Play a game called “Same or Different?”

It’s always a good time to play some phonemic awareness games with your child. Remember that phonemic awareness, which includes the ability to discriminate between spoken sounds, develops between around 3 and 6 years of age. What this means is that a 3 year-old who cannot play phonological games is still well within this range, so don’t stress if your four year-old is a bit challenged by this game.

Here are some starting points for the child who may not be getting the hang of sound discrimination so easily.
Play a game called “Same or Different.” Say, “Does the word “pen” start with the same sound as the word “paper”? Answer: “Yes.” (The sound is “puh.”)

• Make up simple ways to challenge your child’s ability to attend to the first sound in two spoken words. Vary the challenge so that sometimes the answer is no.
• Say, “Does the word ‘table’ start with the same sound as the word “chair’?”
• Have you noticed that we have focused on the first sound in both words? That is because children find it easier to identify the first sound compared to identifying the last sound or the middle sound in simple three sound words. Today, let’s focus on first-sound recognition.

Here are some more words for you to try together:

Same or different? (first sounds)

1. Church and chair
2. Bat and boat
3. Ring and star
4. Book and door
5. Elephants and eggs
6. Room and rug
7. Shoe and ship
8. Phone and jar
9. Game and castle
10. Think and threw

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