Adding some fun games for reading in the classroom schedule will instantly get your kids excited to read! These 5 fun reading games are...
One of my projects this summer was to plan out how I wanted to teach sight words and phonics skills next year. My curriculum does not dictate what phonics skills we have to teach and which sight word lists to practice, so I came up with a yearly scope and sequence that I am pretty happy with! At the end of this post you'll find a link to a bunch of freebies. This chart is in there (and it's editable). I have set aside about 20 minutes a day for sight words, poetry, and phonics. It usually works out to be about 5 minutes sight words, 5 minutes poetry, and 10 minutes phonics. My plan is to teach five sight words a week. My word lists come from Dolch, Fry's, and a few randoms thrown in! The phonics skills are based on what I feel my students need to work on Grade 1. We spend the first few weeks reviewing the alphabet sounds (I like Beverly Tyner's sequence.) Then we move onto short vowels, silent E, digraphs, long vowels, blends, bossy R, and some diphthongs. Even though I teach this stuff whole group, I do spend time in my guided reading groups doing more focused work on sight words or phonics skills too, depending on the group's needs. Each week I display the five sight words of the week on this little board. I bought a little white board from the dollar store, added the title and some clipart, and stuck on five little Stikki Clips. (Have you heard of these things? They are pretty neat. I bought them from Really Good Stuff. Apparently they stick super well to cinder block walls!) Each week I just stick the words in the clips. Easy peasy! At the end of the week we retire the words to the word wall and on Monday we put up five new words. Here's a peek at what we do all week long with these words: On Monday we introduce the sight words and practice them using some free chants from Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. Then we make a little mini book. Students cut apart the squares, staple it in the corner, and then practice tracing each sight word and colouring it (or rainbow writing it). They keep these mini books in their book boxes for a couple weeks to practice the sight words. They can read them during "read to self" time. On Tuesday we make and break the words. I scramble up the letters in each word and we practice putting them back together. I do this on the Mimio, but you can just use magnetic letters. On Wednesday we play Guess the Word. It's like hangman. I put dashes up for each letter in the word and the students take turns guessing letters. I cross off the letters they guess and cross off a section of the picture each time they make an incorrect guess. There are ten different monthly themed pictures. I don't just use the words of the week--I take any word from the word wall! On Thursday we read the Mystery Sentences. I write five sentences that each have one of the words of the week in it. We read the sentences together and try to figure out the missing word. On Friday we play Swat the Sight Word. On the projector I display a page with the five words all over it. I choose two students, give them each a fly swatter, and call out one of the words. The students try to swat the word. I love this because there's not one winner; they can both find and swat a sight word! :) They love this game! **I don't have any of the Mimio files for you to download, but I have put a blank PDF version of the four activities (Tues-Fri) into the freebie file. You can import the PDF into Mimio or Smart Notebook and add your own text to create the activities yourself. I have also included my sight word books and an editable version so you can put in your own five sight words.** I keep all of my sight word stuff for the week in page protectors in my Phonics & Sight Words binders (blogged about this here). The sight word lists are three weeks of sight words. I use them during Word Work. I'll blog about this more later! I number the back of all my word wall cards so that at the end of the year I can easily organize them back into the proper week. After our sight word activity, we look at the poem of the week. I have poems from a variety of different sources, but mostly I use Deedee Wills' Poetry Station Packs. They are amazing! I place the poem onto sentence strips and display them on a large pocket chart. On Monday we read the poem together, on Tuesday we look for certain letters or phonics skills, on Wednesday we ready in different voices for fluency practice, on Thursday we highlight our word wall words in the poem, and on Friday we put the poem in our poetry folders. Sometimes we will highlight the word wall words in our folder or draw a picture to go with the poem. Then we have phonics time. On Mondays I usually introduce the phonics skill with a story, such as the Scholastic Phonics Tales. Then we brainstorm a list of words that contain that phonics skill on chart paper. On Tuesdays we usually do some sort of phonics activity. My students love Babbling Abby's Highlight a Word from her Word Work packs. On Wednesday we usually do a read and match activity together. These cards are from Reagan Tunstall's Big Phonics Bundle. I love this bundle! It has so many activities for so many phonics skills!! It is well worth the price. On Thursday we do another phonics activity... this might be a cut and paste activity or a read the room activity. I have so many things in my files from The Mailbox Magazine or other TpTers. I might also have a Phonics Read the Room pack in the works... but we'll see about that! ;) On Friday we usually play Roll & Cover or Roll & Write. I photocopy the black & white versions of these games onto coloured paper so we can play as a whole group. Then I place a few laminated, coloured versions of the game in our word work centres so students can play them again during guided reading time. I keep all of my phonics stuff for the week in page protectors in my Phonics & Sight Words binders (read about this here). The first five weeks of school are a little bit different for phonics because we are reviewing our alphabet sounds. We still do sight words each work (although the very first week of school we just focus on our names) and we do a poem of the week, but each week we focus on five (or six) letter sounds. I like to use Beverly