Segmenting words kindergarten

Blending and Segmenting Games | Classroom Strategies

Children who can segment and blend sounds easily are able to use this knowledge when reading and spelling. Segmenting and blending individual sounds can be difficult at the beginning. Our recommendation is to begin with segmenting and blending syllables. Once familiar with that, students will be prepared for instruction and practice with individual sounds.

What are blending and segmenting?

Blending (putting sounds together) and segmenting (pulling sounds apart) are skills that are necessary for learning to read and spell. When students understand that spoken words can be broken up into individual sounds (phonemes) and that letters can be used to represent those sounds, they have the insight necessary to read and write in an alphabetic language. Blending and segmenting games and activities can help students to develop phonemic awareness, a strong predictor of reading achievement.   

Why teach blending and segmenting?

• Teaching students to identify and manipulate the sounds in words (phonemic awareness) helps build the foundation for phonics instruction.
• Blending and segmenting activities and games can help  students to develop phonological and phonemic awareness.
• Developing phonemic awareness is especially important for students identified as being at risk for reading difficulty.

How to teach blending and segmenting

Segmenting and blending — especially segmenting and blending phonemes (the individual sounds within words) — can be difficult at first because spoken language comes out in a continuous stream, not in a series of discrete bits. Beginning with larger units of speech can help.

Early in phonological awareness instruction, teach children to segment sentences into individual words. Identify familiar short poems such as "I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream!" Have children clap their hands with each word.
 
As children advance in their ability to manipulate oral language, teach them to segment words into syllables. For example, have children segment their names into syllables: e.g., Ra-chel, Al-ex-an-der, and Rod-ney. Likewise, have them blend syllables to make words. 
 
Once in kindergarten, the focus of blending and segmenting instruction should shift to the phoneme level. This work can be challenging for students, so it can be useful to know which scaffolds can help students make the leap.

1. Start with words that have only two phonemes (for example, am, no, in)
2. Begin with continuous sounds (phonemes that can be held for a beat or two without distorting the sound). Have students practice blending and segmenting words with continuous sounds by holding the sounds using a method called “continuous blending” or “continuous phonation.”  (e.g., “aaaammmm ... am”)
3. Then, introduce a few stop sounds (phonemes that cannot be held continuously). Ensure that students articulate the sounds cleanly, without adding an “uh” to the ends of sounds such as /t/ and /b/. Stop sound at the end of words (eg. at, up) are easier to blend than those that have stop sounds at the beginning (for example, be, go)
4. As students are ready, progress to words with three phonemes, keeping in mind that words beginning with continuous phonemes (for example, sun) are easier to blend and segment than those with stop sounds (for example, top). 
5. As students become more skilled at blending and segmenting, they may no longer need to hold sounds continuously, transitioning from “ssssuuunnn” to sun.

It can be helpful to anchor the sounds students are working with to visual scaffolds. Elkonin boxes, manipulatives (such as coins or tiles), and hand motions are popular supports. It’s important to remember, however, that the goal of blending and segmenting games is literacy and there is no better visual representation for a phoneme than a letter.   

Collect resources

Blending: guess-the-word game

This activity, from our article Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines, is an example of how to teach students to blend and identify a word that is stretched out into its basic sound elements.

Objective: Students will be able to blend and identify a word that is stretched out into its component sounds.

Materials needed: Picture cards of objects that students are likely to recognize such as: sun, bell, fan, flag, snake, tree, book, cup, clock, plane

Activity: Place a small number of picture cards in front of children. Tell them you are going to say a word using "Snail Talk" a slow way of saying words (e.g., /fffffllllaaaag/). They have to look at the pictures and guess the word you are saying. It is important to have the children guess the answer in their head so that everyone gets an opportunity to try it. Alternate between having one child identify the word and having all children say the word aloud in chorus to keep children engaged.

