One of the first steps in learning to read is to become aware of the different sounds in a word. You can practice this by stretching out the word as you say it, emphasizing each sound. You can play a game by saying each sound separately, then have the learner say the whole word. This is what the beginning reader will be asked to do when he sounds out a word in early attempts at reading. Other activities, such as asking what the first or last sound is, can be helpful first steps. Later, the beginning reader will start to associate these separate sounds with letters of the alphabet (phonetics).
Active learning: Have the students stand, and then say things for them to do stretching out each sound. Start with simple words such as walk, stand, sit, run, jump. Progress to harder words such as yes (nod the head), no (shake the head), hop, shuffle, and other words that may occur to you. Demonstrate each action at the beginning. Of course, each student will want a turn being the "captain."
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language. In English there are 44 phonemes, but only 26 letters in the alphabet. The phonemes are either vowels, such as "ah" or "ee", or consonants. such as "s" or "r." Because there are more phonemes than letters of the alphabet, some letters, or combination of letters, may have more than one pronunciation. For instance, the letter "g" may be pronounced as a soft sound such as in "gentle" or as a hard sound like in "garage" or "goat." The "th" combination also has more than one pronunciation, such as the voiced "th" in "these" vs. the unvoiced "th" in "think" (You can put your hand on your throat as you say these words. A voiced sound will cause a slight vibration.)
It can be confusing to the beginning reader to learn that words may have a different pronunciation depending on the context. For instance, "read" can be pronounced with a long "e" as in "I will read you a story." or a short "eh" as in "I read that book last week." (Pronounced like the color "red.")
Words can "also be split into syllables, or in the case of compound words, such as "doorknob," into each of the separate words, "door" and "knob."
One fun way that children enhance their phonemic awareness is by word games, such as finding rhyming words.
