Let’s consider this scenario. A kindergarten teacher has
taught her students, who are not yet true readers, to
memorize the words to a short jingle: Sam, Sam the baker
man/washed his face in a frying pan. The two lines are
written on a chart and the children are asked to come
forward and point to the words as they recite it from
memory. If a child has some awareness of oral language,
he or she might segment the first line into four rhythmic
units: Sam/Sam/the baker/man. Or a child might segment
it into six syllabic units: Sam/Sam/the/ba/ker/man.