Working with other teachers is hard. How do you teach phonics to students while working with a team of teachers? Here are some tips.
What are the K-2 phonics skills our learners need to know? In what order do we teach them? Learn what they are and download a free printable with all the K-2 phonics skills listed for you! Be sure to click on all the images towards the bottom of this post to read all the articles in our 6 ... Read More about K-2 Phonics Skills List – free printable list!
Check out how this literacy teacher spends her week teaching direct, explicit phonics to her students through poems and games. Grab a freebie too!
Four years ago when I took a leap of faith into an intervention position, I realized how few resources there were out there for reading and phonics intervention groups. I read SO many books about developmentally appropriate phonics and how to go through the proper foundational steps in order for students to master phonics and […]
Welcome to The Reading Roundup! Here you will find reading lesson ideas for the classroom and for reading intervention with a focus on the Science of Reading.
I used to scoff at teaching sight words, I taught phonics instead.But this year, I ate my words. I finally learned the truth about sight words vs. phonics.
Phonemic Awareness Teacher Task Cards to make the most of every classroom moment. Activities for kindergarten, first grade, and intervention!
Build and Write Phonics Cards Do you need hands-on phonics activities that students can complete independently and develops their foundational skills AND mee
It took me almost 10 years to find my groove with phonics in my classroom. If I'm being honest, I spent the first 9 years of my teaching career hating
Have a child learning to read? Try this missing sounds reading activity to work on decoding skills. A hands-on, phonics based reading game.
Everything you didn't learn from college about teaching phonics.
It's two months into the school year, and we're about to wrap up the first quarter in my building (Yikes! Where did the time go?!).With October in the rearview mirror, I'm reflecting on all the blog posts I never found time to finish and all the blog posts I've been wishing to write. My reading program is officially under way, so now I'm hoping to go back and share some the resources and tools I've been using. Phonics is the target area of instruction for one of my reading groups. For those of you just getting started with phonics instruction, here are a few assessment ideas and instructional tools that
Comprehension Connection is a literacy website dedicated to providing teaching tips and resources for instruction for K-5 teachers focusing on comprehension.
Do you teach phonics in a small group setting? Or are you thinking of starting small groups, but you're not sure how to get going? In this post, I'll share WHY and HOW I teach word study (sometimes referred to as phonics or spelling) in a small group setting.
When teaching a phonics skill it’s often helpful to use a key word and picture to help the students remember the sound to the letter combinations. For the ir/er/ur phonics bundle, my fabulous artist c
Hands-on, engaging, and systematic phonics for beginning readers! This short e packet is part of Phonics Made Fun Level A Bundle! Included in this bundle
You'll love working on fine motor skills with easy activities ideas, made simpler with materials you can keep on hand!
Comprehension Connection is a literacy website dedicated to providing teaching tips and resources for instruction for K-5 teachers focusing on comprehension.
I am so happy to share some brand new, silent e fluency passages I made… and they are FREE! These phonics “read & illustrate” passages are the perfect way to assess students understanding of what they are reading. There are 2 activities for each of the following phonics skills: a_e i_e o_e u_e […]
How to teach reading strategies using beanie babies. Tips for helping your students become flexible readers, using decoding strategies independently.
I found these cute frog containers at Walmart and thought they would be perfect for a digraph sorting activity for my first grade teacher friends. If you can't find the containers at Walmart, you might want to head on over to Target as they carry many of the same seasonal items. Although the frog containers are adorable, the sorting activity really works with any type of container. Click HERE to download 32 FREE consonant digraph pics for sorting. Ideas for differentiating this activity for small group instruction can be found on my blog. www.blog.maketaketeach.com
Sure, your students can read cvc words and words with blends? NOW WHAT? Are you ready to tackle those harder phonics skills that make your students more independent readers? Tired of searching high and low for phonics activities that aren’t just rhyming and sorting? Good news! It is here! The Phonics Intervention for Independent Readers […]
In this post, I'll explain how to figure out if phonics is a "problem area" for a reader and provide ideas for specific phonics interventions.
First of all - Happy Friday, friends!! I have been very busy but wanted to take a second to tell you all about a reading game I LOVE. Ha...
