Here is a FREE activity to help children to gain confidence in reading and spelling CVC words with a short vowel sound. That means a word like 'cap' or 'pen' where the vowel is saying its sound, not its name. How to play: The child simply chooses a word card. The word is then sounded out. The matching picture is found. Then the child can use magnetic letters to spell the word out. What is included in the pack? The pack includes one baseboard which you can print out as many times as you need. It also includes 6 picture cards and words for each short vowel sound. How to use the Sound-it-Out, Match and Spell Activity: The activity can be used in many different ways:
Best practice/Tips for teaching
Always Sound-it-Out!
Have your child sound out everything, and model sounding out continually! this means - you do it to show the child what is needed. How can a child learn if s/he does not understand what to do? Download the Sound-it-out, Match and Spell Activity here now! Once children have learnt to hear initial sounds, they need to then hear middle and final sounds. Some children have difficulty hearing final sounds. This may be because they have poor phonological awareness. These children may also have indistinct speech. But these children can still learn to read and write, and we can help their speech as well. What is needed is a fun way to help the child to do something that is intrinsically boring - lots of practice hearing the final sound. I designed this game to do just that, to help one of my pupils. He loved it, even though he is ten! He took it home and the whole family played it, which made him feel less 'behind'. Better still - he is now hearing the final sound of words easily. It worked better than a hundred worksheets, as his writing is not good, having poor pencil control too due to low muscle tone. Final Sounds Games PackTo make the final sounds gameChoose either black and white (for economy or to use the colouring of the sheets while talking about the sounds as an added activity) or colour. Choose a baseboard: either Build a Castle or Race Track. Print as many baseboards as you have players. I suggest an adult with a child initially, but once the child is confident then more players could be invited to play. Four would be a good maximum number. Print and cut up the picture cards with the ending sounds you wish to practice. Print the sound cards also (with the flag). You will need 1 sound for each player. To play:Talk about each of the picture cards ending with sounds you have chosen to practice in this game with your pupil before starting the game. Talk about the beginning sound and the ending sound. Tell your child that in this game we will be listening for the sound at the end of each word.
Hopefully, your pupil will have had much fun playing these game and will want to repeat them using different sounds! Speech therapyThe game can also be used within speech therapy to help children distinguish between sounds which are produced in a like manner: k/g; p/b; t/d. Many children have difficulty with sounds that are produced using the same part of the mouth/voice/tongue. If this is true of your pupil then I suggest that you start by playing the game with two sounds which are not at all similar. Once the child can confidently hear the final sound of a word, then the game can be played with sounds which are similar to help the child’s speech development and the ability to carefully discriminate between like sounds. Find the Final Sounds Game Pack on TPT here for a small price.Dictations are a very helpful tool in the teaching of spelling. They are a very important part of Reading Made Simple. Many children can learn a spelling list to pass the spelling test on Friday, but there is more to learning spelling than passing the test. More importantly, the child needs to learn to use the new spelling knowledge in his/her independent writing. In other words, a child's word-building skills must become integrated into his/her general reading and writing. Yes, reading too, as reading and writing are linked. A good speller is often a good reader, but it is not necessarily the case that a good reader is a good speller, if the initial teaching has been poor. Reading does help writing, as it helps to enrich vocabulary and sentence construction. But spelling helps reading as it forces a child to look at the letter combinations and patterns in the words read, which means that the child can decipher far more words than his/her memory can hold. Seeing as most children, especially younger ones, do not write enough to use all the words in their spelling list often enough for them to become familiar to the child, dictations are invaluable, if they are carefully structured, to revise the words that have been taught. The dictations that form part of each Reading Made Simple spelling lesson are carefully designed. They only use the words that have been taught each week, for each sound family. In addition, they are done the week after the sound family has been taught. By the time a child does a dictation, s/he will have learnt another sound family. This gives a suitable distance away so that the child is forced to rely on his/her