Phoneme Substitution Practise for Phonemic Awareness

This set of interactive phoneme substitution task cards has been designed by an experienced early years teacher to help educators provide a variety of fun and engaging activities that develop students’ phonemic awareness. In this digital activity, students are presented with images of two different objects and must determine whether the phoneme has changed at the beginning, middle, or end of the simple CVC words.

Example: The first image shows a hat, followed by an arrow pointing to a cat. Students need to identify that the phoneme has changed at the beginning, transforming “hat” into “cat.”

By hearing where the sound changes, students gain a better understanding of how phonemes function within words, which is crucial for developing their reading and spelling skills. This phoneme substitution practice enhances their ability to recognize and manipulate sounds, ultimately fostering stronger phonemic awareness.

Sound Discrimination Activities

This activity has students distinguishing between different sounds in words which helps them to become more adept at recognising phonemic patterns. Some other activity ideas include:

• Have students listen to a series of words and identify which ones rhyme and which do not, helping them hear subtle sound differences.
• Say a word and have students clap for each phoneme they hear in the word, reinforcing their ability to segment sounds.
• Present students with a word and challenge them to change one phoneme to create a new word (e.g., change “cat” to “bat”).
• Have students listen to a word and count how many phonemes they hear.

Download and Substitute Phonemes in CVC Words

Use the drop down menu to choose between the PowerPoint or Google Slide version of this resource.

This resource was created by Lindsey Phillips, a teacher and a Teach Starter Collaborator.

More Phoneme Substitution Activities for the Classroom

Looking for more ways to practise this skill with your students? We have you covered…

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