Let’s talk about developmental play skills and activities for phonemic awareness
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There are different types of play and they are all developmentally important. Additionally, these developmental play skills also promote phonemic and phonological awareness. Activities for phonemic awareness can be embedded into playtime!
Developmental Play Skills
Unoccupied Play (Birth-3 months) During unoccupied play, babies make a lot of movements with their arms legs, hands, and feet. During this time, they are discovering how their body moves.
Solitary Play (Birth – 2 years) During this stage, your little one plays alone and isn’t necessarily interested in playing with others. (baby flips through books, manipulates puzzle pieces, stacks blocks, etc.)
Spectator Play (2 years) Now you will begin to see your little watch other children playing but they don’t play with them. They might be playing with their own toy, but notice others in the room have toys as well.
Parallel Play (2 years and up) Parallel Play occurs when your little plays along side or near another person or child but does not play with them. (Picture two littles playing with the same set of blocks, but aren’t stacking blocks together to make one tall tower. Instead, they are making their own towers)
Associate Play (3-4 years) Your little starts to interact with others during play but there’s not a lot of interaction actually taking place. For example, your little might be engaging in an activity related to the others around them, but they aren’t actually interacting with those around them. (playing on the same playground but doing different things: climbing, swinging, sliding, etc.)
Cooperative Play (4 years & up) When your little plays with and experiences interest in the activity and the others involved in playing.
Sooo what does this have to do with activities for phonemic awareness?
Play and Phonemic Awareness
How do I incorporate phonemic awareness activities with developmental play skills? Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. We use phonemic awareness strategies without even realizing it when playing with toys!
For example, when we play with farm animals we make animal noises, tractor sounds, etc. [blending phonemes and making new sounds] or while playing with cars: vrrrm, beep-beep, crash…
When blowing bubbles we say: up, up, up! wow! pop! pop! and when stacking blocks, you might say: up! “ahhh!” oh no!, etc.
Anytime we blend individual sounds together to form new sounds or words, we are practicing phonemic awareness with our littles! Exposing them to new phoneme blends and sounds.
That being said…
There’s pressure out there that can creep upon us parents- you do not have to occupy your little’s time all day! They can and should play alone periodically throughout the day. (in other words, if you have to hide in the closet for 15 minutes and eat that candy bar while they play with toys…. do it)
And to all my amazing therapists and educators out there- the same goes for you! You do not have to have your toddler engaged in an activity the entire time. (there’s a whole lot more where to this … and I’ll save that for another day, but just know it’s true.)
So pull out their favorite toys, pots and pans, a laundry basket, or even just a blanket and start communicating!
Looking for more activities for phonemic awareness? Here are some printable resources that can help!
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