to keep sharing information and ideas on Thursdays though, so keep checking back weekly.  Or better yet, enter your email address on the right to subscribe and get blog articles sent to your email!

Buzz to the Sound

Today’s activity brings in the phonological awareness skill of identifying where a sound is in a word.  My student and I were working on z when I used this activity, but it can be used with any basic consonant or digraph sound.

You’ll need a small picture of a bee (or a picture that fits your letter or lesson) and 3 chips or markers of any sort.

Set the chips in a row, explaining there is one chip for each sound in the words your student will hear: beginning, middle or ending.  Give the picture to the student and ask them to slide it above the chip that shows where the sound is in the words you say.

In this example, the sound was /z/ and the picture was a bee because bees buzz and make the sound /z/.  When I said the word “zap”, my student moved the bee above the beginning chip.  When I said “fuzz”, the student moved the bee above the ending chip.

Including Phonological Awareness

This activity reinforces the new sound, while also working on identifying where sounds are in a word, an important phonological awareness skill.  Phonological awareness skills are essential to develop before a student can be successful with reading.  Students should be able to hear the sounds and patterns of language before print is added.Sound segmentation, another critical pre-reading skill, can also be included by having the student touch each chip as they isolate the sounds in the word before moving the picture to the proper location.

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