Phonics review in 2 classes

[TeePee]

Hi everyone,

I just found out from my co teacher that my school wants me to do a quick phonics review for my low level students only.  They want me to only spend 2 classes (45 minutes each).
Any suggestion and games would be a great help.

[sbelleball]

starfall.com does wonders!

[pickle]

I just finished doing two weeks of camp with phonics, and an additional week of phonics classes. Have you taught them phonics before? It was the first time with my students, so it was a little slow going. 

I used some alphabet cards to elicit the sounds and had everyone practice until most students could pronounce it correctly. I explained the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds and paired most letters accordingly (t and d, p and b, f and v...). For the vowels, I just taught the long and short vowel sounds to avoid too much confusion.

I taught the younger kids a simple phonics chant, which was a little hard for them even though I slowed it down from the original speed. I used a ppt with pictures to elicit the target words. (The chant goes "A says a, a, apple! B says b, b, bear.")

I also used my teacher's small whiteboards for a writing race. For the lower students, I just said one sound so each group had to write the correct letter and hold the whiteboard up. For the classes that had a good grasp of the individual sounds, I told them three-letter words they definitely didn't know, so they could sound it out. (Be sure to use sounds with obvious spelling, like hag. When I said jot, a lot of kids wrote got and it seemed unfair to tell them no for that one.) I gave 3 points to the fastest group, 2 to the second, and 1 to the last. The kids really enjoy this, even when it's difficult.

You can also play the pyramid game. It looks like this:
                            pin
                    tip             tap
            liver          river            liver
    dad           tad            dad            tad
      1              2               3               4
and usually continues until you have 10 lines. It's best to use minimal pairs, unless your students are really low level. Again, you can do this with single letters. Put some arrows between the words to clarify. You should tell the students one word from each level, and they should trace the arrows until they get to a number. If they did everything right, they will find the right number. You can also get volunteers to read for their classmates. It's really rewarding for them if a lot of other students understood them well enough to get to the right answer. Remember to use only two choices per line, or they can get the right number simply by choosing the correct last answer.

I also made a worksheet with clipart that looks something like this:
A  (ant)  (foot)  (egg)  (apple)  (cat)
They have to say each word and circle the ones that have the 'a' sound. If your students can, you can include sounds in the middle of the word, like cat.

Sorry, I left my USB stick at home today so I can't post my files yet. I'll attach them when I get home tonight.

Good luck!

[Paul]

I have dominoes sets for stressed and unstressed vowels. They play in groups according to dominoes rules: personally I mixed the sets on pages 2 and 3 of the file, using the wildcard as a way to mesh the two together.

Technically 4th grade elementary stuff but in practice often completely skipped over: I used these up to 6th grade on an English kyampeu. File is a PPT but just because it was the most user friendly software I had lying about for the job, its designed for printing. Prep work to make a set is an utter pain in the butt though: print the dominoes sheets themselves on A4 white paper and backing number patterns on A4 coloured paper, then paste both on either sides of some thinnish card and slice them up. At least that way its easy to collect sets up afterwards (match colour and number backing and that's a set). You could improve the activity to make it trickier by adding more different phonics index words: I was lazy. Good thing is that even if the students procrastinate and just work in a group to arrange the dominoes, they're still thinking about short vs stressed vowels to do so. Mwahaha.

Honestly, might be middle school, but if these are 1st years you could use the genki english short vowel / hard consonant review song. Explain to them that its useful and genuinely ask them to forgive the kiddy-ness of it.

Theres a similar card game (and a tonne of handy phonics posters, even excluding the one or two inappropriate for teaching US English) up on adrianbruce.com I found when searching for English kyampeu phonics stuff.

For all phonics stuff I impose a convention: uppercase implies the letter name and lowercase the letter sound. Clear this up with them first thing and explain that phonics are the building blocks of most words and it keeps them from getting confused with "why is that a 'l', not an 'ell'?" type questions. Be careful with downloading stuff without checking. A lot of phonics gear I've seen online mixes stuff like the "th" in this with the "th" in thanks, which, without getting technically confuses the heck out of the students if brushed over as the "same". Same goes for even innocuous things like using "whale" as an example of "w" in watch: Koreans are much better attuned to aspiration so that "wh" is different.

[letsgoteacher]

I did 20 minutes every day with my low level elementary winter camp kids.  I have some small alphabet cards that I gave to each group of 3-4 students which we used to elicite the different sounds and spell out words I gave them.  Then used some worksheets from this site:

http://bogglesworldesl.com/phonics.htm

They seemed to really get the idea and enjoy the activites.

[pickle]

It looks like I can't attach all the files here, so I'll try in multiple posts. I am including a ppt, which goes with the chant. There's a simple jeopardy game. For the first two categories I say a sound or word and they have to tell me the letter or missing letter. There are also the phonics practice sheets I used for camp. Most are double sided, but one has only one side because I did board races for that day's game. When they are writing, I made them say the appropriate sound each time they write the letter.


I hope this helps!

[pickle]

And the sound file.

[TeePee]

Thank you all! I have never taught phonics and I feel a lot more confident about how my class will go.  You guys are awesome!
-T

[lucysong]

It is very important to teach phonics for our students. But there is no good materials to teach. your phonics chant is good for me. i want to teach my lower level students.

[hanshin101]

starfall is a site (for elementary tho)

[MattHammond]

The following is a great site. I signed my daughter for a year for about $60. This kind of site should be used in the schools.

http://readingeggs.com.au/