In my preschool classroom, we use letter-of-the-week items. I try to include many real creation facts in the week. This has had an amazing result on the students. Many parents are surprised at the new thing their kids are interested in.
One example is the letter O for octopus.
Octopus lives in the ocean, has 8 arms, and squits ink. Cool right!
I have grouped together a book, counting cards, and few playdough activities, and a coloring sheet.
Using olives, onions, on, off, odd, oval, opal, and open, all of these words are better than using the word orange. Yes, the words do start with the letter o. The phonemic sound is actually the r-controlled sound “or” and the letter g is softened to the soft “j” sound by the silent e. These can be confusing concepts for emergent readers. Now that I have started using easy-to-decode words with my students, my results have improved.
I save the word orange for lessons about r-controlled words and reasons for silent e.
