Mnemonics Archives - Pure Joy Teaching

Final /K/ Sound Games

Which to use ck, ke, or k for the final k sound?
These visuals are another way to remind students to look and listen for the vowel sounds and names.

Which to use ck, ke, or k for the final k sound?

Emergent readers often struggle with final k sounds and spellings, and rightly so. There is a lot to unpack here with these spelling rules and patterns.

They may start off well with phonics and individual letter sounds, they may transition to decoding CVC words, and then the rules seem to change overnight when they get to the final letter k sounds. They are often confused with the fact that ck, can make one sound. While other words can use only the letter k by itself, without the letter c. Then you add in the words that end with ke, for example the word: like, with a silent e. Bingo-bango we now have a student who is confused.

Final k sounds with a silent e

Yes, this does not happen every time but it did happen the other day on a spelling test in my class. One student started adding /cke/ to the end of the words. I think she was trying to cover all the possibilities for the final /k/ sound. I have seen this before with students who do not understand all the reasons for final silent e.

To help speed up this process, I have created a few games that I can play with the students that will help them practice some repeated reading of words that have the final /k/ sound. Grouping words together with similar spelling patterns often makes it easier for them to decode new words that they did not know they could read.

War-style educational games

They love these war-style games. To get extra use out of the game cards, I added beginning k sounds too. This is a bonus with hard c words all in the same resource.

It’s important to teach students that the really vowels matter a lot. Listening for the vowel sound or the vowel name can be the key to helping decide which final /k/ spelling to use.

If you hear the vowel sound before the final /k/ sound then use /ck/.
If you hear the vowel name before the final /k/ sound then it could be /ke/ or /k/.

Here are a few example words:

-ck ending: back, peck, dock, luck
-ke ending: bake, hike, coke, puke
-k ending: bank, pink, soak, park

The letters /ck/usually follow a very predictable pattern. It is sometimes called a short vowel pointer. Meaning it points backwards to the vowel that is making its short sounds, and the vowel is not saying its long name.

To help the students learn this skill of listening for the short vowel pointer, I also added some sound sorting cards to this game. These cards can be used as wildcards in the war game or used for sound sorting during a tutoring lesson.

Beginning c pattern: a, o, u. Beginning k pattern i, e, y.

These visuals are another way to remind students to look and listen for the vowel sounds and names.

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Silent Letter Bundle

This is a great money saving deal on this bundle of silent letter spelling resources.

Playing the game after the lesson is a great way for the information to sink in.

The lesson cards are grouped the silent letter patterns.

* Silent e is one of the most important ones!

The games can be played as Uno or War, kids love the Bomb card it is wild. It will always win in the war game, BOMB has a silent letter.

This bundle has lesson cards with word lists. Games to play or use as flashcards, and spelling clip cards for a fun way to test students.

Silent gh spelling bundle pure joy teaching
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This is a great money-saving deal on this bundle of silent letter spelling resources.

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You might also like the Final K sound game

Phonics Spelling Games Bundle Decodable Digraphs

Leveled educational intervention for the different structured literacy stages.

Lots of great phonics spelling games in one big bundle.

A fun way to learn spelling rules and reading flashcards in a game-style educational setting.

Great for leveled educational intervention for the different structured literacy stages. Easy to fit into your scope and sequence.

CVC, CVCC, Floss, R-controlled, CVCe, Long a, C+le, Many sounds of y, many spellings of sh, Many silent letters, syllables, vowel teams, many spellings of “ew/oo” and sight words.

Based on many familiar kids’ games: Uno, War, Old Man, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, Rummy, and some editable play cards. You must see, there is so much in this bundle.

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You might also like the tricky Schwa sounds

Long Vowels Spelling Test Clip Card Bundle

Decodable game-style testing ay, ea, ei, e, i, -y, ey, igh, y_e, ie, ign, oa…..and more. Long a, e, i, o.

This is a great way to check on the student’s spelling without them knowing that they are being assessed for spelling. It works well in small groups and it is fun.

There are four sets of cards in this bundle.

You can get them here from TPT.

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Which do I use letter C or the Letter K?

I remind them to listen for the vowels. If it is a, o, u, use c. If it is e or i, use the k.

Do your students ever ask you this question? Is it c or k?

Letter C or Letter K . Reminding the students to listen for the vowel sounds is great to figure it out. If the sound is: a, o, u, the use letter c.

If the vowel sound is: e or i, use the k.

This game is one way to let them read words that have the c and k spelling patterns.

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Many Sounds of the Letter u.

Do you know all the different sounds letter u can make?

This might be a tricky one to teach. Some students that are learning to decode by the traditional phoneme sounds have trouble with words that do not follow the normal sounds. Example words: you, push, pull, put, was, banana.

So, with that in mind. I made up this silly picture and sentence to help them.

Unbelievable the U pushed the super unicorn

The vowel can make lots of different sounds. This sentence and the silly picture is a clever way to remember some of the sounds and different spellings of the Y-oo!

You can find it here.

