Sound Right - Phonics for Kids

Sight words, also called high frequency words, are the words that appear with the highest frequency in written text. They account for up to #75% of the used in early reader's .

They are called “sight” words because the goal is for a to these words instantly, at first sight. These words have to be because them is really difficult.
E.g. the, who, are, you, she, my, what, that etc

Since these words have to be by heart, I use alot of different to make children learn these words. I take 3 to 4 words at a time.
-Starting with visuals, tapping of fingers, learn the spellings, writing words in the air.
- Finding the sight word worksheet
- Writing sight word in coloured sand
- Using letter stamps to write the word
- Colouring the sight words with the respective colour given for each
- Making them read sentences filled with sight words.

Seeing sight words regularly helps memorize it and makes them .

Teaching sounds

Once the have begun to understand , I tell them that in addition to the consonants there are 5 vowels that have special sounds, sometimes even more than one sound.
Starting with the basic vowel where they are made to the names of each vowel, then its followed by so they remember all the 5 vowels by heart.
Once totally thorough with the 5 vowels, I make them the of each vowel separately.
This helps them understand that all have vowels in them and a great practice for CVC words. Also helps in improving their !

= 😀♥️

Decoding of CVC (3 letter) words - and .

Once the know few and their , I start to them to and simple (consonant - vowel - consonant). Skills important to words are segmenting and blending.

Segmenting is separating each letter sound in a word.
E.g. when given the word ‘wed’ the can correctly break it apart as w-e-d.

Conversely, blending is combining letter sounds together to make a word.
E.g. “Can you tell me what this word says, s-a-t?” and child correctly says, “sat”. De-coding of words can get for children in the beginning hence making them through can make difficult things settle in easy.

Games I make children to enhance their of segmenting and blending:

1. Give them with words on it, initially i tell them the word (once they get fimilar, I ask them to read the word independently) then ask them to separately say each letter sound of the word. Once they get each sound then put the letter blocks on top of the given word.
2. Give them sticks with letters written on it. Show them a , they name the picture, the sounds of the given word. Sometimes I put 3 letters next to each other, they say the sounds, combine all the sounds together and say the word loud.
3. I create a path and put paper cups with letters written on it along the path. Show them a picture, they say the name, segment the sounds which helps them to know which letters form the word then they have to hop and get those letters to make the word.

Children playing these games and don't even realise they are actually how to read.

Letter Formation Activities

When a has poor fine motor skills, pencil-and-paper can be tiring and frustrating, which takes away the ability to really the correct .

So when I work on letter formations, I do not use paper - pencil at all !!
My goal in helping form their letters correctly is to help them to do it automatically, and to free their brains up for higher level thinking skills.

This is why I feel it is important to correct letter formations from the very beginning. Once a child can write letters correctly, automatically, without thinking about them, he will be able to focus more on actual !

First, I remind the children that they have write in a left to right direction, just like .
All letters should start at the top of the line and sit on the bottom of the line. A few letters will go down below the line, depending on their formation.

Since we don't use pencils I make them do activities like :

1. Give them and ask them to form letters with their index finger in the correct order of letter formation.
E.g. Capital A, start from the top take a diagonal line down, then again go up, touching the starting point take another diagonal line down and join both with a sleeping line.
I had a new student struggling with correct letter formation on paper, I showed him the same on coloured sand and asked him to repeat, he did it wonderfully. Immediately i gave him his paper again and he could write the same letter he was initially struggling to write.

2. Give them and ask them to form the letters. First make small balls then roll into snakes and then form the letters.

3. Make the children imaginary letters in the air in big font.

4. Give them letter laminated sheet. They are helpful for children to with their fingers, or to use with write-on-wipe-off markers.

to form letters correctly forms a big part of efficient and hence should be taught in a systematic manner.

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A blend is a group of in which letter represents an such as the b-l sound blend in bloom or the f-r sound blend in frog, a digraph represents only one single sound.