Tyner's sequence. (If you haven't read any of her books, check out Small-Group Reading Instruction. It's really great!) I'm planning on using activities from my new Alphabet Practice pack. Each week the activities are the same, but it focuses on a different set of letters. The first week is BSMAC, then TDLRI, JGHON, PUQWY, and lastly ZXEVKF. On Monday we will practice the sounds that each letter make by chanting "b says /b/, m says /m/, etc." We sometimes add an action to go with it, like biting an apple for /a/ or bouncing a ball for /b/. Then we do a card sort in the pocket chart. We will sort the picture cards based on their initial sound (or final sound with X). On Tuesday students will do a colour code activity. They have to write the initial letter of each word, then colour the picture using the colour code. Great practice for those colour words as well! Then when they are done, they can play Spin to the Top. They spin an uppercase letter and practice tracing the letters. When one letter reaches the top, they win! On Wednesday we do a read the room activity. I place 12 cards around the room. Students find the card and write down the letter the word starts with beside the correct number. When done, they do a letter search on the back. They circle and count each type of letter and write number beside it. Great for identifying letters in different fonts! On Thursday we do a cut and paste sort. Students have to glue the correct lowercase letter and two beginning sound pictures beside the correct train engine. Then when they are done, they can play Roll to the Top. They roll a die and practice tracing the correct lowercase letters. When one letter reaches the top, they win! On Friday we play a game. Either small group beginning sound BINGO (included in my Alphabet Practice pack), Roll & Cover, or Roll & Write. Check out these products by clicking the pictures below. Well I hope that gives you some good ideas for teaching sight words, poetry, or phonics! Click the picture below to download some of the freebies from this post.
Consonant Digraph Snap is a fun and faced paced phonics game, providing lots of practice in digraph recognition in words.
Decoding drills for building fluency helps students apply phonics skills when reading. Perfect warm ups and a great tracking tool, too.
Free phonics sentences activities perfect for primary grades. Practice reading, phonics and fluency by reading phonics-based sentences.
Do your young learners have poetry journals?! Mine do and we love them. The main question I have been asked in the past is what I put inside my journals and I created a resource to help answer that question. Most of the poems in our poetry journals are phonics poems, but I also […]
Teach your kids how to read and find out the real problem why your child can't blend words despite knowing his alphabets and letter sounds.
Are you a teacher or a parent of a first-grade student searching for free printable phonics worksheets? Look no further! We have a collection of engaging and educational worksheets that will help your child grasp essential phonics skills. These worksheets cover a range of phonics topics, including letter recognition, sounds, blending, and segmenting. Designed for first graders, our worksheets offer an interactive and enjoyable way for young learners to improve their reading and spelling abilities. Whether you're teaching in the classroom or at home, these free printable phonics worksheets are a valuable resource for developing strong foundational skills in reading and writing.
Ditch the phonics worksheets and try these hands-on phonics activities to incorporate the science of reading into your literacy instruction.
A free first grade literacy packet for learning at home.
Try these 1st grade assessments and data tracking folders to track of how your students are doing in reading and math and be ready for report card time.
Looking for a quick and simple one-page pre-assessment to use at the beginning of the year? This is a pre-assessment form designed for the incoming 1st Grade students to show you where all your students are for planning purposes. It covers a variety of math, phonics, and writing skills. It covers these skills: •Blending (CVC Words, Long Vowels) •Simple Sentence Fluency •Number Recognition to 30 •Writing a Sentence •Counts to ___ •Number of Sight Words How I use it in my classroom: During the first week of school, I pull my students aside to do one-on-one assessment and a little getting to know you. I ask them questions about themselves, then alternate those questions with these ones. It helps them feel comfortable with me and gives me important data to use when moving forward. I do not use this as a grade, but just as a tool to help my yearly planning. For the numbers portion, I suggest that you use flashcards shuffled so it is out of order. Need Kindergarten? Here is the Kindergarten Pre-Assessment! TEACHERS LIKE YOU SAID… ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "I used this as an informal assessment on the first week of school. This resource helped me determine areas of strength and weakness. Thank you." -Johana S. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"This was a great resource to gauge where my summer school firsties are! This would make a great addition to a beginning of the year routine to see where your incoming kinders are at before beginning instruction and intervention." -Sara P. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "I used this to assess my kinders at the end of year and it was completely perfect. It streamlined everything and made it easy to administer and understand. Thank you!" -Ariana G. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "I am using this as a guide to make sure my K kids are ready for 1st grade and to develop my pacing guide." -Kinder with Kay ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This assessment was easy to use to identify what skills my children needed to work on in order to be ready for first grade." -Literacy in Flight ___________________________________ You may also like… →Editable and Autofill Student Checklists →At a Glance Monthly Planning Pages →Editable Lesson Plan Template ___________________________________ Copyright © Sweet for Kindergarten Permission to copy for single classroom use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.