Talking in "Robot Talk," students hear segmented sounds and put them together (blend them) into words. See robot talk activity ›

See all Blending/Segmenting Activities from the University of Virginia PALS program

Blending slide

The "Reading Genie" offers teachers a simple way to teach students about blends. Teachers can use a picture or small replica of a playground slide and have the sounds "slide" together to form a word. See blending slide activity ›

Oral blending activity

The information here describes the importance of teaching blending skills to young children. This link provides suggestions for oral sound blending activities to help students practice and develop smooth blending skills. See oral blending activities ›

Sound blending using songs

This activity (see Yopp, M., 1992) is to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands."

If you think you know this word, shout it out!
If you think you know this word, shout it out!
If you think you know this word,
Then tell me what you've heard,
If you think you know this word, shout it out!

After singing, the teacher says a segmented word such as /k/ /a/ /t/ and students provide the blended word "cat. "

Segmenting cheer activity

This link provides teachers with information on how to conduct the following segmentation cheer activity. See segmenting cheer activity ›

Write the "Segmentation Cheer" on chart paper, and teach it to children. Each time you say the cheer, change the words in the third line. Have children segment the word sound by sound. Begin with words that have three phonemes, such as ten, rat, cat, dog, soap, read, and fish.

Segmentation Cheer

Listen to my cheer.
Then shout the sounds you hear.
Sun! Sun! Sun!
Let's take apart the word sun.
Give me the beginning sound. (Children respond with /s/.)
Give me the middle sound. (Children respond with /u/.)
Give me the ending sound. (Children respond with /n/.)
That's right!
/s/ /u/ /n/-Sun! Sun! Sun!

Segmenting with puppets

Teachers can use the activity found on this website to help teach students about segmenting sounds. The activity includes the use of a puppet and downloadable picture cards. See segmenting with puppets activity ›

Differentiate instruction

For English-learners, readers of different ability levels, or students needing extra support:

• Incorporate print into blending and segmenting the individual sounds in words with students who know the spelling-sound correspondences in the words.
• Use picture-centered activities to support English-learners and younger students.

Related strategies

Find more activities for building phonological and phonemic awareness in our Reading 101 Guide for Parents.

See the research that supports this strategy

Chard, D., & Dickson, S. (1999). Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines.

Clemens, N., Solari, E., Kearns, D. M., Fien, H., Nelson, N. J., Stelega, M., Burns, M., St. Martin, K. & Hoeft, F. (2021, December 14). They Say You Can Do Phonemic Awareness Instruction “In the Dark”, But Should You? A Critical Evaluation of the Trend Toward Advanced Phonemic Awareness Training.  

Fox, B., & Routh, D.K. (1976). Phonemic analysis and synthesis as word-attack skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 68, 70-74.

Gonzalez-Frey, S. & Ehri, L.C. (2021) Connected Phonation Is More Effective than Segmented Phonation for Teaching Beginning Readers to Decode Unfamiliar Words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25:3, 272-285.

Sensenbaugh. (1996). ABCs of Phonemic Awareness.

Smith, S.B., Simmons, D.C., & Kameenui, E.J. (February, 1995). Synthesis of research on phonological awareness: Principles and implications for reading acquisition. (Technical Report no. 21, National Center to Improve the Tools of Education). Eugene: University of Oregon.

Yopp, H. K. (1992). Developing phonemic awareness in young children. The Reading Teacher, 45 , 696-703.

Phoneme Segmentation in Kindergarten: Teaching Strategies for Reading

Help your kindergarten student work on phoneme segmentation with this introduction to what is phoneme segmentatio and why it matters to kindergatners. Simply print these free printable phoneme segmentation activities and you are ready to improve reading and spelling skills by segmenting words with students!

Phoneme Segmentation

Phoneme segmentation is dividing words into their individual sounds or phonemes. It’s a crucial step in learning how to read! Join us as we explore this topic and give you some teaching strategies to help your students master this skill. We’ve also got a free printable to make things really easy for you.

What is phoneme segmentation?

Phoneme segmentation means breaking a word apart into its component sounds. Phonemes are basic elements that make up spoken language. Phoneme segmentation helps students focus on these phonemes and their relationships with each other.

The ability to break words into their individual sounds allows students to begin decoding the written language and reading.

For example, let’s look at the word “map.” To segment this word, we must identify each individual sound in the word. We can break this down into three sounds /m/ /a/ /p/.

