To introduce children to the idea of segmenting, first ask them to say their own name. Then ask them to sound it out, with an emphasis on each individual phoneme. As an example, “Tom” would be sounded out as “T-o-m”. You should point out that names like “Beth,” although they have four letters, only have three phonemes.
In this game, the children should be told four words. Three of the words should have the same number of phonemes, with the other word an “odd one out”. As an example, take “cat, dog, fish, parrot.” As the children become more confident, you can make this game harder by choosing words like “bird,” where the phonemes are harder to spot.
Teaching the children a complicated tongue twister, like “Peter Piper” or “She Sells Seashells” is an effective way to get them to practice phonemes. To turn them into a game, have the children stand up and say the tongue twister slowly. If they get it wrong, they should sit down. Now speed up the tongue twister until there is only one child left standing.
All children are familiar with the game “I Spy”, and it can easily be changed to focus on phonemes. To start with, have the children “spy” words beginning with a phoneme. Once the children have mastered this game, ask them to say the middle or last phoneme of the thing they have spotted.
In this game, the teacher would use a piece of chalk to draw five or six lines on the ground outside the school. The children would then line up at the first line with the teacher standing off to the side. When the teacher calls out a word, the children need to jump forward over the lines for each phoneme that they hear. For example, “school” would be followed by three jumps forward.