Teaching phonemic awareness daily is the best way to get your students decoding effectively and becoming strong, confident readers. There are many different skills you will want to focus on with your phonemic awareness instruction. Your students will catch on to some skills quickly, while others take a lot of modeling and practice. In my opinion, middle sound phoneme substitution is the hardest for students to get. Today, I am going to show you how to teach middle sound substitution step-by-step.
What is phoneme substitution?
Phoneme substitution or sound substitution is when you change a single phoneme in a word to a different phoneme to make a new word. For example, if you change the /i/ sound in “hit” to an /o/ sound, it becomes the word “hot”. You can do this with the beginning, middle, or ending sound in a word. It can also go a step further and change a digraph, a single sound in a blend, or a short to long vowel.
You can read more about phoneme manipulation and the different types here.
Prerequisite skills for middle sound substitution
Before students can start substituting sounds, they first need to be able to identify the middle sound in a word and know the short vowel sounds. To practice this, you can stretch out a CVC word, like pig or hat, emphasizing the middle sound. If students can correctly identify this sound 95% of the time, they are ready to start substituting the sound.
Teaching beginning and ending sound substitution before trying middle sound substitution is recommended. It is much easier to substitute the beginning sound, before the ending, and then work on the middle sound. Once students have mastered beginning and ending sound substitution, you can move on to middle sound substitution. You can find more activities to practice phoneme substitution with beginning, middle, or ending sounds here.
Tips for teaching middle sound substitution
Now, actually teaching middle sound substitution is definitely the trickiest out of the beginning, middle, and ending sounds. Students often have a hard time identifying that middle sound, which will make it even harder to substitute the sounds to make a new word.
First, you will want to do a lot of gradual release modeling, or the “I do, we do, you do” method. It's okay if they do not get it at all and are just repeating you the first few times. Focus on stretching out that middle sound nice and slow, so they can switch it out to a new sound.
One way I like to model this is by first identifying that middle sound. Here's how that may look:
“I'm going to say a word, ‘bug'. Now let's stretch out that word, really listening for the middle sound. ‘b-uuuuuuu-g'. What is the middle sound you heard? /u/. Now we are going to switch the /u/ to a new sound- /a/. Repeat the sound with me /a/. Okay, now let's use the /a/ sound in the middle and say it slowly, ‘b-aaaaaa-g'. What word is it? ‘bag'”
You can also use visuals as you are practicing this. Your students need to be able to do this orally, however, sometimes using the letters helps students see the act of substitution. My suggestion is to use the visual approach sparingly until students are able to get the hang of it. In my experience, I've found that this really helps visual learners if they are struggling with this orally. My favorite method is this sticky notes substitution activity.
Daily Phonemic Awareness Lessons
Unsure of what skills to teach and when? With the Phonemic Awareness Daily Warm-Ups, all the work is done for you! Each week practices 3 different phonemic awareness skills, following a scope and sequence that is proven effective for both Kindergarten and First Grade. You won't have to come up with words on the spot, everything is laid out for you in an easy-to-follow daily phonemic awareness warm-up. Join the thousands of teachers using these quick, daily lessons in their classrooms and help your students set a solid foundation. Available for both Kindergarten and First Grade.
Teaching middle sound substitution can be tricky, but with practice and the right approach, your students will get there! Start with the basics, model the process, and use fun activities like sticky note substitution to keep them engaged. Daily practice, like the Phonemic Awareness Daily Warm-Ups, makes all the difference in building strong, confident readers. Stick with itβyouβll be amazed at their progress!
