Practice recognizing sounds. Phonological Awareness.org has activities such as playing a literacy version of Hot Potato, Simon Says and Thumbs Up. When playing this version of Hot Potato, students pass a basket around that has pictures in it while music is playing. When the music stops, the person with the basket gets to pull out a picture card and say the sound the picture begins with. Links to the materials needed to play the games such as picture and word cards are also provided. There are activities that require students to identify final, middle and ending sounds.
Ask students to identify words when they're pronounced slowly. For example, you may say the word "bat" as /b/ /a/ /t/ and then ask the student to tell you the word. This moves students toward blending sounds together to identify words, which prepares them for blending words together to read words.
Practice separating sounds in words. This time say the word completely as you normally would and then ask the student to tell you the sounds in the word. For example, say "dog" and then ask the students to tell you the sounds in the word log. The student should say /d/ /o/ /g/.
Work on rhyming words. Some students naturally know how to rhyme and some need extra practice learning to rhyme. Reading Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes and Dr. Seuss books from your school or local library is another way for students to develop their rhyming skills. Read a book out loud, then after reading a sentence that has a pair of words that rhyme, ask students to tell you the two words that rhyme in that sentence. Once students are able to identify words that rhyme, give them another word and then ask them to think of a word that rhymes with the word you gave them.
Practice saying words without their initial or final sounds. Once students can identify sounds, challenge them to remove either the initial sound or final sound in a word. For example, ask the student to say "meat" without /m/. Their response should be "eat." An example removing the final sound of the word would be asking a student to say "ramp" without /p/. The response should be "ram."