I am always on the hunt for new, fun phonics games! Teaching the same phonics patterns and skills over and over can be difficult for both my students and for me as the teacher to try and have students practice these skills without getting bored. Before we play phonics games, there is always a direct […]
What does the Science of Reading research recommend? Let's explore the components of Science of Reading-aligned instruction.
We are doing first grade phonics now. Get ready to learn and do all of the activities I think everyone will enjoy!
Adding some fun games for reading in the classroom schedule will instantly get your kids excited to read! These 5 fun reading games are...
Planning to tutor over the summer? Here are tips for quick and easy planning! Hi there! It's Sarah! I've been tutoring kiddos for the last year and have developed a routine that makes my planning easy and my session flow smoothly. All of the kiddos I tutor are grades K-2 and in need of a boost in their reading skills...fluency, comprehension, and phonics. Warm-up I like to start with some reading that is simple or familiar. I'll either have the kiddo re-read a text from the previous session or read fluency sentences. I have my kiddos keep a composition notebook with past passages to go back and re-read. I use lots of guided reader books to find the just right text for my kiddos to read. These are also great books to leave for kiddos to practice between sessions. Fluency sentence strips from The Moffatt Girls are a GREAT help to boost fluency and confidence! They are also super easy to leave for practice between sessions. Fluency Reading Practice My kiddos have all had good sight word recognition and really need fluency work. I switch between leveled readers and text passages. I usually have kiddos read the text themselves first. After reading, we go back through the text and find words that were tricky and read them. Next, I have the kiddo read through the text with me or by themselves if they are confident. Using a leveled reader Using fluency passages and recording words read per minute (the kiddos love to see their growth!) Find these fluency passages HERE! Using text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Comprehension After some fluency practice with the selected text, I move into comprehension work. In our district, kiddos need to do a written response comprehension question as part of their reading assessment. I have my kiddos practice a written response question with every text and in every session. Comprehension with level reader I use these question stems to develop questions based on the text. Grab the question stems HERE! Completed written response, kiddos write in their composition journal Comprehension with text evidence passages. Grab these passages HERE! Here I use a reading passage with several comprehension tasks for a 2nd grade kiddo. Find these reading passage + comprehension packets HERE! Phonics After the reading and comprehension tasks are complete, I work on some phonics task with my kiddos. One of my favorite tasks is doing a word family word splash. I select a word from our text. I like how this tasks shows kiddos that if they can spell a work like bat, they can also spell cat, mat, sat, etc. Writing short sentences with words from the Word Family Splash Word building and sounding out Extras I like to use phonics poems as an additional fluency tool. The kiddos glue them into their composition notebook so they can go back and re-read between sessions, continuing to build fluency with familiar texts. These phonics poems are from Susan Jones. I use our Literacy Bags in between reading tasks. Literacy Bags break up the rigorous reading and fluency practice we do for much of the session. You can find Literacy Bags HERE! I'm working with a few Kindergartners who need sight word practice. I use the K version of our Differentiated Reading Fluency passages. In K, the passages start as reading letters, then sight words fluently. It perfect support for my K kiddos! You can grab these HERE! Additionally, our Print a Standard packs have been a great support for targeting specific skills students need to work on. Each pack contains tasks for one standard and has several activities for that standard, so there are a lot of opportunities to help the student learn, practice, and master standards based skills. You can grab Print a Standard packs for ELA AND MATH HERE! Connecting with students and parents on a more personal level is the best part of tutoring. I love giving kiddos instant feedback and celebrating their successes! I also love that I can give them more choices to foster a love of reading. In the picture above, I'm showing several text selections. The kiddos I'm working with is able to choose the book he'll read with me for the session. I also love being able to help parents foster learning at home. I've found most all of my parents did not really know about their kiddo's reading level or reading abilities. This makes it difficult for parents to find the best "just right" books for reading at home. After I work with a kiddo, I leave the text piece we worked on for that session (a passage or a book) so the kiddo can re-read it with parents. I leave their composition notebooks with phonics poems for the kiddos to go back a re-read. I also leave the fluency sentence strips for practice between sessions.
As you probably know, phonics is an essential component of reading instruction. Before you read this loooong post all about how to teach ph...
Copywork is fun and effective for child-led writing practice. Here are benefits plus examples for kids in English, Chinese, and Korean.
Finding out what a student knows about phonics is made easy with this quick and simple phonics assessment for K-3 readers! And it's FREE.
