Work, Work, Working With Words!
   Since our mid-year tests are over, we are working on building our strengths in areas that need improvement before the end of the year tests.
    On the TPRI (The Primary Reading Inventory), many children are still developing their graphophonemic skills.
   With this in mind, I wanted to create activities to meet those specific needs. The activities needed to be hands on, needed to scaffold their learning and allow practice in both reading and writing. I took it one step further and based the  activities on high frequency words.
   This is what I came up with and it’s working so well that they are wanting to know when they can move to mats F and up. (I’ve only made A-E!!)   Here’s what it looks like.

  The picture to the right is Mat B. The student starts with placing a letter or group of letters in the first column. Next, they read the word they have formed. Then they add another letter or group of letters and read the new word. When they finish, they write the word. In my small groups, they also have to make a complete sentence (orally) using the new word. Next week we will add writing a sentence with the new word.

   Decoding is linking sounds to the printed letters, blending them together, and saying the whole word. Decoding strategies help children think as they learn to read. Encoding is translating speech sounds into the letters that represent those sounds.

 “Using letters to manipulate phonemes helps children make the transfer to reading and writing.” (National Reading Panel, 2000, pp. 2- 33.)
   

    Physically writing a letter provides kinesthetic reinforcement to help children remember letters and sounds.

    Stay tuned for more updates! To see this product in our TpT store, click on the picture below.