Most people when young, process words and phrases all at once. They rarely play with sounds, unless someone plays directly with them. Suddenly they are in school and the teacher says, if I say "Kuh" "aaa"  "tuh" and you put those sounds together, what word does it make? Some children may understand, yet others may find this very frustrating, because they had never played with sounds before. Play the following games to help with this!

I Spy

You may have played this with colors - I spy with my little eye something blue. The players then guess what it is by looking around the room for something blue. If the children you are working with don't know how to play with sounds yet, use a small number of objects or pictures. Start with 3 pictures - perhaps of a cat, a dog, and a mouse. Name them out loud so that they know what words you are using. Then say, "I spy with my little eye something that starts with the sound 'mmmm'. Is it cat or dog or mmmmouse?" Be sure to give it away since this is their first time doing it, and you want them to be successful!

Play it again and again. You can also find words that end with a certain sound as well.

It doesn't belong here

Using objects or pictures, the students have to find the one that does not start with the same sound as the others. For example, you could have a bat, a banana, a ball and a deck of cards. Have them listen closely for the one that starts differently. Make sure that the different one is not always last, although I have put it here for convenience. Other words:

• Man, mouse, marble, potato
• Shell, ship, shark, lobster
• Dirt, dart, dark, market

Rhyme it!

Rhyming might seem easy to you, but for some people, it is not a game they understand. It actually has to be taught. You will once again start with pictures or objects. Work with 3 or 4 at a time; only 1 of them does not rhyme.

Make this a guessing game, so if the students get the answer wrong, there is no penalty. Say, "Here are some made up words. Can you guess which word does not belong?"

• gan, lan, san, binton
• jid, sid, brable, fid
• sorbie, wev, kev, dev

Play these games daily, and in only a matter of a couple weeks, the students understand about sounds! Have fun!