I wanted to help my students practice listening for the difference between long and short vowel sounds, as well as listening for nasal blends. Being aware of the vowel sound is an important component to correct spelling, and this exercise is great practice for vowel awareness. You will need colored … Continue reading >
Keep those Silly Bull parts handy heading into the Review Words drill. When a student misses a word, you can ask them to “check the head” (or body or tail), or have them point to and tell you what each of the head, body and tail parts say. If they … Continue reading >
You may not think of review words as a place in the lesson where you can work on anything other than practice sounding out words, but by asking questions about the words they have just read, you can sneak in some comprehension and additional phonemic awareness practice as well! For … Continue reading >
You don’t always have to read a list of words off a sheet of paper to do the review words section of a lesson. Sometimes just changing up the format helps make a drill feel different, and any time students can pick up and handle something off the page it … Continue reading >
When students are reading from a list of review words, it is tempting to give a verbal response or even a nod after each word is read. However, you should try to minimize this during the drill. You don’t want your student looking to you for confirmation before they will go on to the next word. Or worse, trying out different pronunciations until they get you to indicate they hit on the right one.
If a student does give more than one response on a word (ie, rat/rate), ask “which one is it” and have them explain why to make sure they aren’t just guessing both ways.
In the review words section, consider including words that the student will encounter in their reading later in the lesson. You don’t want any of the lesson’s new concepts to appear here, but it may be helpful when they get to the reading if they’ve had a chance to already practice some of the words.
