What is Phoneme Segmentation?

Phoneme segmentation is the ability to hear all the individual sounds in a word. A child MUST master earlier phonemic awareness skills before this skill should be worked on. You don't want to frustrate a child by trying to teach them something that they are just not ready for. Remember to take things step-by-step in teaching anything.

Begin by practicing to segment short, 3-sound words, such as cat or shack. Make sure shorter words are mastered before introducing 4 or 5-sound words. Listed below are several ideas to make this more fun.

Head, Waist, Feet
A simple activity is having students point to their head, waist, and then feet for the three sounds in a word.

Hand, Elbow, Shoulder
This activity can be done the same way as the previous activity, except for pointing to these body parts!

Chip Segmentation
This activity also allows for hands-on movement to help children understand the separation of sounds in words. Give students 3 chips (such as poker chips) to represent the three sounds in a word. Have students say the word out loud, and then say each sound in the word individually, moving a chip toward them with each sound.