teachers as the coaches...

When reading these articles it brought me back to my childhood in a way. I remember playing some of the games that Yopp & Yopp discussed in their article and I think it helped my literary development greatly. It also made my think about a little girl I babysit, who is in first grade, who came home the other day singing "Down by the Bay". It was funny to listen to her sing the song because she changed it every time she sang it to me. She might not have remembered the words exactly, but every time she sang it she always came up with new words that rhymed. It was interesting to see how much her vocabulary changed when singing the song, because some of the words she choose were not words she would use in her normal vocabulary. Another thing that I like about this article is that it explains the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. Truthfully I always thought they were the same thing, but this article explained to us how they are connected but are also separate terms. You learn something new everyday....we are all life long learners.

This website has a lot of good information phonological awareness. Take a look around...the page it is on has some rhyming games or preschool and kindergarten.

http://phonologicalawareness.org/4.html