We’re on part 8 of a 10-week series called 10 Things Struggling Readers Need. If you’re new to This Reading Mama, welcome! Please click HERE or on the image above to read the background of this series as well as look through the topics of weeks 1-7. *This post contains affiliate links. To learn more about ... Read More about Struggling Readers Need to Learn to Read by Analogy
These Low-Prep Phonics Games help your students master the important letter, vowel, blends & digraphs sounds! Simple to make, store & play!
As we all know, fluency is a key component to reading success! Students need a LOT of opportunities to practice sight word recognition and newly learned
It took me almost 10 years to find my groove with phonics in my classroom. If I'm being honest, I spent the first 9 years of my teaching career hating
Looking for some fresh phonics activities for your word study lessons? I use a lot of word sorts in my word study lessons, and they’re effective. But sometimes my kiddos and I get a little tired of sort after sort after sort. Can you relate? 🙂 In today’s post, I’ll share 5 phonics activities to try with your kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade students! I hope you find at least a couple of new ideas! Photo Credits; Regreto, Shutterstock 1. Mystery Word Have students place 5 – 10 words, on individual cards, on the table in front of them. (Have students use the words they are currently studying AND words they have studied in the past, for review.) Each student should have the same set of words. The teacher chooses one word and gives clues about that word. Students may guess the word at any time, but I do not allow the children to guess after one clue (they have to wait to hear two or more clues). When you give clues, make sure that they do not immediately reveal the “identity” of the word. For example, if you state that the word ends in -at, you’ll want students to have several different words that end in -at. Examples of clues: “The mystery word starts with the digraph ‘ch.'” “The mystery word rhymes with ‘pig.'” “The mystery word has 2 syllables.” “The mystery word has a prefix.” Kindergarten teachers can modify this by giving students alphabet letters rather than words. You then give clues like, “This is the letter that starts the word ‘hat'” or “This letter has two straight lines” or “This is the last letter in the word ‘pin.'” You can eventually transition to having students work with complete words. This activity can be done in a whole group or small group setting. Once students have played this game many times with your support, you can have them play it on their own—a student leader makes up the clues for a partner or small group! 2. Word Train In this activity, students manipulate words and change out letters to make new words. First, direct students to make a word (they should use their own magnetic letters or letter tiles). After students have made it correctly, have them write it on the first car in their train. Next, either show or ask students how they can change that word to form a new word. Once students have formed the new word with their magnetic letters or tiles, have them write it on the train. Continue until the train is “full.” Praise students for their work in changing the first word to a completely different word. If you’d like this train template, you can get it for free at this link. You can make the activity even more challenging (and assign it as independent work) by writing the first and last word on the train. Students have to figure out how to get from the first word to the last word! 3. Making Words This activity was developed by Patricia Cunningham (1992). I’m going to share a basic outline of her activity, but there are other variations and extension activities that you can read about in one of her books, like this one. To prepare for the activity, the teacher chooses a “secret word” (something related to a topic you’ve been studying, if possible). The teacher displays the letters in the word in a mixed-up order. Students should also have their own paper letter tiles with matching letters to manipulate. The teacher directs students to make a 2-letter word, with her help (or a 3-letter word, if no 2-letter words are possible). Continue guiding students in making words by giving directions like “Change the first letter to an S” or “Mix up the letters to make a different word.” As you go, increase the number of letters in the words students make. Have students try to figure out the “big” secret word. If they are not able to, give them clues to help. Students can then do follow-up activities like practicing sorting the words they made, comparing and contrasting words, looking for words that rhyme, etc. Again, this can be done in a whole group or small group setting. Students can eventually do “Making Words” activities and variations on their own (as independent work, they can repeat the same “Making Words” activity you did with them, but without your support). 4. Dictation This one is not quite as game-like as numbers 1-3. But it can still be fun AND is an extremely valuable phonics activity. It also allows you to see how students are doing with applying phonics / word learning to their writing. The way you structure the dictation activity will depend on students’ ages and abilities. In general, you might try something like this: Choose a sentence that includes ONLY words that students have been learning how to spell (CVCe words with the long i, for instance) and sight words. Say the sentence aloud to students: “I like my bike.” Then, say, “Write ‘I.'” Have students write the word. “Write ‘like.'” (If necessary, comment on the long i sound, and help students segment it if necessary.) Have students write the word. Repeat for the remaining words in the sentence. Note: In kindergarten and first grade (and sometimes 2nd), I almost always dictate the sentence word-by-word. I want students’ focus to be on using their phonics knowledge rather than trying to remember a sentence. If necessary, I will remind them to space, use capital letters, and punctuation. Although I can discuss these skills during the lesson, I try to stay focused on the phonics patterns (since that is the point of this type of dictation). Have students reread their sentences. Discuss word features. In kindergarten, I start with single-word dictations, and then we eventually move into very simple sentences. You can incorporate sound boxes or have students “tap out” words to support them with segmenting during the dictation.
