Routine · Phonological awareness
Take a sound away
Say a word without one of its parts or sounds and tell what is left.
- Time
- 2 to 4 minutes
- Skill
- Phonological awareness
- In a session plan
- Warm-up
When to use it
When blending and segmenting are steady and the student needs to hold and change sounds in memory.
Materials
- A prepared list of word pairs, such as cowboy to boy, slip to lip, card to car
Steps
Get ready
Start with whole parts of compound words, then move to single sounds.
I do
Say a word, say which part goes, and say what is left.
Say: Sunlight. Take away sun. Light is left. Smile. Take away /s/. Mile is left.
We do
Do the next one together, saying the whole word first, then the answer.
Say: Say snap. Now say snap without /s/.
Student: Nap.
You do
Give six items, moving from first sounds to last sounds, such as seat without /t/.
Student: Says the new word each time.
Check
Give one item that takes a sound from inside a blend, such as frog without /r/.
If the student...
Takes away the wrong sound.
Say the word slowly, showing each sound on your fingers. Fold down the finger for the sound that goes and say the rest. Have the student do it, then repeat the item.
Say: Snap: /s/ /n/ /ă/ /p/. This finger goes. What is left?
Tips
- Answers should be real words at first so the student can check themselves by sense.
- Write the list before the lesson. It is hard to invent good pairs on the spot.
Original routines written by Literacy Trail. In the app, every routine is filled with your student's lesson.
Related routines
- Swap a soundChange one sound in a spoken word to make a new word.2 to 4 minutes · Warm-up
- Clap the syllablesJoin spoken syllables into a word, then clap a word back into its syllables.2 to 4 minutes · Warm-up
- First sound plus the restJoin a first sound to the rest of a word, and split a word after its first sound.2 to 4 minutes · Warm-up
- Rhyme: hear it, make itDecide whether two words rhyme, then make up rhyming words, real or silly.2 to 4 minutes · Warm-up
Have this routine filled in for every lesson
In Literacy Trail, the session plan picks a routine for each block and fills it with the words, sounds and sentence from your student's lesson. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial.