Using Manipulatives to Represent the Sounds in Words

As we all know, manipulatives of all kinds are a primary teacher’s best friend! Our littlest students love being involved in their learning… the more hands-on the task is, the more engaged they are!  

Make phonemic awareness fun with this engaging, hands-on work mat and accompanying picture cards. This resource will help students master phoneme segmentation of 2, 3, and 4 phoneme words as they use hands-on manipulatives to represent the individual sounds in words. This resource includes:

• A set of directions
• An example work mat
• A blank work mat
• 24 picture cards
• An answer key

How to Use These Phoneme Segmentation Work Mats

Note: Students will need access to counters, buttons, or similar for this activity.

1. Print on cardstock for durability. 
2. Provide the students with a blank work mat and some counters.
3. Students look at pictures, then segment the word into its phonemes. 
4. Students place counters in the boxes provided as they say each phoneme in the word. For example, “crab” has four phonemes, so students will place a counter in four separate boxes as they say the sounds “c-r-a-b”.

Adapt the Application to Best Meet Your Students’ Needs

This versatile ELA resource can be used in a variety of ways to meet the diverse needs of your learners. It can be used as an independent challenge for fast finishers or a focused, small-group activity with a selection of targeted learners. You could even project a work mat onto your interactive whiteboard and work through each word as a whole class.

Download the File Format That Suits You

Use the dropdown menu next to the Download button to select between the PDF or Google slides version of this resource.

This resource was created by Anna Helwig, a teacher in Arizona and a Teach Starter collaborator.