Primary Phonics Activities
The process of learning to read is complex, but one important piece is learning the connections between letters and sounds. This study of letters, patterns and sounds is called phonics, and it forms the foundation for efficient reading. The National Institute for Literacy, in its 2008 report "Developing Early Literacy," concluded that activities to teach relationships between letters and sounds help most children improve their reading.
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Letter-Sound Activities
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Help children make connections between printed letters and their common sounds by teaching key words that represent each letter's primary sound. Choose a letter of the day or week, and make a list of words that begin with it. Find pictures of items that begin with the key letter, and make a collage. Make alliterative sentences where most of the words begin with the same sound (like "Silly sisters say so").
Rhyming/Word Family Activities
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Because many words that sound the same on the end are spelled with the same pattern, children can often learn to recognize whole families of similar words created by simply changing the beginning sound, as in fat, cat, hat and so forth. Use magnetic or other manipulative letters to spell words, and practice changing the beginning sound to make new words. Play Spot the Stranger by saying a list of rhyming words with one word that does not rhyme mixed in and challenging the students to find the word that does not fit into the group.
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Phonics Word Sorts
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Word sorts are a powerful tool that can reinforce phonics concepts at any level. Choose a phonics element as the focus of the activity, such as initial b sound, medial long a sound, final silent e or words containing the long oo sound. Provide the student with a pool of words from a word bank or text selection, and instruct students to sort the words into the correct groups. Word sorts can be done orally, by copying words into correct groups or even by cutting words out and pasting them onto another paper.
Word Building
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Part of understanding phonics is learning about letter sequence. Help students improve phonics skills by providing many opportunities to put letters into correct order to create words. Use letter tiles, magnetic letters or letter dice to arrange letters into words. Give students four to nine letters that make a larger word, and challenge them to make a series of smaller words that you dictate. For example, you might provide the letters P-A-N-E-L and have students make the words "an," add a P to make "pan," then change a letter to make "pen." Riddles also help learners master phonics concepts by giving clues about letter sounds that provide more information about the word with every step. An example would be, "I'm thinking of a word that begins with P, has a T sound on the end and has the same sound in the middle as the vowel at the beginning of octopus."
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References
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- Photo Credit colourful letters image by forca from Fotolia.com
