phonics Archives - Pure Joy Teaching

How to Teach the Schwa Heart Words

Do you need help understanding how to teach the SCHWA Spelling pattern?

Surprise! There are a few tricks to this spelling pattern that can make it easier to teach and fun for students to learn.

Do you need help understanding how to teach the SCHWA Spelling pattern?

Surprise! There are a few tricks to this spelling pattern that can make it easier to teach and fun for students to learn.

Kids love to play games. This Schwa UNO-style game has a very predictable sound pattern. All the words have at least one short /u/ sound. It is not just the final letter /a/ that can make the schwa sound as in: pizza, tuna, and comma.

The truth is any of the vowels can make the schwa sound. So be on the lookout and listen for all the vowel patterns in this game. Vowels: a, e, i, & o, might be making the short /u/ sound.

Letter a

was
what
grandma
about

The vowel /a/ might make the schwa sound, it can be in any position in a word. It may depend on your country, region, or dialect of English. It is often called the lazy /a/ sound. The open-mouth schwa sound is easier to say.

Letter e

The vowel /e/ may be the first schwa sound word that trips up the young student decoder. Letters /th/ are a digraph that they might know, but then the letter /e/ changes and is now making the schwa sound. In the game, there are both capital and lowercase cards for /the/.

Letter o

love
other
done
some
of

The vowel /o/ makes the schwa sound more often than you might think. There is a very predictable spelling pattern for some of the words. When the vowel letter /o/ is followed by: v, m, n, or th, it might make the schwa sound.

v, m, n, th

Examples are these words: oven, love, glove, and shovel.

some, come, done, none, money, other, mother, bother.

The word /of/ is a true heart word. The letters: /o/ and /f/ are both making a different sound.

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Free Bread & Butter Blends Download

Free Consonant Blend Cards. Bread and butter samples for word builder play-based learning.

Bread and Butter Sandwich Blends are a great addition to the CVC word builder.

Play-based word builder fun with sandwich letters. CVC Cheese Sandwiches are a good place to start. Use consonant letters and cheese vowels to build consonant-vowel-consonant patterns. Students can learn the imports of vowels by starting with two consonant bread letters that can not make a real word without putting a cheese vowel in the middle.

Some people like to add butter to the bread and that is where the blends come from. Two consonant letters make up a consonant blend. Sample this with a free download here.

Or add the Vowel Teams with CVVC peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Let students order sandwiches from the word list menus. Consonant bread letters with the best team-up peanut butter and jelly vowels.

CVC builder Hot dogs dramatic play easy booklet

Blending Board Letter Storage Idea

The magazine file holders are a perfect fit for my shelf. They are within reach of my reading table. The boards slide right in. They are big enough to fit smaller cookie sheets too.

A Magazine Storage File, Makes a Great Divider on My Literacy Shelf.

Easy Way to Store the Different Letter Boards

There are many reasons why I took the time to create extra blending broads. Then, I needed a way to store all the extra boards. The magazine file holders are a perfect fit for my shelf. They are within reach of my reading table. The boards slide right in. They are big enough to fit smaller cookie sheets too.

Clear L-Pocket Covers

Each whiteboard is covered with a clear plastic L pocket before it is put on the shelf. We call it the clear blanket. The younger kids say, “Time for the letters to go night-night”. After they put all the letters back in place, they slip each whiteboard into the pocket. Making sure the open end is at the top and the folder end is at the bottom. So, no letter tiles will escape.

The cookies nest together very nicely, we usually don’t cover them.

Leveled Letter Groups

UFli is great. They have wide range of free things in the toolbox. The Satpim order is not taught in the UFLi scope and sequence, but the decodable books that were available at my school were the Satpim style. So, I adapted some of my blending boards to have less letters. This was helpful for a few reasons.

Fewer letters to start with.
Less to clean up or lose.
Less distraction on the blending board.
Costs less – fewer magnets needed.
Sorted pre-made boards for differentiated invention groups.

Blending Without Tears

Some students can’t handle all 26 letters at once. One boy started to cry. He was new to group and he did not have all his sounds yet. When we switched to less letters it was easier for him to keep up.

The result was more organized system that flowed will with the scope and sequence of each group.

Lines Under the Letters

I also added lines under the letters. To help aid the students with the letter reversal issues. b, d, p, q, n, u, m, w. All these letters were creating problems. Some students said things like, “I have two m’s.” I had to admit without the bottom line as reference it did look like she had two letter m’s.

Extra Letters

It has proven to be helpful to have a box of extra letters near by. With out fail some how the letters get misplaced. This large shorting box has been very handy.

Vowel Importance – Red Letters

Sometimes we need to do a little extra vowel pratice. These cvc word builder sheets let student put the missing vowel sound in the word next to the picture. The self-checking flap help it to feel more like a game.