phonic knowledge, rather than memory. It also gives the child confidence - there are no nasty surprises of words for which the child has not been taught the knowledge to spell. Confidence means greater success. Of course, memory does play a large part. To start with the child must have learnt the letter shapes for which each of the 26 initial sounds stand. As we learn more complex spelling patterns, there are many incongruences caused by the English language that must be learnt. For example, we have more than one way of making many sounds: ee/ea, or/aw, a-i/a-e/ay/eigh for example. Further more we have things like silent letters. For example, the word knee begins with a silent 'k'. So the memory is not redundant at all. It is best if these things are leant in a structured, meaningful way. Dictations provide that way in the Reading Made Simple programme for spelling. In fact - although the programme aims to teach reading and spelling together to young/special needs children, there are many who use it purely as a spelling programme for children who can already read - both for KS1 and upwards. How to give a dictation1. First, make sure the pupil is familiar with all the words in the passage, including any 'odd' (irregular) words. 2. Read the passage, to the pupil, right the way through to begin with. Pause clearly at the end of each sentence. Ask the child to narrate back to you what s/he has heard. Then tell the child you will read it again, a word/short phrase at a time, giving time for him/her to write before you give the next part. Repeat each part twice if necessary, but we want to encourage the child to hold the information in his/her memory. Be led by the needs of your pupil. 3.Do not help with spellings or punctuation. Turn away if you think you will be tempted to point out a mistake! 4. Once the dictation is over, ask the student to read his/her work through, out loud, pointing to each word (with finger or pencil tip) to check for errors. Check for two things:
Help as necessary until the passage is correctly spelt and punctuated. 6. It is good if the pupil can draw a picture to go with the dictation, as this helps to establish the words on each list in the child's mind. Problems you may encounter when doing a dictation
Be patientIf you use the Reading Made Simple dictations and ensure that the child learns first to sounds out the words in each sound family rather than trying to memorise the spellings, before doing each dictation, then a child's spelling ought to progress smoothly. Too many errors means that the teaching has not been suitable to the child's needs: note - not the method. The method has been proven to work with many children, but the way that the teacher matches the programme to the child is all important. However, even if all is going well, it can still take some children a long time to understand how to use full stops. Keep going, is my advice, and keep taking every opportunity to explain what is needed. I hope that you have learnt how helpful dictations can be in the development of good spelling skills.
If you have nay questions, please contact me and I will do my best to help. Teaching the oo sound When you see two 'o's together we do not say 'o o', but rather we make one sound: 'oo' as in moon. For many of us they actually make two new sounds. Listen to these words and hear the sound made by the letters 'oo'. If your dialect pronounces these words with the same 'oo' sound, you do not need to teach two sounds, only one and your task will be easier! Many of us will make a different sound for 'oo' as we say these two words. look moon So we have 'oo' in 'look' that sounds like the first part of the word cuckoo. And we have 'oo' in 'moon' that sounds like the second part of the word: cuckoo. I always use flashcards that are reviewed daily to teach phonics. It is a time honoured method that always produces exceptional results, enabling pupils to easily store the new sounds into their long-term memory for the quick recall so necessary for fluent reading and spelling. You can find a flashcard for the 'oo' sound in our pack of Reading Made Simple Flashcards, ready for printing. I suggest laminating your flashcards for durability. See how to use them here (scroll down the page). When I introduce the flashcard 'oo' I teach children to say 'oo-oo' as if they were saying 'cu-koo'. Listen to this demonstrated on the video below. Note: If this approach confuses your child (especially if they have a special need), then teach as above, as this makes the child aware that 'oo' can stand for two different sounds, but when the child sounds out I have them say 'oo' as in moon. So if the child sounds 'l oo k' (luke), we make a joke about it and I say, " We do not say 'Luke' at the bird, do we? What do we say?" "Yes, we say look." Then I remind the child that 'oo' sometimes makes the sound as in 'cuck'. They soon understand. Make sure that you teach your child to both blend sound to read oo words, and separate them apart (segment) to spell them. As always, encourage them to 'Sound-it-out'! A sample 'oo' Phonic lesson |
Teaching ck words
'ck' is easy as both letters make the sme sound, but we only say the sound once.