How about the word garden? It is a bit longer, but can be segmented into four sounds. We have /g/ /ar/ /d/ /en/.

Phoneme segmentation is essential for all students, but it is especially crucial for early readers. Kindergarteners need a lot of practice and repetition to master this skill.

Why is phoneme segmentation important?

Students must break down words into their basic phonemic sounds and then connect those sounds before they can begin reading read fluently. The reader must know what sounds the letters make and blend them together to read a word. To spell a word, a student must segment a word into sounds and then figure out what letters or groups of letters make that sound.

As if things weren’t hard enough already, some letters make different sounds depending on where they are in a word. The letter C in the word “cap” makes a very different sound to the c in the word “trace.” Also, some letters join to make one sound like /sh/ /ch/ /th/.

You can see why it takes a lot of practice!

Difficulty with segmentation can often lead to difficulty with both reading and spelling. It is one of the common symptoms of children with a learning disability like Dyslexia.

When Should Phoneme Segmentation Instruction Start?

Phoneme segmentation should be taught as soon as students are familiar with letters and the sounds they make. In most cases, this will be in kindergarten or first grade. They also need to have worked on Phonemic awareness skills.

See this post for more information about Phonemic awareness, along with 50 + free activities to help your students develop it.

Teacher Tip: If you find students are struggling with segmentation, go back to basics. Focus on some rhyming and syllable work to help your class practice their phenome listening skills. This will lay a solid foundation for segmentation.

How to teach phoneme segmentation?

Teaching segmentation skills requires a lot of practice. Basically, you do it in this order.

• Start by splitting up sentences into words
• Move onto splitting words into syllables
• Finally, start segmenting words into sounds.

Phonics Hero gives a good overview of this process and has many good ideas for activities and games at each stage.

Phoneme segmentation word list

To make it easier for you, we’ve created a free printable to help your students with the last stage of segmenting words into sounds. Our segmentation mat incorporates three phoneme words, Elkonin sound boxes, and manipulatives.

Elkonin boxes are a series of squares representing the sounds in a word. We use words with three sounds, so our boxes have three squares. It is best for children just starting out to have one square for each sound. Here are the words we are using.

• Tap /t//a//p/
• Hat /h//a//t/
• Cat /c//a//t/
• Duck /d//u//ck/
• Map /m//a//p/
• Fish /f//i//sh/
• Pen /p//e//n/
• Mug /m//u//g/
• Car /c//a//r/
• frog /fr//o//g/
• Dog /d//o//g/
• Nest /n//e//st/

Phoneme segmentation activities

The segmenting mat is easy to use. A picture of a three-phoneme word is placed on the mat. The student breaks down the word into sounds, says each sound in turn, and puts a token into the box as they do.

We’ve created our mats with a spring feel, although they could be used any time of year. It features butterflies, flowers, and even a famous caterpillar that your students will probably recognize instantly. We have two variations. The first is a lovely shade of green but will take a fair amount of ink. The second (on the last page) is more ink-friendly and won’t drain your ink cartridges.

Phoneme segmentation examples

Elkonin boxes are a powerful tool for teaching phoneme segmentation. They work remarkably well for 3 reasons.

1. It encourages students to segment words into individual sounds.
2. The squares provide a visual representation of the number of sounds in any given word (not always the same as the number of letters).
3. They help students see and then grasp the concept that letters represent sounds. It is those sounds that join to make words.

You can grab your copy by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

Materials

• Free printable (link below)
• Cardstock
• Scissors or paper cutter
• Small manipulatives such as buttons, pompoms, or even mini erasers.
• Laminator (optional)

Segmenting words

• This activity will work best if you work with the students one at a time or in small groups.
• Invite the student to choose a one-word card and place it on their mat.
• Direct them to place one manipulative in each flower.
• Ask the child to identify the picture in the word card.
• Explain that you will be saying the sounds in that word. Point to the three flowers and count them together. Then count the three squares. Tell the child there are also three sounds in the word.
• Demonstrate how it works. You push one manipulative from the flower into the box as you say each sound of the word. You may have to do this several times with different cards.
• After all the manipulatives are in the boxes, slide your finger across the arrow and say the word.
• Then invite the student to do a few cards with you assisting as needed.
• Then they can do the cards on their own. How many cards can they do?

