Duck Hands®

Duck Hands® – A Multi-Sensory Approach to Phonemic Awareness and Early Dyslexia Screening
 

Our brains are wired to process the sounds of speech in oral language, regardless of whether we speak. There is a specific area of the brain devoted to this task, and it happens unconsciously when we listen. However, our brains are not pre-wired to translate speech sounds into letters. Learning to read in English requires children to become consciously aware of phonemes, as they must map the sounds in spoken words to graphemes (letters or letter strings).
 

This is why phonemic awareness is essential—without it, children cannot connect letters and sounds effectively when phonics begins. Duck Hands® make phonemic awareness visible and interactive, helping children develop this skill before letters are introduced.
 

How Duck Hands® Work

🔹 Children segment words into phonemes from left to right using Duck Hands®.
🔹 They then sweep their hands to blend the sounds back into the whole word.
🔹 This builds phonemic awareness, the skill needed to later connect speech to print.
 

Beyond Phonics: Early Screening & Inclusive Learning
 

Duck Hands® are not just a fun learning tool—they also help us identify children who struggle to process phonemes, allowing early screening for dyslexia and other reading difficulties.

• Children with dyslexia often struggle with phonemic awareness and require additional explicit instruction to strengthen these skills.

• English language learners may also experience difficulties with phonemic awareness, making this early support critical.

• During Phase 1 with Phonemies, children manipulate phonemes (Speech Sound Monsters)—a crucial higher-level phonemic awareness skill identified by Dr. David Kilpatrick as the most closely related to reading connected text. This ensures children can play with sounds before connecting them to graphemes.
   

Why Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction Matters
 

Research summarised in the National Reading Panel report (Ehri, 2004) suggests that even 5 to 18 hours of phonemic awareness instruction significantly improves later reading and spelling achievement. Our 10-day programme ensures children get this essential instruction, making it easier for them to transition to phonics while allowing us to identify learners of concern before reading difficulties take hold.

Dr. David Kilpatrick highlights phonemic awareness as the single most important factor in differentiating struggling from successful readers. He explains that phoneme manipulation tasks (adding, deleting, and substituting sounds) are the best predictors of word-level reading proficiency. With Phonemies, children achieve this higher-level phonemic awareness early, ensuring they are fully prepared when phonics instruction begins.

Duck Hands® make phonemic awareness concrete, engaging, and accessible—helping every child build the skills they need to hear and manipulate sounds with confidence.

 

References

• Ehri, L. C. (2004). Teaching phonemic awareness and phonics: A scientific evidence-based approach to building phonological skills in early readers. In P. McCardle & V. Chhabra (Eds.), The voice of evidence in reading research (pp. 153-186). Paul H. Brookes.

• Kilpatrick, D. A. (2015). Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties. Wiley.

• National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

• Eden, G. F. (2016). How Reading Changes the Brain. Science in the News, Harvard University.

• August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.