'CK' could be taught as a CVCC word, but I prefer to teach it separately as it is quite difficult for a child to grasp. This is because many words end in a 'k' sound, and one has to learn the rule as to when to use 'ck' and when to have a 'k' on its own.
The rule is simple: always use 'ck' after a short vowel. So, only when you hear the sounds: ack, eck, ick, ock or uck.
Phonic sounds are taught more completely and successfully using flashcards which are reviewed daily. Have the child repeat these sounds every time they see the 'ck' flashcard.
- Show the 'ck' flashcard and say "ack, eck, ick, ock, uck.
See our sample lesson here:
Tip: Do expect your pupils try to use 'ck' at the end of any word ending with a 'k' sound, for example, look, week, etc....
Solution: Gently correct and explain that we only use 'ck' when we hear the sounds: ack, eck, ick, ock and uck. They soon understand.
For more help, words to use, a dictation and reading books, please see our FREE phonic programme for all ages and abilities (including special needs): Reading Made Simple.
Phonic ck games are of much help.
Hearing of things like this can leave some teachers confused. Is there any purpose remaining as to why we should teach handwriting, or is handwriting redundant?
As I like to keep things simple, I will reply simply: yes, I believe there is great value in teaching children handwriting, even if you also teach them, later, to type.
See articles such as these:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/07/07/handwriting-more-effectively-teaches-reading-skills-brenda-rapp/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/handwriting-vs-typing#4-benefits-of-writing-by-hand
https://www.sciencealert.com/handwriting-is-better-than-typing-when-learning-to-read-study-finds
The teaching of handwriting should support the teaching of phonics
In our FREE reading and spelling programme, Reading Made Simple, we encourage the teaching of handwriting, right from the start.
- As each letter of the alphabet is learned, the child learns the sound it stands for and how to form it correctly.
- The child is able to refine the shape and size of the letters formed as they learn to read and spell cvc and ccvc words.
- Once s/he begins to spell more complex words, the child's handwriting is usually fairly legible and the child can begin to learn to write sentences through the writing of dictations each week, as in the sample above, which is for the sound 'or'.
- As the child learns each sound family, s/he learns to write the new sound and to spell the words in that family. The movement of the hand to form the letters and then the word, as the child sounds it out, helps to put the word firmly in the memory; each word has a rhythm of its own.
- In my experience, this multi-sensory approach means a secure start to learning to spell.
Other benefits of teaching handwriting
- The art of handwriting teaches diligence. This is a word rarely used in modern classrooms, to our detriment. In years gone by, teachers cared about training their charges to be diligent. And how we miss diligence in our modern society! How many of us have bemoaned the fact that mistakes are made by people using computers and relying on them instead of thinking and seeing the obvious mistakes the computer has made? Lack of diligence and care is the cause.
- The art of handwriting teaches patience. Patience is so necessary for true learning to take place. Modern technology would have us (and children, especially) believe that learning is easy. It tells a lie, for all learning is hard work and requires many mistakes to have been made first - think of the invention of say the light bulb! Handwriting, no less, requires much patient practice and this habit must start early.
- The art of handwriting teach control - another word we no longer hear. Whether a child's handwriting is neat, or messy depends in some part on how much control has been established and encouraged. Obviously a child with coordination problems cannot be expected to have the same amount of control as a child with no such difficulties - but none-the-less, each child must be helped to achieve the maximum level of control of which they are capable.
Which style of handwriting?
My style of choice is Getty-Dubay Italic. It is the style that is being taught to the child who wrote the sample above. It is pleasing to the eye, yet simple.
Welcome
Hello, I'm Lilibette, qualified teacher (B.Ed Hons). I have taught phonics in mainstream education, followed by have home-educated my two sons to 18, and am now a private tutor.
Reading Made Simple (a completely free systematic phonic reading programme) and Sound-it-out are the results!
I aim to bring advice and resources aimed at enabling parents and teachers to EASILY teach phonics effectively. That is: to help children become life-long readers, forming a bedrock on which all further education can be built. My mother helps to draw the pictures and between us we have many years experience of teaching KS1, special needs and ESL. We hope you enjoy browsing our site!
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