Category: Phonics Skills

Bossy R

In the sequence followed for learning to read by the Phonics Pow Toolkit, the syllable type learned after Open & Closed Syllables and Silent e is Bossy R.

Bossy R can change CAT into CART! Bossy R likes to be in charge, that is just how they roll. An R behind any vowel changes the sound.

The bird ate corn in the barn. It was her turn. Notice that ER, IR, and UR all have the same sound.

WATCH videos and PLAY online games at the Bossy R tutorial at Wakelet. WATCH Bossy R playlist at PhonicsPow Youtube Channel

Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. Learn more at The End of Flash. 

LISTEN and play Bossy R words at Quizlet

SORT Bossy R flashcards from Lanternfish ESL with a: Bossy R Handout from mes-english.com as a sort mat.

READ Bossy R sentences from stickyball.net.

READ the book: “Bert’s Super Circus” by Lisa Charlesworth (Scholastic Phonics Tales)

PLAY Printable Go Fish game from themeasuredmom (6 pages, 9 per page, color)

birdinthedirt

Bossy R word sort and game, and Bossy R and Consonant Digraph Soccer Sort Game at the Super Tutor Tools Store at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Bossy R with Consonant Digraphs

Some words with Bossy R vowels also have a consonant digraph. Practice these words with activities at Shark Chart!

Bossy R Variations

Bossy R can vary sometimes. When Bossy R meets Silent e, Silent e wins sometimes: words with -are can say long a, Examples: care, share, flare. -ire can say long i, Examples: fire, tire, wire. But notice that OR wins: adore, bore, shore, snore & UR wins: nature, picture, treasure.

An e before ar can have many different sounds: long e (hear), “er”(learn), “air” (pear), & “ar” (heart)

Schwa Bossy R and Silent e vs. Bossy R at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Silent e

In the sequence followed for learning to read by the Phonics Pow Toolkit, the syllable type learned after Open & Closed Syllables is Silent e.

SilentE4

A letter e at the end of a word is silent and makes the vowel long. A vowel that is long says it’s name. Two E’s  are like twins and often stick together, as in tree, so the e may not always be at the end, like in seed. With the other vowels the silent e at the end is often separated by a consonant. Together or apart, Silent e often works just the same. (although sometimes ie makes a long E sound (see Vowels That Vary), and o_e can make a short U sound. (some love gloves)

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WATCH videos and PLAY online games at a Silent e tutorial at Wakelet. Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. Learn more at The End of Flash.

Silente

WATCH more videos from Kids vs Phonics: A_E (2:11), EE (1:27), E_E (1:24) I_E (1:42), IE (1:47), O_E (2:17), U_E (1:56), UE (1:50)and at the Silent e playlist at the PhonicsPow Youtube channel

LISTEN and play at Quizlet

More Silent e Resources:

READ Long A sentences (plus all long vowels) from stickyball.net and BOOKS: “Nice Mice in the Rice” by Brian P Cleary “Here Comes Silent e!” by Anna Hays

SpaceRaceGame

PLAY printable games: The Silent E Freebie Set includes one of each type of resource from several different sets, all about Silent e. You get the Silent e information from the Phonics Fun Folders set, a game board from the Phonics Patterns Game Board Set, a page from the Spot and Dot Phonics Patterns set, and a Soccer Sort Game. (Soccer Sort Games are sold separately at the Super Tutor Tools store at Teachers Pay Teachers). The Bee Hive Silent e game is also available at the Super Tutor Tools store.

weedseed

Often there is a consonant between the vowel and the e at the end, so they can be called split digraphs. But sometimes not. (tone, toe)

WEED SEED Two ee’s are like twins and like to stick together, so the e may not be at the end.

Some words have both a silent e vowel and a consonant digraph. Learn more at Chase the Sheep.

Silent e Variations

There are a few variations to learn at the end of the Silent e section (III.e) of the Phonics Pow Toolkit. There are worksheets and games to practice these in the toolkit, and there are sorts for these in the free word sort games download.

  1. In some words, Defender D can stop silent e from making the vowel long. (hūge bădge) You will see the letter g before e will often soft /j/ be in these words. WATCH -dge strategy from Sue’s Strategies.
  2. The letter c before e will often soft /s/ be. C = /s/ in the word families -ace and -ice. This is a good time to introduce hard or soft c and g. The letter s makes the sound of /s/ in some words with Silent e: base, case, vase, vise, and dose.  In other words with Silent e, the letter s makes the sound of /z/: phase, phrase, hose, nose, pose, rose, chose, those, cheese, these, rise, wise, use, and fuse. Learn more about the sounds of s and practice Silent e words with soft c, s=/s/ or /z/ & z=/z/ with an online word sort.
  3. Some words with the letter o that you might expect to have a long vowel sound do not. Instead, they make the schwa sound of “uh.” Learn more at some love gloves.
  4. A few more silent e exception words that make the short sound are: have, give, and gone.

