Should I Teach Phoneme Isolation?

Have you ever had a student spell a word incorrectly, only to change every letter BUT the one that was wrong? 

It happened to one of my students last week. He was trying to write "catch" and put "cash." When editing, he cycled through any and all variations of "kash, ckash, cesh, kosh" and so on. When asked what the difference was between "catch" and "cash," he couldn't tell the difference. When asked what the last sound was in each, he couldn't isolate the last sound. 

Phoneme isolation is a critical skill in both reading and spelling. 

It helps us sequence the sounds we hear when we sound words out. It allows us to differentiate between things like stop and spot. It can help students recognize their errors in spelling, too. If my student was able to isolate the last sound in "catch" and "cash," he would have been able to find and correct his mistake more effectively. 

How do we support sound isolation?

We recommend using manipulatives to help students visually begin to isolate specific sounds.

Our process looks like this…

1. Say a word.

2. Use colored blocks, counter chips, or another manipulative to break the word into individual sounds.

3. Identify the sequence of sounds to determine which sound is first, next, last, etc.

4. If you need to scaffold this, you can provide students with options or orthographic cues (letters).

Now, as we will mention again and again,

this should be a quick activity or center-based activity in your lessons. This should not be a focus for an entire lesson…

…as there are definitely additional valuable skills you need to make sure to fit in. If you're interested in learning more about how to fit it all in - you can check out our blog >>here<<.

Grab your own copy of these sound isolation activities in our 5-Core Components of Literacy Resource Library here!