Sound blending activities

Phoneme segmentation is a vital skill for all students, but it is especially crucial for early readers. Kindergarteners need a lot of practice and repetition to master this skill. We hope you find our free printable and segmenting mat helpful in your classroom or homeschool.

Digraph Activities

• Ending Digraphs BUMP Game
• Digraph Games – ending sounds sh ch th
• Free Printable Digraph Bingo
• Spelling ch and tch worksheets pdf
• Hands-on Puzzles Dipthong Games
• Flower Digraph Activity
• Ice Cream Digraph activities for first grade
• Spring Digraph activities for second grade
• Fun, Free Digraph Activities
• Words that end in sh worksheets

FREE CVC Words Printables

• Crack the Code CVC Word Worksheets
• Short o Words cvc Cut and paste Printable
• Short i cvc worksheets cut and paste pdf
• Short E CVC Words Booklet
• Short a CVC Word Book
• CVC Words Activity with bricks
• 25 Fun CVC Activities
• CVC Middle Sounds Clip Cards
• CVC Word Puzzles Free Printable
• Crack the Code CVC Words Printable
• Crayon CVC Words Activity
• Reading Words Free CVC Printables
• Short a words Reader
• Caterpillar CVC Word mats
• Snowman CVC Words Activity
• BUMP! CVC Words Game
• Christmas CVC Words Printable
• Planting Carrots CVC Activity for Kindergarten
• Secret Decoder CVC Word Activities

Blends Activities

Looking for more blends activities for young learners? You will love these resources:

• Final Consonant Ending Blends Games
• Practice Consonant Blends with cute printable puzzles
• Slide and Read Blends Activity
• Beginning Blends Fall Activities for 1st Grade
• Blue Bird Sorting Blends Activity
• Read and Color Ending Blends Worksheets
• Mitten Initial Blends Winter Activities for 1st Grade
• Initial Blends Matching Game for kids
• Do a Dot Ending Blends Worksheet
• Ending Blends Bingo Dauber Worksheets
• Ch, Sh, Th Digraph Game
• Read and Clip Consonant Blends Activities
• Handy L Blends Worksheets with magenetic letters
• Graph a Blends Activities for 2nd graders
• Floss Rule Worksheets
• Free Printable Color by Blend Worksheet
• Ending S Blends Clip Cards
• Printable nk Ending Blends Clip Cards
• NG Words for Kids Game
• BIngo Dabber ng and nk worksheets
• Th Worksheets – Read th blends in sentences
• R Controlled Vowel Worksheets
• Free printable Blends Worksheets with dot markers
• R Blends Worksheets For Kindergarten

Phoneme blending

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>> Phoneme Printable Activity <<

Market segmentation, characteristics, segment evaluation criteria, methods and examples, factors, stages, principles, behavioral criteria, efficiency condition

Economy

11/12/21

19 min.

Market segmentation is one of the most effective marketing tools for determining the target audience.

Contents:

• Market segmentation in marketing - basic terms
• Customer segmentation
• Stages of market segmentation
• Signs of market segmentation
• Segment evaluation criteria
• Market segmentation methods
• Types of market segmentation
• Examples of consumer market segmentation
• Conclusion

It makes it easier to personalize marketing campaigns, focus on what's needed, and group similar consumers to target specific audiences in a cost-effective way.

Market segmentation in marketing - basic terms

Segment the market - Divide potential customers into different customer groups or segments based on certain characteristics.

An aggregation takes a set of data and combines them into a single value. For example, the number of unique active users in the last 30 days or the total number of times a product was used in the last week.

When viewed over time, aggregated figures show the trend of changes in customer behavior.

Aggregation and segmentation are good ways to start any analysis. They give a quick understanding of the account and allow you to test your assumptions.

A segment is a portion of a market that is made up of consumers who will respond in the same way to marketing strategies. Buyers from the same segment always have common features, such as similar interests and needs.

Macrosegmentation is the classification of buyers based on broader variables such as industry and organizational variables. It may also include variables such as location, which are important for studying communication and cultural requirements.

