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/.
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.
Twenty spelling words, with images. Four at a time with a countdown clock. Students can write their answer and then check their answers at the end of the test.
Students like to play this game. I choose skills or words that they need to practice. Great for handwriting practice, cvc words, sight words, or tricky vowel sounds.
Create a reusable whiteboard to practice handwriting and spelling.
Tic-Tac-Toe was one of the first games I learned to use as a tool, to help teach my preschool students. Simple x’s & o’s, and the spatial awareness of drawing the lines. The kids think of it as a game and are more willing to pick up a pencil or crayon if it feels fun.
White Board with Tape Lines.
Using electrical tape has created something reusable. I was surprised at how much the kids loved erasing the words, and the lines stayed. It was like magic to them. They wipe the letters off and rush to play again. Hooray!
Adding the lines has given new life to this old scratched-up whiteboard.
Cutting the Tape
The original thickness of the electrical tape is wide. Making the lines thinner, by cutting with scissors was too hard. Using an Xacto made it easier to cut.
Carefully cut away from yourself.
Cutting a straight line without a guide was too hard. Don’t try it! I found a plastic milk cap that was a nice thickness. With the electrical tape flat on the table, I could keep the Xacto knife flat on the cap. Rotate the tape slowly and cut the tape with a little bit of pressure to cut the tape. Be sure to cut away from your body.
Pure Joy Teaching
Try CVC words.
CVC words are great for this game. After we play the Uno CVC game, I will choose some words they need to practice writing.
Using the tic-tac-toe game is great for practicing sight words. Try capital letters and lowercase letters. Especially in words like the letter /i/ (It, If, Is, In) Those are good words to work on. Remind the students to sound out the word as they write it.
Sometimes we practice just the letters b, and d. This helps with letter reversals.
Have you heard students struggling to decode words with the suffix -ed? I have! The suffix -ed has 3 different sounds. This game is a fun way to learn them.
Spelling Patterns for the -ed Sounds
Have you heard students struggling to decode words with the suffix -ed? I have!
The suffix -ed, can be tricky
Trying to explain the different sounds, spelling patterns, and irregular verb tenses can be overwhelming sometimes. This war-style card game can be used to tackle all those things in three different ways. Ed said, Ed says, and Ed spells are 3 fun, engaging ways to play with suffixes, and tenses while learning at the same time.
The word hopped can be very hard for students sometimes.
Ed the elephant can not say this name, but he can make 3 different sounds “d, id, t.”
The suffix -ed has some very predictable patterns and those patterns each have a different point value in the game. The irregular verbs like run and ran are so tricky so I have added them into another game called Ed Says? The irregular verbs have the highest number of points in this game.
The third game is called Ed Spells. This game has point values for the many different spelling patterns of the word that have the suffix -ed added to them.
Suffix -ed spelling patterns are +ed, double consonant, drop e, & change the y to /i/ +ed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
