I’ve been reading a lot about Phonemic Awareness this year, trying to become a more informed teacher of the necessary skills for a Kindergartener. I have found several things over and over again to be accepted as the best practices in this area.
There are 5 stages in general.
To get better in the 1st stage, you can practice Alliteration with your child.
Alliteration is a figure of speech. The ‘sound’ of a vowel (a,e,i,o,u) or consonant (other letters of the alphabet) is repeated, for poetic effect. Alliteration is of two types, assonance and consonance.
- Assonance: In this type, the sound of the vowel or diphthong (combination of vowels like ‘oi’ in coin or ‘ai’ in praise) is repeated.
Eg: She sees sheep sleeping. In this example, the sound ‘ee’ is repeated. Hence, it is termed as assonance. - Consonance: In consonance, the sound of the consonants or a combination of consonants, is repeated for better effect.
Eg: She shouted and shooed the sheep to the shelter. Here, the sound of the consonants ‘sh’ is repeated. This makes it consonance.
Examples of Alliteration for Kids
Now that you know what an alliteration is, let us see some alliteration examples that can help you better understand it. Here is a few alliteration poems that are taught to young children:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickles Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peck of picked peppers,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
Betty Botter bought some butter,
but, she said, the butter’s bitter;
if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter,
but a bit of better butter will make my batter better.
So she bought a bit of butter better than her bitter butter,
and she put it in her batter and the batter was not bitter.
So ’twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter.
In these alliteration examples, you can see that the sounds of the consonant /p/ and /b/ are being repeated. The repetitive sound of the consonant is what makes it so easy to identify.
Dr. Seuss is another popular user of alliteration. Read this example of alliteration, from his book ‘Fox in Socks’.
Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew.
While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew.
Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze.
Freezy trees made these trees’ cheese freeze.
That’s what made these three free fleas sneeze.
Now, here, the sound of the vowels ‘ee’ is being repeated. This creates a funny effect and it becomes easier for the kids to read and say.
Didn’t I tell you? It’s so easy to learn. Given below are some other alliteration examples too, just for your reference. So you can test your kids by asking them which sound is being repeated. Here’s the list.
- The baron was busy as a bee.
- The dog was dead as a doornail.
- Garry gathered the garbage.
- Paula planted the petunias in the pot.
- Drew threw the few new screws.
- Lazy lizards lying like lumps!
- Show Shawn Sharon’s shabby shoes.
- Boil the butter and bring it by the bank.
- Find fancy foods.
- Kim comes to cut colorful kites.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