Most of the blends are made up of consonants. The most common beginning consonant blends include: bl, br, cl, cr, dr, fr, tr, fl, gl, gr, pl, pr, sl, sm, sp and st. Blends can also occur at the end of words as in the word “last”. There are also blends which contain three consonants. Common three consonant blends include: str, spl, and spr.

The and first ones to learn are the which begin words.

While introducing blends to I tell them that they are going to do a kind of maths…blending maths.
I teach blends in an form like this:

/b/+ /l/ = /bl/

/d/ + /r/ = /dr/

/s/ + /p/ = /sp/

E.g. I aloud the first equation, running the /b/ and the /l/ together smoothly and slowly at the end. While saying the equation I say the sounds of the letters, not their names. For the sound of letter 'L', I tell children to put the tongue up and rest it behind the front teeth. This stops them from saying 'luh' for /l/.
Then I ask the children to say it and make them repeat till they are comfortable with the blend sounds.

By blending consonants in this children will become aware of the individual letters in each blend. This is important as it will help them later with and make a lot .
Since blends are so for children, I make them do a lot of activities. Sharing pictures of 3 different done in class to make children thorough with blends.

What are ?
Digraphs are two which work together to make a single like 'sh' in shell or fish. A digraph can be made up of or .

Consonant digraphs like sh, ch, th, wh, ph are easier compared to vowel digraphs and hence I choose to the common consonant digraphs first.
Vowel consonants include the letter pairs like ai, ay, ee, ea, ie, ei, oo, ou, ow, oe, oo, ue, ey, ay, oy, oi, au, aw.

When children learn that they can find digraphs in words, they are able to much more quickly which really helps their and of new and unfamiliar .

Posting a of how I introduce digraphs in my class.
So first I say each letter sound separately and then join the 2 sounds together to form the third sound.
For e.g. /s/ & /h/ together make the sound /sh/.
I make the children repeat these sounds till they know them perfectly. I believe in adding alot of to make learning more easy.

Then I make them a in which each page has one digraph sound and many pictures. The children have to name each picture and try hearing if it has the respective digraph sound, if yes then put a chip on it.
For e.g. on the page of digraph 'sh' there are pictures of Chair, Shovel, Sheep, Shoe, Chicken, Shirt, Chain, Shell. The children have to put chips on all the 'sh' featured pictures.
Children playing this game and all the new sounds !

The best way to help with is through fun activities.
Letter recognition activities refer to the ability to visually recognise letters of the alphabet through hands-on learning.
This includes the ability to name each letter, the and and to distinguish between similar looking letters, like C/G, M/W, d/b and p/q.

Posting a picture of one of the activities done at our . This activity is mainly to help children learn the lower case and connect them with their corresponding upper case.

Hey !! Today I'm sharing few on the go tips, to help your child get fimiliar with words.
for all the games - let the rhyming words get as as possible !

1. Play the game, start with your child's name (they relate the most to it). Ask him to say rhyming words of his own name. Then name things in the house and ask him to say its rhyming words.
E.g. Ball - tall
Shirt - dirt
Pear - fair
Fan - tan
You can even play this game with your child when at the supermarket, visit to the doctor, on a holiday, basically everywhere !

2. Say three words to your child. He gives a thumbs up if the words . If not, it’s thumbs down.

3. Make a rhyming . Say a word, take turns naming a word that rhymes. When you run out of words or an incorrect word is given, the chain is broken. Start a new chain.

Children think it's when it gets to , nonsense words and hence enjoy playing such games.
Do try these out !

In continuation to my previous post, https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=254949891907157&id=244885422913604 on 'Why is important' and what rhyming I do in my class, today I'm sharing two more activities enjoy doing.

Activity 1 - I can rhyme !
It's a in which the children roll the dice, move forward those number of spaces, name the picture they land on and say a word that rhymes with it. Whoever gets to the end first, wins !
that the goal of this game is to test rhyming ability, not vocabulary. So nonsense words are just fine!
When we played this game, the children were having a good with all rhyming words they came up with.

Activity 2 - Rhyming
Children are given picture cards, they see the picture, name it, chose the rhyming picture from the 3 options given and clips it.
E.g - In the picture card of , the child clips the picture of .