Mnemonic Letter Tiles

Some struggling reader need little bit of extra phonemic support with the letter sounds. It is another way to scafold the learning.

CVC Uno game for Emergent Readers

Heart Words Display Frame

The Sound Wall Frame and Heart Words were a big hit with my students. We focused on the short /o/ sound, as in “all.” One of my students drew two L’s hugging each other, the letter /a/ is thought it was so cute, and she made the /o/ sound, “ŏ.”

You can use letter pictures to teach sounds and spelling patterns.

Sound Wall Frame and Heart Words were a big hit. Skill was Short /o/ as in all.

I created a simple and versatile sound wall to display on my classroom wall, right next to my reading table. As part of my reading intervention lessons, students are encouraged to create visual images to help them remember the skills we are working on.

Sound Wall Frame for Intervention

Add some silliness to the sight words. I have a collection of sight words that have a silly snake image. I tell the students that it is a sleepy snake. He falls asleep and starts to snore. He makes the “zzzzz.” sound.

This snoring snake would be a cute one to draw for the Sound Wall Frame.

Words in this list include- is, his, was, has.

Other Ways to Play with Heart Words

Tic Tac Toe Board with Electrical Tape

Sound Wall Frame for Intervention

A Simple Black Frame Has Inspired Students to Draw Decodable Sounds.

Sound Wall frame . Letter g Pure Joy Teaching — Sound Wall Frame. Letter g Pure Joy Teaching

Art has always been my first love, and it is a great way for students to make sound connections to letters, digraphs, spelling patterns, and heart words.

Any space can easily be used for this type of visual-sound encouragement.

I used a lightweight plastic frame with no glass and painted it black. I also colored the tacks black with a large permanent marker so that they were hidden. Now, the focus is on the art and the sounds.

Easy Step to Create a Sound Wall

Cut the background fabric a little larger than the frame opening.
Pin or staple the fabric to the wall.
Place large black tacks in the corner of the frame opening. Let the frame hang on the tacks inside the top two corners.
Let students draw pictures inside the letters to help them make sound connections. (Try to encourage using the letter shapes to make sound links to relatable words. Example /ee/ bee – might be two bumble bees.)
Extra tacks are there for students to hang their art.
Or display the main skill that you are working on for the day.

Lowercase letter g for girl, with braided long hair hanging down.

Some of my younger ESL students were confusing the hard and soft letter g sounds. This is actually very common because of the letter name influence.

The name of the letter G, does have a soft “j” sound and they can instantly relate the name and sound together. I like to correct them by reminding them that they are correct. Sometimes the letter G, does make the “j” sound but it also has a tricky first sound and that is the hard /g/ as in girl.

I created a sample drawing for them, where my girl had brown braided hair flowing down in the shape of a lowercase “g.” The other girls wanted to draw their own versions, adding colored hair, flowers, and crowns. We kept the pictures displayed for a while, and it actually helped some of the other intervention groups who were facing the same difficulty with the “g” sound.

If you don’t want to hand draw all the letters for the students you can print them out. It is very handy to have them ready ahead of time and add a word list on the back to inspire the art. This is my set for Long E.

These pre-made cards can be used to inspire the students with images that relate to the sounds that the letters make.

ch, wh, sh, Teaching Trick Digraphs

What to do with the pictures after they draw them?

After the lesson is over, I leave the pictures up for a while. Sometimes I have to take them down for the next group and replace them the next day. It depends on your classroom situation. I teach reading invention, in seven different groups a day.

Some of the groups began creating a sound notebook, gluing the pictures into it. This was a great way to keep the images and lessons organized together. If you think this would be helpful, I have a link to that resource.

two sounds of long u — vowel team digraph cards

Find this on TPT mnemonic images for sounds and spelling patterns.

I Spy Worksheets

Blending two-letter words can be easier for students when the second letter is a stop sound. Teaching students to blend two sounds is a good start for emergent readers are they build up to CVC words.

For Letters and words

I hear with my little ear, I spy with my little eye…….

This is a great way to make learning fun. Capital I and lowercase /i/.
Words ‘it’ and ‘It’
is and Is
Letters a, A
Letters b, B
h, n
h, b
Fall letters g, p, y
Words that make ‘z’ sounds is, his,
Sounds of b, d,

Handwriting Sheets for

h,b,
r, n,
n, p,
c, a,
a, d,
a, g,

Games

Tic-Tac-Toe

Worksheets here on TPT

Vowel Consonant Blending

Blending is hard for some students. They may know all the letter sounds insolation but struggle to blend them in CVC words. This resource is designed to help those struggling blenders. VC blending is just two letters. Vowel + Consonant with picture mnemonics to help students succeed.

CVC builder Hot dogs dramatic play easy booklet

Long A Board Game Idea

Use the Spelling Patterns ai, ay, a-e, eigh to Make a Game.