When learning how to read, working on FLUENCY and building CONFIDENCE is extremely important! Kids need to know that they CAN read when given the right
Teach CVC words the fun way with 5 easy and engaging activities. Get ready to watch your young learners blossom into confident readers!
It's hard to fit it all into your schedule! Here's my 3-step process that makes it easier to create your K-2 structured literacy schedule.
Learn how to use decodable passages in guided reading in kindergarten and first grade. Then, use the FREE decodable passages to get started.
This kid friendly 1st grade I can statement common core reference sheet is a 6 page resource that is a fun and very visual way for teachers, students and parents to see first grade standards. Includes all common core standards in a condensed and student (and parent) friendly format. There are 2 pages of I can statements of math and 4 pages of I can statements for ELA standards (including reading informational text, reading literature, reading foundations, writing, speaking and listening and language standards). This reference sheet includes all common core standards with I can statements for each common core standard. These can be placed in data notebooks as a form of communication to students to allow them to see all they have learned and what is expected. They can use this as a checklist for 1st grade common core standards to mark off mastery. This can also be provided to parents at conferences, with report cards, parent teacher conferences or open house to inform parents what their child is expected to learn. Included with the common core standards listed in each box and a second version with only the images (no standards listed) and text in both black and white and color. ************************************************************************** This resource contains all standards. You may also like a simpler versions, with less standards but can be used to provide parents and students with a general overview of 2nd grade standards that can be found here: •First Grade Skill Sheet or 1st grade I can statements to post in your classroom for every standard •First Grade Common Core I Can Statements •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• You may also like the other grade common core reference sheets: •Kindergarten Common Core Reference Guide- All Standards •2nd Grade Common Core Standard Visual Reference Guide •3rd Grade Common Core Standards Visual Reference- All Common Core Standards •4th Grade Common Core Student I Can Statements ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
As educators, we know the importance of building a strong foundation in reading for our students. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is through the use of decodable words and sentences. These specially designed reading materials are crucial for young readers, helping them develop essential skills and confidence. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of decodable words and sentences, discuss their importance, and provide practical ways to integrate Decodable Word and Sentence Strips MEGA bundle into your classroom. You can purchase the BUNDLE HERE What Are Decodable Words and Sentences? Decodable words are words that follow regular phonetic patterns, making them easier for beginning readers to sound out and recognize. For example, words like
Free phonics sentences activities perfect for primary grades. Practice reading, phonics and fluency by reading phonics-based sentences.
Lessons for phonics in kindergarten to last the entire year! Make your classroom phonics instruction simple and stress-free.
Phonics instruction can be tricky for older students. When I taught first grade it was a natural part of our guided reading time. The lower level text allowed for more opportunities to incorporate phonics instruction. My third grade students desperatly NEED phonics instruction. They need to work on the same skills my firsties did, but at a higher level. As a result of this need, Phonics for BIG KIDS was born. There are four components to our phonics routine: Assessment, Word Work Lesson, Interactive Notebook & Game. Below you will find a short blurb about each component of instruction. Assessment Prior to beginning instruction, I give each student in my group a quick assessment. It is a list of 30 words that focus on the specific skill that we will be focusing on. This gives me a baseline to track their progress. At the end of the week I give them the assessment again to track progress. Word Work Lesson At the beginning of the word work lesson I give each student their laminated “Working with Words” mat and the word parts needed. I laminate this mat to use it as a dry erase board. I follow the script, “Find the word parts to create the word ________.” After they create the word, they then match it to the picture and write the word with a dry erase marker on their mat. I do that for all eight words. I also put students in small groups where they each take a turn pretending to be the “teacher”. Interactive Notebook I love incorporating interactive notebooks into my instruction. It is a great way to reinforce what we just practiced. There are three interactive notebook activities included for each skill. Games The demonstration cards are used to provide an example for each word included in the lesson. You could also use these cards for sorting, playing memory, Go Fish, etc. I use them for many more things that just demonstrating, depending on the level of students that I am working with. I would LOVE to see how you do phonics with your big kids. Tag me on Instagram @thecrazyschoolteacher with the hashtag #phonicsforBIGKIDS.
Kids need lots of practice when they are learning to read! Here...
Do you need new phonics activities? These Short U Phonics Worksheets give students practice reading and writing short u CVC words by word family. In this teaching resource, there are 18 different phonics worksheet templates with multiple pages for each template to accommodate all of the short u CVC words taught in kindergarten and first grade. This is a great no-prep printable for kindergarten word work centers.
Hearing a child learn to read for the first times is one of the greatest joys for parents, teachers and kids! There is nothing like it! After children
Over the summer, I redesigned my reading inventories that I use for pinpointing reading difficulties and tracking progress throughout the ...
