Segmenting Words Teaching Resources
Browse segmenting words activities, printable worksheets and more Australian Curriculum-aligned resources to teach this important literacy skill in your primary classroom.
This collection of teaching resources has been carefully reviewed by members of our expert teaching team to ensure every teacher-created resource is ready to use in your classroom. That means you can save hours on your lesson planning!
New to teaching this section of the curriculum, or just looking for some fresh ways to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is Segmenting?
Phoneme segmenting is the process of breaking down a word into its individual phonemes, aka the smallest units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a particular language. This helps learners understand the relationships between written letters and the sounds they represent.
Why Is Phoneme Segmenting Important?
Being able to segment sounds is important for students to develop phonemic awareness – the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in spoken language — and this foundational literacy skill sets the stage for being able to read and write.
Letter-sound correspondence
Also known as grapheme-phoneme correspondence, letter-sound correspondence is the relationship between letters or graphemes and the sounds or phonemes they represent in spoken language.
Phoneme segmentation helps students understand the crucial relationship between letters and sounds. For example, if a student learns the letter 'c' and its corresponding sound /k/, they can then break down words like 'cat' into individual sounds /k/ /a/ /t/ and understand that the letter 'c' represents the sound /k/.
Decoding and encoding words
When students read a word, they need to break it down into individual sounds or phonemic chunks in order to understand it. When they write a word, they need to segment the word into individual sounds to know which graphemes to use. Phoneme segmentation helps with both.
For example, when spelling the word 'fish,' students need to segment the word into individual sounds /f/ /i/ /sh/, then use the appropriate graphemes to represent each sound.
Reading fluency
Phoneme segmentation can also improve reading fluency. When a young reader can quickly break down words into individual sounds, they can read more smoothly and accurately. For example, let's use the 'cat' example from before.
If that child can easily segment the word 'cat' into individual sounds, they can quickly recognise and read the word without stumbling, understanding that the text is about a furry four-legged animal.
Vocabulary development
This is yet another building block of early literacy that ties back to phonemes and segmentation. When students can break down words into individual sounds, they can more easily understand the meanings of new words.
Let's say a student encounters the word 'reptile.' They can segment it into individual sounds /r/ /e/ /p/ /t/ /i/ /l/ and then use their knowledge of phonemes to understand that the word relates to cold-blooded animals with scales.
How to Teach Phoneme Segmentation
Use Manipulatives
Starting off with manipulatives is a great way to help students begin to understand segmentation. Assign phonemes to blocks or counters, and have students move them around as they segment the word.
Bring Out the Elkonin Boxes
If you're not familiar already, Elkonin boxes are grids that represent the number of phonemes in a word. Students can place a counter in each box as they segment the word.
Use Word Families
Word families can help students identify the common phonemes in a group of words.
For example, we'll talk about 'cat' again! The -at family includes words like cat, hat and mat. Students can practice segmenting these words and identifying the common phoneme.
Turn to Rhyming Words
In the way that word families help students identify common phonemes, rhyming words can do the same. If a student knows that 'cat' rhymes with 'hat,' they can identify that both words have the same ending sound (-at).
Map Sounds
Create a sound map for a word by writing it out and drawing a line between each phoneme. This helps students visualise the sounds in a word and identify where each sound occurs.
Make It Fun
This isn't exactly a strategy, but let's face it — it's an important part of engaging our students, and we've filled this collection with many of our favourite segmenting games!
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Spelling CCVC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CCVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
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Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
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Short and Long Vowels Activity Pack
Segment and sort these words into their short or long vowel sounds.
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Spelling CVC Words - Worksheets
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend the sounds in CVC words with this set of differentiated worksheets.
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Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets - CVCC/CCVC Words
Use this worksheet pack to give students practice at segmenting words into phonemes.
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Learn to Read Short U - Daily Phonics for Kids
Use our week-long Interactive Short U Word Building Interactive to teach daily phonics lessons for beginning readers!
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Count and Colour Sounds - Phoneme Counting Worksheets
Count and colour the images that have 3 phonemes, 4 phonemes and 5 phonemes in this worksheet set.
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CVC Word Chains- Interactive Activity
Practise spelling CVC words and manipulating their phonemes to create word chains with this digital resource.
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CVC/CCVC/CVCC Word Flashcards
A comprehensive set of flashcards for CVC, CCVC, and CVCC words.
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CVC Word Building Activity
Practise building CVC words with this 25 slide interactive activity.
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Learn to Read Short O - Daily Phonics for Kids
Teach your students to read short O words with a daily digital phonics instructional slide deck.
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CVC Spell and Write Task Cards
Practise spelling CVC words and manipulating their phonemes to create word chains with this set of hands-on work mats.
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Learn to Read Short I - Daily Phonics for Kids
Teach your students to read short I words with a daily digital phonics teaching presentation.
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Learn to Read Short E - Daily Phonics for Kids
Immerse your students in the short 'e' vowel sound with this comprehensive series of phonics activities.
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CVC Word Work Mat
Practise segmenting and blending simple words with this CVC word building mat.
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CVC Word Building - Google Slides Interactive Activity
Practise spelling and reading CVC words by identifying and blending sounds using this interactive Google Slides activity.
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CCVC Word Building - Google Slides Interactive Activity
Practice spelling and reading CCVC words by identifying and blending sounds using this interactive Google Slides activity.
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Count and Sort the Sounds Worksheet Pack
Sort words based on their number of phonemes in these fun ice-cream themed cut-and-paste worksheets.
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Word Mapping Recording Sheets
Practise mapping out words and segmenting their phonemes using these word mapping templates.
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Beach-Themed Phoneme Segmentation Interactive Activity
Practise breaking words into their phonemes with this fun beach-themed interactive activity.
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Phoneme Counting Worksheet Set
Count the sounds in words featured in this set of phoneme counting worksheets.
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Break the Phoneme Code - Interactive Activity
Practise breaking words into their phonemes with this fun robot-themed interactive activity.
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SPLAT! Phoneme Segmentation Game
Practise segmenting one-syllable words into their phonemes with this fun game!
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Phoneme Segmentation Work Mats - Count It!
Develop phonemic awareness using hands-on manipulatives with this counting phonemes work mat and accompanying picture cards.
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Phoneme Segmentation Fluency Strips
Develop students’ ability to segment and blend phonemes with this comprehensive set of phoneme segmentation fluency strips.
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Phoneme Segmentation - Count and Hook Cards
Help students gain mastery in phoneme segmentation with these hands-on count and hook task cards.
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I Can Count Sounds! - Phoneme Segmentation Worksheets
Practise phonemic segmentation of words with 2, 3 and 4 phonemes with this set of differentiated phonics worksheets.
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CVCe Word Building - Google Slides Interactive Activity
Practise spelling and reading CVCe words by identifying and blending sounds using this interactive Google Slides activity.
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Segmenting 4 Phonemes Activity - Smash It!
Practise segmenting words into four phonemes with this set of playdough smash task cards.
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Sorting 3 to 5 Phoneme Words - Segmentation Activity
Practise segmenting 3 - 5 phonemes in words in this sorting activity
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Phoneme Segmentation and Sorting Cut-and-Paste Worksheets
Count, cut and paste to practise segmenting words into their phonemes with this worksheet pack.
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Segmenting 3 Phonemes Activity - Smash It!
Practise segmenting 3-phoneme words with this set of playdough smash task cards.