October 08, 2011

Phonics and Word Study

I've been so busy learning the ins and outs of second grade. I never knew how much a second grade teacher transforms students into readers. Much props to all you hard core second grade teachers. I have to admit I thought all the "magic" happened in first grade.

Unfortunately a LOT of my students are not fluent readers. This year I'm really having to teach basic phonics to my students because I know that the brain works with identifying patterns. So by teaching kids to identify phonics patterns, they retain more words.

I was so inspired by Sarah Cooley's Bossy e, that I started making my phonics skills into stories. This is so working for me because the brain also works well with information presented in stories.

So far we've covered four phonics/spelling patterns:

1) Consonant Diagraphs (Amazing H)

2) CVCe (Bully E)

3) Complex Consonants (Letter Twins/Letter Helpers)
4) R Controlled vowels (Royally Bossy R)
Click on the pictures to get the pdf file...
Have a great Columbus Day!