Customer segmentation

The concept of customer segmentation is the practice of dividing a customer base into groups of people who are similar in certain respects.

By allowing companies to target specific categories, the customer segmentation model allows efficient distribution of marketing resources and maximizes cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

When personalized messages are sent to a group of buyers as part of a marketing mix that is tailored to their needs, it is easier to encourage them to purchase products.

Customer segmentation can also improve customer service and retention. Marketing materials sent using customer segmentation tend to be appreciated by the buyer who receives them.

Other benefits of customer segmentation include getting ahead of competitors in certain groups and identifying new products that may be of interest to existing or potential customers, or improving features to meet customer expectations.

Stages of market segmentation

There is a clear segmentation process. You need to make sure that the stage is completely completed before moving on to the next.

Let's list the stages:

1. The first and most important step is to define the target market. Marketers need to be clear about who should be included in the general customer pool. It's important to make sure people have something in common. For example, a man and a woman cannot be included in the same sector because they have different needs and expectations.
2. Determine consumer expectations. After identifying the industrial market, it is important to find out the needs of potential customers. The product must meet people's expectations. To do this, you need to conduct preliminary research - get to know consumers better by asking a few initial open questions.
3. Create subgroups. Effective segmentation involves dividing groups into subgroups.
4. Consider the needs of the target audience. It is important for a marketer to analyze the needs and preferences of the people belonging to each segment and sub-segment. Consumers of a particular site must respond to similar industrial market fluctuations and similar marketing strategies.
5. Give names. You must select a suitable name for each segment. A well-chosen name reflects the key characteristic of the entire group. For example, a children's section may have different segments, namely "Newborns", "Kindergarten", "Schoolchildren" and so on.
6. Working on marketing strategies. It is important to develop appropriate strategies to promote brands to each part of the buyers. It is worth remembering that you cannot afford to have the same strategies for all sections. You need to make sure that there is a connection between products and the target audience.
7. View behavior. Regularly check the behavior of the target audience. People may not have the same requirement (demand) throughout the year. Requirements change, perceptions and interests too.
8. Determine the size of the target audience. It is important to know the size of the target audience. It helps in sales planning and forecasting.

Signs of market segmentation

I allocate t 4 groups of features (criteria) segmentation.

Geographic Segmentation divides customers based on geography. This type is important for marketers because people from different regions have different requirements.

For example, water may be scarce in some regions, which increases the demand for bottled water, but at the same time it may be abundant in other regions, where demand is very low.

Demographic segmentation is one of the most common approaches. With this strategy, the company simply divides a large market into groups according to a few specific criteria.

Age, race, gender, marital status, occupation, education, and income are among the most common demographic segmentation features.

Segmentation is also carried out on the basis of audience behavior, their preferences, choices and decision making. It is believed that the qualifications of consumers and the availability of product knowledge influence the decision to make a purchase.

Audience can be divided into:

• those who know about the product;
• those who do not know about the product;
• ex-users;
• potential consumers;
• current buyers.

Psychographic feature divides the audience based on their personality, lifestyle and attitude. This process is based on the premise that customer behavior can be influenced by their personality and lifestyle.

Personality is the totality of characteristics that form a person's distinctive character and includes habits, traits, attitudes and temperament. Lifestyle is how a person lives his life.

Personality and lifestyle greatly influence a person's purchasing decision and habits. A person living a luxurious lifestyle may find it necessary to have air conditioning in every room, while a person living in the same city but leading a conservative lifestyle may consider it a luxury.

Segment evaluation criteria

Once the customer segments have been identified, it is worth making sure that they will be useful for the business.

For this, the following audience selection criteria must be taken into account:

1. Uniform. This means that the consumers assigned to each partition must be similar in some meaningful way.
2. Heterogeneous criterion. Each customer segment should be relatively unique compared to other areas.
3. Measurable. Some form of data must be available to measure the size of client partitions. Measurements are very important in assessing the overall attractiveness of each part of the consumer.
4. Materiality. The market segment must be large enough in terms of sales and profitability to warrant the firm's eventual attention. Each firm will have a minimum financial return requirement on their investment, so only those sections that are significant need to be considered.
5. Availability. The segment must be accessible, especially in terms of distribution and communication.
6. Practical. The firm must be able to implement an individual marketing mix for each part of the audience. It is usually necessary to define the range of identified sections for the capabilities and resources of an organization, so very specialized segments may not be appropriate.
7. Responsiveness. Each section should respond better to a separate marketing mix than to the overall offer.

