Should I Teach Phoneme Manipulation?

Say this word without the first sound…

Say this word backward.

Change the last sound in this word…

Are phoneme manipulation skills really necessary?

In short, yes.

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to substitute, delete, or change the sounds in our words. This is one of the most complex subskills under the phonological awareness umbrella. 

While these drills can feel silly (or exceptionally difficult!)…

Phoneme manipulation skills help students become familiar with word structure and build fluency in both reading and spelling. 

A student who struggles with phoneme manipulation may not be able to recognize that “pots” and “spot” are different. The letters (and sounds) in these words are exactly the same but they follow a different sequence. 

On the contrary, students with average to strong phoneme manipulation skills understand word structure. They can sequence and isolate sounds in their mind. They can delete sounds that they don't want or change the sounds to something else. This is helpful because sometimes students read or spell words incorrectly. If they read "sail" as "snail," they need to delete the /n/ as a part of their error correction. If they are trying to write "pen" but keep saying "pin," they need to change the vowel sound. The more fluent these skills become, the more automatic reading and spelling can be.

How do I teach phoneme manipulation skills to my students?

We recommend starting with visuals. Have students use colored tiles or blocks to represent the sounds in your words. As they are asked to manipulate the sounds (i.e., take one away or substitute a sound), change the necessary tiles.

For example, if given the word "chip" and asked to make it "ship," start by building ch - i - p. Then, isolate the sound they are being asked to change (you can read more about sound isolation >>here.<<). Swap that tile and reblend the word with the new sound. As students get better at these tasks, they should be able to do them in their minds.

Now, we're not going to lie - these skills are advanced. As we say time and time again, we only spend a few minutes on PA skills in each lesson as a way to "warm up" the brain for reading and spelling. We'll target phoneme manipulation as a part of our PA work, but more of our focus goes to the other PA skills.

If you're looking for phoneme manipulation resources (or other PA activities!) check out our 5-Core Components of Literacy Activity Library below.