Making words, a great phonics lesson for learning to read

Hello! Future Ticia here, I first published this in 2009 when my kids were tiny! They are no longer tiny, but the lessons in here are still true. This was an activity I did when I was teaching first grade in public school, and I transitioned it to our reading lessons at home. We started this in our homeschool preschool but started in earnest in kindergarten. I now return you to 2009 Ticia and making words.

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Let’s start making words

Here’s one of the big things I do with my kids to work on their reading. This is mostly aimed at the boys, but I include Princess for her to catch as much as she can that’s thrown at her.

I use several different materials, but the activity is mostly the same. Here’s what we’ve used:

post-it notes, write a letter on each post-it.

 

Fridge Phonics letters– I have two sets of these, one I inherited and one I bought. I love this, if you don’t have it, buy it. I’ve actually thought about ordering the supplement set of lower-case letters.

See and Spell puzzle– the only annoying thing about this set is it only includes letters necessary for the words you make with it. So, it doesn’t have the more obscure letters, that and since it’s a favorite of the kids the letters sometimes walk off…..

I also use some letters cut out from a workbook, oh and this set:

 

How the making words lesson works

Here’s how it works. I give them roughly 5 letters: a, m, n, s, t. Then I’ll call out the words and sound them out. They make the words with the letters I gave them. Once they get the word right if they can do it fairly quickly I’ll give them a button for the end of the week reward.

And today for a special occasion, because it looks like snow we used shaving cream.

Before you think I’m totally nuts there’s a lot of benefits to using shaving cream.

Why use shaving cream in your phonics lesson

1. It’s a great sensory experience.

2. It gives them practice writing their letters as well as hearing the sounds.

3. It cleans the table. That’s the secret teachers learn about shaving cream. It can clean almost anything off a desk. It doesn’t work quite as well on my kitchen table, but it still gets off most bad stains and other problems.

And of course, when we’re all done with the shaving cream I wipe down the table and send them to the bathtub, no touching anything before you get there.

Which didn’t quite work this time……

Learn more about this with Making Words, which I think is the book I first learned about this from, it’s a different cover, so I’m not 100% sure.

More early learning fun!

• Nature Study for Preschoolers
• Use a KWL chart for reading
• How does chromatography work
• 5 senses activities for kindergarten
• What happens to my shadow as the sun moves?