A Feast of Rhyme, Rhythm, and Song presents an interactive and engaging approach to teaching phonemic awareness – an essential foundation for later reading success. Using sound, music, and rhythm activities, young children develop the ability to hear “inside” a word – to hear specific sounds, identify the sequence of sounds in words, and understand the role sounds, or phonemes, play in word recognition. Lessons are presented sequentially, through the developmental steps involved in acquiring phonemic awareness. The process begins with the rudimentary awareness that sounds exist, and progresses in complexity to the final insight that sounds within words can be manipulated, deleted, replaced, or added.

In this resource, you will find

• easy-to-follow, step-by-step lesson plans
• variations for or extensions of the activities
• ongoing assessment for each lesson
• notations and lyrics for all the songs
• templates for a full set of picture cards on CD
• a Phonemic Awareness Assessment Tool
• an outline of music-content standards applicable to most provinces (and states)

The authors of A Feast of Rhyme, Rhythm, and Song believe that children who have experienced the joyful phonemic awareness and music activities contained in this book will be primed and ready for this next step in the remarkable journey of learning to read.
 

about the author
		Carol W. McCormick Carol McCormick has shared her love of singing daily with children for over 25 years. From her experiences as an educator in both kindergarten through Grade 12 music classes and contained elementary classrooms, she has developed a unique perspective on the motivational power of music in learning. Carol makes her home in Sacramento, California, with her husband and son.
		Nancy Lee Cecil Nancy Lee Cecil, PhD, is a professor of education at California State University at Sacramento. She has a rich background, having taught in public schools in upstate New York, the inner city of Savannah, Georgia, and in the U.S. Virgin Islands. As a local, national, and international speaker, she offers workshops that focus on the literacy needs of the increasing number of diverse learners in North American schools. Dr. Cecil has written many professional articles about current concerns in literacy education. She is also the author of over a dozen books.