Market segmentation methods

In market analysis, the main methods of segmentation are most often used: a priori, ratio (cluster analysis) and need.

A priori is defined as pertaining to knowledge that results from theoretical inference rather than from observation or experience. For market analysis purposes, this means making certain assumptions about different groups.

For example, the conclusion that adults over 50 are not as tech-savvy as young people in their 20s is a safe assumption based on the reasoning that high-tech devices were not as accessible to the older generation.

[warning] Worth noting: Using cluster analysis to create consumer psychological profiles is difficult because it is limited by the input data used.[/warning]

Demographic data is the least useful, while preference data is better for this type of analysis. But these necessary data are very difficult to find out.

Needs-based segmentation is the concept that an audience can be segmented based on needs. This type of analysis is used to develop products that sell, rather than trying to sell, products developed by the business.

Demand-based segmentation uses joint analysis to separate groups according to functional characteristics.

Types of market segmentation

It is possible to divide the market into parts not only for users, but also for goods and competitors.

By groups of goods and services

Segmentation based on product differentiation is used as an integrated approach that can be an effective strategy. Instead of focusing exclusively on the consumer, this approach also considers the value for money of products.

Market segmentation based on goods and services begins with the definition of the underlying product. You need to choose a product that can be successfully produced. To do this, you need to take into account the following factors: personal experience, access to special sources of materials or the presence of certain objects.

The characteristics that are planned to be included in the product are a key factor in separating the products. You need to focus on what features can be built into the product to improve its functionality or design in a way that makes the product stand out.

Segmentation based on product differentiation creates a marketing approach from the product side before satisfying customer needs. Once the product is created and the approach is complete, the available markets can be explored to find sections of consumers that are interested in a particular product.

By consumer groups

The purpose of segmentation is a better understanding of consumers and their motivation to make purchases.

It is necessary to identify groups of current and potential buyers in order to:

• prioritize groups by address;
• understand their behavior;
• determine the appropriate marketing strategy.

Competitors

Every manufacturer strives to be better than its competitors. To do this, you need to know: what competitors offer and how they work. It is worth looking at customer groups, identifying competitors in each area.

You need to build a competitive strength grid, identify key assets and skills needed for business success. Then list the main competitors, their assets and skills, as well as how your own company matches this scale.

This will help to determine the position in relation to other companies competing in the industry.

Consumer market segmentation examples

Demographic segmentation	There is a company that sells women's beauty products. It will include the word "woman" in the description of its main consumer segment.
Geographic segmentation	Household goods manufacturers will advertise snow shovels in Russia, but it would be pointless to do so in southern countries.
Psychographic segmentation	Campers tend to have few consistent demographic characteristics. Travelers are a diverse group. Thus, marketers are likely to target all outdoor enthusiasts.
Segmentation for business customers	Banks, for example, often offer different services for small and large businesses. In this area, two main areas of consumers will be distinguished: regular consumers and one-time users.

Conclusion

Market segmentation is an integral part of a company's marketing strategy. This is the process of dividing a larger target audience into small, homogeneous groups of buyers who can effectively market their products.

Both consumer and business-oriented companies must segment customers using one of several general approaches (using demographic, psychographic, geographic, behavioral characteristics).

It is also useful to segment products and services or competitors.

why and how to segment the target audience

Why is segmentation needed and how to segment the target audience into 200+ audiences? A versatile tool for any business niche.

Often targetologists, asking a customer of services: “Who is your target audience?”, Get the answer: “That's it!”. Of course, this cannot be, so the advertising specialist has to independently look for the characteristics and signs that distinguish the target audience of the project. Today we will tell you a universal scheme with which to segment the total user base into a huge number of groups. You no longer have to rack your brains over ways to "cut" the audience and torment the customer with questions.