Have you ever heard of the children speaking “Pig Latin”? If you have, you know it’s a made-up language that can serve as a secret code to communicate with friends. Kids love it! Little do they know, they are completing several phonemic awareness tasks while they speak it. They are required to identify the initial sound in a word, delete the initial sound, move the initial sound to the end of the word, and then add the sound “ay” to the very end of the word.
1. Identifying the Initial Sound
The first step to speaking Pig Latin is figuring out the first sound in a word. If the word begins with a vowel sound such as “eagle”, “igloo”, or “apple”, all you have to do is add the “ay” sound to the end of the word to make it Pig Latin. For example, the word “eagle” is “eagle-ay” in Pig Latin. If the word begins with a consonant sound such as “cat”, “dog”, or “pickle”, the translation to Pig Latin is a bit more complex. For these words, have your child practice identifying the first sound in the word. If you prompt them with the word “cat”, they can respond with the first sound “c”. Make sure your child understands how to identify the first sound before moving on to the next step.
2. Deleting the Initial Sound
Once your child has successfully identified the first sound in a word, they will practice saying the word without the first sound. For example, they would take the word “cat” and say it without the first sound: “at”.
3. Moving the Initial Sound
After they have figured out what the word sounds like without the first sound, they will move the first sound to the end of the word and then add “ay”. Cat is now “at-cay”. If your child ever gets confused on how to say a word in Pig Latin, follow steps 1-3 to break it down. Some words begin with consonant blends like “st”, “th”, “pl”. If your child is trying to say a blend word in Pig Latin, the rules are the same except that you treat the blend as the first sound. For example, the word “shop” would be “op-shay” in Pig Latin.
As you can see, Pig Latin requires a lot of sound manipulation. It takes a lot of practice to become fluent. Practicing saying the words is just as important as understanding the words. Have your child practice translating words from Pig Latin to English. Eventually, you and your child can have full-on conversations in Pig Latin!
Written by Madison Dwyer