This is the second part of a mini series about songs for teaching parts of speech. If you missed the first post about nouns and verbs, you can find it here. Click on any picture
Teaching reading and raising my student's reading by GRADE LEVELS each year is such a thrill! Here are some of the ways I do it!
*This post contains affiliate links. To read more, please see my full disclosure policy. For the next two weeks, I’m honored to be joining 39 other bloggers in iHomeschool Network’s Hopscotch! I’ll spend 10 days showing how effective Word Study is in teach spelling. I have used word study in the classroom, as a private reading tutor, and ... Read More about Teaching Spelling Through Word Study
Every year I have a couple students who need extra work on phonics. These phonics activities are geared especially towards the "big kids".
As a reader, I have used most, if not all of the reading comprehension strategies I'm about to discuss throughout my years as a student, as I'm sure all of you have. As a teacher, I have guided students through using these strategies during whole-class reading units. Until last week…
The Snow Wombat by Susannah Chambers is a lovely short, rhyming text that tells of wombat's big journey through the snow in the Australian Alps. The Alps are the only bioregion on the Australian mainland in which deep snow falls annually and this text presents a lovely way of opening our students' curiosity to the animals, birds and people of this special area. The story is essentially a tribute to the awareness that there is 'no place like home'. The beautiful illustrations by Mark Jackson include a variety of Australian animals, plants and trees that can survive the freezing temperatures. Although bitterly cold, the illustrations depict a vibrant, happy and delightful place. Perhaps it is those big bright blue skies, or wombat's cheeky playfulness, perfectly captured. The book includes a map drawn on the end pages. This map connects visually with the animals that wombat passes along his journey. There is a link from story, animal, map and names of places. It is subtle but a deep connection which presents you with the opportunity to introduce the comprehension strategy of summarizing to your students. To summarize A text summary, or short retelling, helps children make personal meaning with a story. Not just a straightforward retelling, a summary includes only the important main ideas and show how they are connected. After the read, use the map on the inside cover as a visual summary of the text. Talk about wombat's journey. Ask your students: Who or what is this about? What happened in the story? When, where and how did the action happen? Where are the main ideas in the text? What was the most memorable part of the text? Why? A good story summary structure is the somebody-wanted-but-so-then idea. Use these key words to draw out the main ideas and develop a summary. It could be: Wombat wanted to sleep but it was too cold and snowy at The Stockman's Hut so he walked home past many animals and then he was warm, safe and happy. Ask students to draw or write their own using this worksheet. This worksheet can be used for any wombat or animal themed story. We would love to provide this poster and worksheet to you, and have made it in two versions depending on how you spell summarizing. Find them both here: 'summarizing' version 'summarising' version Share
Our favorite 2nd grade anchor charts for math, language arts, and beyond. You'll definitely want to use some of these in your classroom.
My new obsession this year has been making and using anchor charts for my lessons. Here are just some of the anchor charts I have made thi...
"They can spell the words during word study, but then it doesn't transfer!" If you're like me, you've seen students appear to have mastered a spelling pattern or word family during phonics/word study...but then they spell it incorrectly in their writing. In this post, I'll share tips for transfer.
Gumball Phonics™ is a unique color-coded phonics strategy to help young readers and writers DECODE unfamiliar words, rather than GUESS. This FUN color–coded phonics approach will help your students discriminate between the various phonics and spelling patterns found in words they encounter while reading. Not […]