The letter u can make a shocking amount of sounds. The sounds can be hidden in many different spellings. Example words: the, was, push, super. In the word unicorn, the letter u name and the schwa sound comes from the letter i. Crazy! Right ….

Unbelievable! You pushed the super unicorn

This Super Unicorn Collection can be helpful for teaching and clearing up some of the sounds and spellings by grouping them together in word lists and adding colorful pictures to create mnemonic clues.

Check out my large bundle of Long Vowel Spelling Test Clip Cards.

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Chef vs Magician, Sh Sound Spelling ci, ti, si, Card Games

Pairing up the right lessons with card games has given my struggling readers and spellers a great advantage.

_{How to teach spelling lessons with fun card games?}

Pairing up the right lessons with card games has given my struggling readers and spellers a great advantage.

Education games that students want to play. Over and Over again.

Posters can be used to teach single a lesson or combined into many lessons.

War-style card game Chef VS Magician has colorful images and letters for the many different spellings of /sh/.

The tricky sh sound spelled ci, ti, si, xi, ss, sh, ch, s, c, can now be used as a game. Students love playing card games like War and Uno. These 144 cards were made to highlight the tricky “sh” sounds in words and added a point value to the different spellings. Including the French ch = sh, and letters like c and s, in words like ocean and sugar.

“It is a trick?”

Knowing there is a trick is the best way to avoid being tricked by it. This is a fun play on words. Words like ocean, sure, and sugar all have a “sh” sound that we can not see from the spelling clues.

144-Word cards with color-coded /sh/ (many different spellings of the “sh” sound) with single beginning syllable and ending syllables.

You can find it here on TPT . The are many different ways to play. Use the cards for UNO, War, or flash cards. Printing out multiple sets have been extra helpful for me. I work with many different students at different levels. It is easier for me to have the cards grouped into leveled decks ranging from easy to advanced.

The lesson posters can be cast to the TV or smartboard. I like to keep them all bound up in a booklet, it is handy for working with small groups or tutoring students.

We review the spelling lessons and write a few words from the word lists. Some students like to draw mnemonic pictures for different /sh/spellings. Then we play the card game to put reading into practice.

Level one starts with the main spelling of the sh sound, and explains to the students that these are single-syllable words. The next level can be introducing tricky words like: sure, sugar, and ocean. Or moving on to multiple-syllable words and compound words.

Lesson Booklet Option

Binding up the pages created a valuable handy resource for me.

These mnemonic picture-embedded spelling tips have been very helpful. Especially for the very tricky R-controlled Trigraphs.

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Blue Tongue Spelling Tip CVCC Words

Think of a blue tongue to remind you how to correctly spell the word tongue. They both have the same /ue/ ending.

Teaching with card games.

Spelling tip today.

Think of a blue tongue to remind you how to correctly spell the word tongue. They both have the same /ue/ ending.

The other day we were playing the CVCC Uno card game after our reading group. The word tong, was one of the cards that we took the time to discuss vocabulary and meaning. That brought us to the word tongue and blue, in a roundabout way. One student was thinking the word (tong) might be “tongue.”

They were surprised when I wrote the words tongue and blue on the whiteboard. I underlined the ue and told them to think of the word blue to remind themselves how to spell this tricky word.

There are many teachable moments in these small reading groups. It is pure joy for me to hear them working out new words that they have never read before and discuss their meanings during our games. Teaching the students with flashcard games helps them to sound out new words that they may not find in regular reading passages. When they have confidence in their decoding abilities, then they can stop guessing with the whole word strategy. It is awesome, to hear the shock in their voice when they realize they can read a new word they never knew before.

You can find this CVCC Uno Here. Take a look at the R-Controlled Uno game too.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vowel-Teams-Mnemonic-Booklets-Visual-Aid-Literacy-Spelling-Bundle-Structured-9616850

Here are more of the mnemonic spelling cards.

Full of more picture clues embedded within the letters to help visual learners.

Test your knowledge. How many animals have a blue tongue? Here.

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R-Controlled Clipcards Trigraphs

The five sounds of ear, air, oar, er, are, on these R Controlled clip cards.

Dual-colored spelling clip cards can be found HERE.

Teaching bossy r can be easy to explain until you get to the trigraphs. Then the rules are gone and some students struggle with reading and spelling the homophones like: stair and stare.

These mnemonics were created to provide visual pictures to help students remember and relate to the words. You can find the whole set HERE.

The spelling clip cards have the tricky trigraph highlighted in red letters, with the question, “Sounds like?” printed above the 3 pictures.

This can help students who are struggling with the words that are commonly confused.

The letter /ere/ can make lots of sounds. This is a tricky spelling to teach. It is mostly one of the reasons the students start to struggle with sight words. Even for students who are good at decoding, this is a very tricky thing to understand the r controlled clip cards have helpful mnemonic images for the sound connection.

There are 100 words in the set. Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) is free to join. Follow the links to my shop Pure Joy Teaching and get your download of these R clip cards today.

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