Phonics and Word Work

I use Fundations activities during the beginning of each lesson with my lower level students to build phonemic awareness. Here, you can see me doing a word call and response activity, where students repeat the name, letter sound, and give an example of the letter that we are producing in order to help increase memorization. This helps build letter phonemic awareness and provides students with pneumonic devices to recall letter shapes and sounds.

The second activity here is of my students reviewing their vowel sounds using the vowel chart. In the first video, you can see a higher-level student who has mastered her vowel sounds. In the second video, you can observe a lower level student who needs some instructional support and scaffolding in order to master his sounds. However, after some prompting, he is able to correctly identify each sound. My students are able to build connections to the first activity shown by practicing their verbal letter sounds to build on their understanding of phonics.

Word sorts help higher level students practice letter blends and digraphs as they continue to progress with phonics instruction. After administering diagnostic phonics assessments, I select word sorts that are appropriate for each of my students' individual levels. Students are then able to "level up" once they have completed all of the word sorts for their individual level. Levels include long vowels, short vowels, letter blends, word-endings, etc.

The first video is of me working one on one with a second-grade student with completing a short vowel word sort. The second video is of my third-grade pull-out group who are all on different levels of phonemic awareness as according to their diagnostic assessment. Therefore, one student is working on simple consonants, while my other two students are working on a letter blend word sort. This activity allows me to differentiate instruction in order to meet students at their individual levels.