This unique resource gives classroom reading teachers and specialists hundreds of stimulating hands-on activities for developing children’s knowledge of the alphabet and letter-sound relationships, plus scores of reproducible book and word lists that can be used to tailor almost any of the activities in the book to a specific phonics skill!
Each activity is tested, complete, and ready-to go – geared to involve the child’s senses in the learning experience. It provides all of the details and directions you need to use or adapt it successfully in your own classroom. And many of the activities also include helpful illustrations and/or reproducible activity sheets.
For easy use, all materials are printed in a big 8-1/4" x 11" spiral-bound format that folds flat for photocopying and organized into four sections:
- HANDS-ON PHONICS ACTIVITIES FOR PRE-READERS (Grades K-1) Section 1 is packed with games, puzzles and activities to build letter recognition and phonemic awareness, from A to Z. Tactile activities like Apple Cutout and Totebag Sort support the visual skills needed to identify each letter. Additional activities, such as cooking (party punch), mini-field trips (to a park or pizza parlor), and interviews (with a plumber or painter) support beginning sound knowledge.
- HANDS-ON PHONICS ACTIVITIES FOR EMERGING READERS (Grades 1-2) Section 2 provides a wide range of individual, small group, and whole class activities to introduce, supplement, and reinforce phonics skills. These include sorting and manipulative activities such as Tissue Box Sorts, Word Family Cards and Silent “E” Strips … puzzles and games such as Blending Buddies Card Game and Pick-up Sticks Phonics … as well as many simple activity cards children can use independently.
- HANDS-ON PHONICS ACTIVITIES FOR DEVELOPING READERS (Grades 2-5) Section 3 offers a variety of activities for continuing the teaching of phonics in meaningful contexts to developing readers. Included are many sorting and manipulative activities such as Homonyms, Synonyms, Antonyms Sort and R-Controlled Vowels Word Chain, games like Flick-it Phonics Fun and Compound Relay, and independent activity cards for practice in skills such as possessives and the vowel digraph oo.
- LISTS FOR DEVELOPING HANDS-ON PHONICS ACTIVITIES Section 4 includes over 85 book and word lists for making your own activities to meet the needs of your students. The book lists range from alphabet books for pre-readers to vowel and consonant awareness books. The word lists cover initial and final consonant sounds and blends, silent and variant consonant sounds, short and long vowels, r-controlled vowels, word families, rhyming words, compound words, prefixes, suffixes, homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms.
