Reading Bear offers practice with letter sounds, diagraphs, blends, syllables, and so much more!

Phonics and Word Attack Practice

Here is a list of activities you can explore at home to build your child's phonics and word attack strategies.

*KABOOM: Write each letter of the alphabet on a popsicle stick. Write the word "KABOOM" on a few of the popsicle sticks. Place all sticks in a cup. Have your child pull out a stick and say the name of the letter and sound. If he/she says it correctly he/she can keep the stick. If he/she pulls out a stick with "KABOOM" he/she has to put all his/her sticks back in the cup and start over.

*Whack-a-Letter: Write each letter on a separate post-it or small piece of paper. Call out a letter name or sound and have your child "smack" the letter with a fly swatter.

*Shaving Cream: Spread shaving cream onto a plastic tray and write the letters and words with your fingers. Have your child say the sounds of the letters or read the words written in shaving cream.

*Read aloud to your child every day. Read and re-read favorite books and nursery rhymes.

*Read a book and find the rhyming words. Great books for this activity are: Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw, Jamberry by Bruce Degen, Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae, and Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney

*Read poems together. Talk about the rhyming words. Make up other words that have the same rhyming pattern. Write them down and talk about what you notice. Write your own rhymes and poems.

*Look at food labels. Have your child name the letters in the names of the products and talk about the sounds each letter or letter combinations make in the words.

*Read and discuss alphabet books. There are many differently themed alphabet books children will love to read and re-read. Make an alphabet book of your own.

*Model for your child what you do when you come to a word that you do not know. Tell your child how he/she can use similar strategies. Bring it to your child’s attention when you see your child using a particular strategy to try.

*When reading to your child, run your fingers under the words you are reading to track the reading and connect the sound to text.

*When sounding out a word, run your fingers under the letters.

*Make a chart of words with the same sound pattern - the same consonant beginning, or the same vowel sound and consonant combinations at the end. Add to the charts as your child encounters new words.

*Many words are alike and can be remembered as a word family. Create lists of rhyming words using patterns such as:-ack, -ail, -ain, -ake, -ick, -ike, -ump, -unk, and so on. Keep a notebook your word families. Play rhyming games with these words.

*Give your child many opportunities to practice skills in easy “decodable” books. Decodable books are books in which the vocabulary is limited to allow for practice of new letter-sound relationships the child is learning. It is better that a book is too easy than too hard when practicing decoding skills.

*Put words with the same beginning or ending sound pattern on index cards and have your child sort and categorize them.

*Use clapping, tapping, marching, naming and/or counting games to help your child discover that some words can be divided into syllables and words may be divided into sounds that are represented by letters.

*Use a small white board or chalkboard for practice. Write a word such as “bat” on the board. Ask your child what the beginning letter is in “bat” (b /b/). Erase the beginning letter and substitute another letter “m”. Have your child read the new word (“mat”). Repeat the process using different beginning or ending sounds.

*Ask your child’s teacher for a high frequency word list. These are words that your child should learn to recognize instantly. Practice these words on flashcards. Make a collection of words your child has learned.

*Purchase a set of magnetic letters. Have your child use the letters to create words on the refrigerator or cookie sheet.

*Pick a base word, such as, "do". Add prefixes and/or suffixes to the word to create a list: redo, undo, doable, and doing. Talk about the meaning of the base word and how it changes as you make new words.

*Encourage your child to try a variety of strategies to unlock unknown words. Try:

• Sound out all you can and identify closed, open, magic e, r-controlled, digraphs, dipthongs, consonant -le, and vowel teams to help identify the sounds in the word.

• Look at the picture and notice everything that is happening

• Skip the word and keep on reading to the end of the sentence.

Go back and ask yourself what would make sense that begins

with that sound?

• Ask yourself:

-Is this a compound word?

-Do I see a root/base word and/or an ending?

-Do I know a rhyming word?

-Is this word a contraction (won’t)?

-Do I see a little word in a big word?

-Is there a nonsense little word in a big word? (con cen trate)

*When your child is stuck on a word, wait a few seconds to give your child a chance to use the different clues. Then suggest a strategy to try.

*When your child makes a mistake, support self-correcting behavior. Self-correcting is a skill good readers use when what they read doesn’t make sense. You might try saying:

• Something wasn’t quite right. Try that again.

• Does that make sense?

• You did a good job working out that word.

• You did make a mistake. Can you find it?

• You are nearly right. Try that again.

• Listen while I read what you read. What’s wrong with this?

(repeat what your child read to you)

• What can you do to help yourself?

*Help your child choose books that are at your child's independent reading level - a book that has few words that will stump your child or need decoding as your child reads. Reading books that are too difficult does not promote reading development. If your child wants to read a book that you know is too difficult for your child to read independently, read it to your child, or read it together.

*Read books “cloze” style. You read most of the text as your child reads along. As you read, leave out predictable words for your child to fill in.

*Make a rhyming book by drawing pictures or cutting out pictures from a magazine.

*Have your child write down his/her own stories and read them back to you.

*Write down directions for an activity or treasure hunt. Have your child be like a detective following the directions. Have your child read the directions to reach the directions goal

*Build the word with letter tiles, play dough, toothpicks, pebbles, alphabet pasta, or anything you can find.

*Word of the day: tape one or two words written on an index card next to the front door, as EVERYONE in the family leaves or enters the house, ask them to touch the word and say it!

*Jump to Read: write the words your child is practicing in chalk outside, spend five to ten minutes a day jumping from word to word and calling them out.

*Word Search: Hide two or three words around the house (written on a post it). Have your child find them. Each day, hide them in a new place.

Some of the ideas above were taken from this website:

https://lipglossandcrayons.com/how-to-practice-sight-words/

Introducing the connection between sounds and letters can be fun. Here is a sample of making all the sounds for the letter a A.