Teaching can be fun and flexible with games that help students review and repeat the spelling patterns that they just learned.

I like to use card games after every reading grouping. My goal is to have a game for every spelling pattern or spelling rule.

Card games are very flexible, they can be put into different groups that progressively get harder, just by removing or adding some words as they progress. The cards can be used as flashcards for reading practice or my new idea is to use the cards to move around the game board.

This game board is a great match to the long /a/ card game. The flashcards can be used to move players along the path to the end, instead of using a die.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Long-a-Card-Game-Crazy-8-with-Mnemonic-vowel-teams-and-Homophones-spellings-7622969

Long Vowels Spelling Test Clip Card Bundle

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Flossy Uno Decodable Reading Game

This specially designed Flossy Uno-style game can help students practice reading words that end with ff, ll, ss, zz, and recognize the irregular and regular spelling patterns of /ll/, while having lots of fun.

How to Teach Floss Ending Blends with Color-Coded Short Vowel Flashcards

Teaching the flossy spelling pattern seems simple, but is it? NO.

Teaching the floss spelling pattern is not an easy thing to do. Let’s unpack this. First rule number one, when a one-syllable word ends in f, l, or s, double that final f, l, or, s.

Easy! Got it. Then what about pal, gal, Sal, roll, poll?

Oops! It is not a rule, it is a predictable spelling pattern with some exceptions.

I had to look that up. It turns out pal, gal, Sal are non-formal words. It might be better to call this a spelling pattern and not a rule.

Roll and poll are words that sound like long vowels and then there is the word doll that sounds like a short vowel. This now seems harder to teach to emergent readers. We need to be careful not to call this a rule. Floss is more like a short vowel indicator. In the Uno game, these long and short vowel words are different colors to help recognize and teach the pattern.

What about teaching the -all word family?

The word /all/. The letter /a/ is not saying “ah” like in cat or pal. The vowel a has changed to the short ŏ sound. Like in the word boss. That is tricky for some students to decode. In the Floss Uno game, the /all/ cards are dual-colored to help highlight the spelling pattern.

The red-colored cards in the game all make the short ă sound. The orange-colored cards all make the short ŏ sound. The tricky ‘all’ word family has dual colored cards, the letter a (red) making the short ŏ sound (orange). This helps create a color link to the sound patterns.

There are many ways to sort these cards to play different levels of the game. Take a look at the cards here.

The long o words like poll, roll, troll, have a dark blue color, instead of orange. This set also has a large collection of pseudowords. A good mix of digraphs, trigraphs, and floss endings.

You may all like this game. CVCC ending blends card game.

Phonics Spelling Games Bundle Decodable Digraphs

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CVC Uno game for Emergent Readers

CVC consonant vowel consonant. This is my first and most important go-to game for new students. They love playing it, mostly because they start to feel successful at reading new words that they did not know they could read.

CVC Uno game is made up of decodable short vowel phoneme cards, an easy-sound sorting games can be played to help reinforce the short vowel sounds.

CVC Uno consonant vowel consonant. This is my first and most important that I play with my students. It is an easy go-to game for new students who need some short vowel support. They love playing it, mostly because they start to feel successful at reading new words that they did not know they could read.

It has all the great wildcards that Uno should have, skips, wilds, draw 2, draw 4, but there are no reverse cards. ( Trust me that is a bonus! – reverse cards cause arguments )

226 words, all decodable color-coded with red vowels and black consonants.

Playing Cards are grouped by colors

a e i o u / a-red, e-yellow, i -purple, o-orange, u-blue

This is a digital item, so you can print more than one set. I like to have 2 sets. One that is sorted, and one that is complete. Some students are working on vowel sound distinction. Hearing the difference between short e and short i. For those students, we play the game with just e,i, words. Other many struggle with the short vowels a and u. It is nice to have extra sets on hand to quickly support small groups and tutoring.

If you are using any of the satpin decodable books you may want to start with the short a and i cards, and then build up the other vowels. Reading words in isolation without the distractions of pictures is a good way to help students focus on the letter sounds. Keep those eyes on the words for successful decoding.

Print multiple sets for easy-level transitions

I like to keep one set shorted by the short vowel sounds for emergencies.

Having an extra card set ready makes this a fast and easy resource to grab when I want a quick game to help support students. If I notice that a student is stumbling over the same short vowel sound, I will pull out this game and choose the short vowel that the student needs to review. After reading a few words as flashcards, the students often start to recognize that the middle sound is the same. Some students start to discover the word families on their own. It is great! I love it when that happens naturally.

Next, in the scope and sequence of decodable reading games, you might like the r-controlled uno. Many of my students are shocked to hear themselves reading words that they said were too hard. I love it.

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R-Controlled Uno Game

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 in 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.

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

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