Phoneme deletion activities, with letters and without

Deletion is one of the advanced skills on the phonemic awareness continuum. To delete a sound, the student must hold the word, find the sound, take it out and blend what is left. That is why deletion items appear on many screeners and diagnostic tests: they are sensitive to weak phoneme skills.

That does not make deletion drills the best way to teach. This page gives the activities in order, then explains when to do them with letters and how much oral practice is worth the time. The pillar on phonemic awareness interventions covers the full routine.

What to check before you start

A student is ready for deletion when they can blend and segment 3-sound words in about 8 of 10 items. If not, start with blending sounds activities or Elkonin boxes. Deletion without segmenting is guesswork.

Probe 10 items at each of the levels below, and start teaching at the first level under 8 of 10.

Step-by-step deletion activities

Step 1: Drop part of a compound word

"Say cupcake. Now say it without cup." (cake) This warms up the idea of "taking part away" with chunks the student can hear easily. Words: sunset, rainbow, doghouse, popcorn, bathtub, football. Use it for 1 or 2 days only if the student already segments sounds.

Step 2: Drop the first sound

"Say mat. Now say mat without /m/." (at) Choose words where the leftover part is a real word at first, then accept made-up leftovers.

Step 3: Drop the last sound

"Say seat without /t/." (sea) Words: beet (bee), team (tea), make (may), cart (car), boat (bow), farm (far), seed (see), note (no). Final sounds are harder to isolate than first sounds, so expect a dip.

Step 4: Drop the first sound of a blend

"Say stop without /s/." (top) Words: slip (lip), snail (nail), frog (fog), bring (ring), stack (tack), clamp (lamp), plate (late), spin (pin). The student must split the blend, which is harder than removing a single onset.

Step 5: Drop the second sound of a blend

"Say stop without /t/." (sop) Words: slip (sip), crib (kib), flat (fat), snap (sap), black (back), spot (sot), trip (tip), glad (gad). Watch for students who drop the first sound out of habit and say "pot" for spot. This is the hardest level. Many readers who decode well still find it hard orally.

Step 6: Delete with letter tiles

Build the word with tiles: s, t, o, p. "Read it." (stop) "Take away the t. Read it now." (sop) "Put the t back. Take away the s." (top) The student sees which letter goes and reads what is left. The link between the sound and the letter is now in the task.

Oral deletion or deletion with letters?

The National Reading Panel reported that phonemic awareness instruction helped reading more when it used letters and when it focused on one or two skills rather than many.^[1] The What Works Clearinghouse guide for kindergarten to grade 3 also recommends linking sounds to letters.^[2]

Some programs teach long sequences of oral-only deletion and substitution to students who already read, on the theory that faster oral manipulation speeds up word learning. That approach is debated. Deletion scores do predict reading, but a predictive test item is not the same as a proven teaching target. Until the evidence settles, a reasonable plan is:

• Use oral deletion briefly, to teach the idea and to check skill.
• Move to tile deletion as soon as the student knows the letters involved.
• Measure what you care about: whether decoding and spelling improve, not only the deletion score.

Worked example: Sofia, 2nd grade

Sofia is a fictional 2nd grader with a reading IEP. She segments 4-sound words in 9 of 10 items, but she misreads words with blends, reading "sip" for "slip." On a 10-item probe, she deletes first sounds in 8 of 10, last sounds in 5 of 10, and the first sound of a blend in 2 of 10.

Her teacher spends 4 minutes on deletion in each daily 30-minute session. The work moves to tiles in week 2. Probes are 10 new items each Thursday, oral and tile items scored separately.

Her tile scores climb faster than her oral scores, and her reading of blend words climbs with them. The team counts that as the real result.

A goal for Sofia could read: "Given 10 words with initial blends built in letter tiles, Sofia will remove the letter named, read the new word and say the deleted sound for 9 of 10 words on 2 consecutive probes." Baseline: 6 of 10 in week 2. Related templates: take the first sound out of a blend, say a word without its first sound and say a word without its last sound.

Common mistakes

• Weak: Asking for "stop without /t/" before the student can segment "stop." Better: Check segmenting first. Deletion needs it.
• Weak: Only using items where the leftover is a real word. Better: Mix in made-up leftovers so the student cannot guess from vocabulary.
• Weak: Saying "say cat without the c." Better: Name the sound, /k/, not the letter, in oral items. In tile items, name the letter.
• Weak: Months of oral-only deletion drills for a 4th grader. Better: Do deletion with tiles, inside decoding and spelling work, and track reading.
• Weak: Teaching deletion, substitution and addition in the same week. Better: Focus on one manipulation at a time until it is solid.

Tools and templates

• The phonological awareness goals page lists deletion templates, including take the second sound out of a blend and delete and change sounds on a timed probe.
• Score each item on the opportunity trial data sheet.
• After deletion, see phoneme substitution activities and phoneme addition activities.
• Check any draft in the goal checker.

Frequently asked questions

Use it in IEP Atlas

• Phonological awareness goals (reading)
• Phonemic awareness in the IEP glossary
• Phonological awareness in the IEP glossary
• Opportunity trial data sheet
• IEP goal checker

Related guides

• Phonemic awareness interventions for students with IEPs
• Phoneme substitution activities and word chains
• Phoneme addition activities for building blends
• Blending sounds activities: phoneme blending in teaching order
• Phonemic awareness for older students who struggle to read

Sources

1. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
2. Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences

Written and checked by the IEP Atlas editorial team under our editorial policy. This guide describes general practice and federal rules. It is not legal advice; your state may add requirements, and the IEP team makes the decisions for each student.