There are more ways that vowels can be long:

Blends

Two (or more) consonants may blend together with each sound heard in the blend. Blends can be found at the beginning or end of words.

Intial Blends with short vowels

Blends are often introduced after learning about short vowels, so it’s a good idea to begin practicing with blends that have short vowels. A slim slug slipped on scum.

Initial Blends with advanced vowel patterns

Blends with other vowel patterns can be included as they are introduced in the logical sequence followed by the Phonics Pow Toolkit.

Final Blends

Blends may be found at the end of some words. (some words have both initial and final blends, like STAMP)

See Find and Lift the Lost Gold – i and o can be long when followed by two consonants…but not always!

Some final blends are sometimes called glued or welded. See The Skunk Drank a Pink Drink.

Some final consonants are two letters that make one sound. See The /k/ sound at the end of words, Consonant Digraphs, and Catch the Pitch.

WATCH videos and PLAY online games at the Consonant Blends tutorial at Wakelet.

Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. Learn more at The End of Flash.

LISTEN & LEARN Blends at Quizlet

Resources:

READ Blend sentences at stickyball.net

PLAY Printable Letter Blends puzzle from Learning 4 Kids (11 pages, some color), Go Fish blends game from Adrian Bruce

Great Green Grapes Blend Board Game at TeachersPayTeachers

Blending

Blending the sounds of letters together from left to right is an important skill for beginning readers. As advanced vowel patterns are introduced, scan for phonics patterns in words to decode them.

PLAY more online games:

Blending: word-machines short vowels at starfall. Short vowels at kizphonics.

[archived from Literactive, no longer working as of 10/24: Blending ladybugs Blends: Warehouse game, Bowling game, Sorting Office, and Final Blends Honey Maze.]

Word Families

Word families are words that have the same endings, and therefore rhyme. With beginning readers, practice with word families that have a short vowel, and introduce word families with more advanced vowel patterns as they are learned. Free clip strips are a great way to do this.

WATCH videos and PLAY online games at a Word Families tutorial at Wakelet. Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. Learn more at The End of Flash.  Youtube playlists for word families by Little Fox and ChorsiMedia (many short vowels, some others)

WordFamilyCards

Word Family Cards are modified from margedteachingposters for easier printing. (22 cards, 6 pages) Cut the end off of an envelope and slide the clue picture out. Students can make as many words with the same ending as they can think of, then slide the words out to see if they thought of all of them.

The Word Family Picture sorts from flyingintolearning.com can be used to provide pictures with clues. I like to use these with the Word Family Treasure game below.

WordFamilyLadderBlank

PLAY Printables: Word Family Treasure game (free!) and Roll a Word Family from the Super Tutor Tools Store at Teachers Pay Teachers

More Word Family Resources:

wordfamilies

The word families below have more advanced phonics patterns. As these patterns are learned while following the logical sequence of the Phonics Pow Toolkit, it can be helpful to intoduce them with word families that illustrate the pattern.

WordFamilyTable2

Short Vowels

ShortVowels

CVC Words like DOG and CAT that have a Consonant Vowel Consonant pattern often make the short vowel sound.

CVCWordRoller

CVC Word Roller – free at the Super Tutor Tools store at Teachers Pay Teachers, CVC Word Machine from homemade-preschool.com.

CVC Cards. Use CVC cards to sort by vowel sound, or for activities for phonological and phonemic awareness.

Closed Syllables. Closed syllables often make the short vowel sound. When a vowel is followed by at least one consonant, it is a closed syllable. An exception sometimes occur when the letters i and o are followed by two consonants. (find and lift the lost gold) A can make a short O sound sometimes. (watch the dog play squash with a ball)

Short i and e. It can be challenging to hear the difference between short i and e. LISTEN to contrast words and WATCH Short E & I Sounds from allaboutlearningpress (2:49). PRACTICE with an online word sort and a Short I & E picture sort from tchrgrl. Download a practice activity from allaboutlearningpress.com

Word Families. Practice with word families that have short vowels.

Short Vowel Variations. The final consonant of some words with short vowels can double. Learn more about Flossy Words and more short vowel variations.

WATCH videos and PLAY online games at a Short Vowels tutorial at Wakelet. Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. Learn more at The End of Flash. 

PLAY more online games: Cloudy Day, Vowel Popper and Vowel Ace at roomrecess.com (choose short vowels) [archived: Literactive games no longer working as of 10/24. Sliding Beaver and  Hanging Monkeys]

READ short vowel sentences from stickyball.net, Beginner Books from Progressive Phonics. READ Books: “Gran on a Fan” by Kevin Bolger, “The Bug in the Jug Wants a Hug” by Brian P Cleary.

cvcwords

PLAY Printables at the ABCs of games for reading.

ShortLongVowelChart

Short and Long Vowels. Review the difference between short and long vowels. Use the short or long picture sorts from First Grade a la Carte or a pdf (source unknown) of Short & Long Pictures & Words. The Short and Long Vowel Chart is free at the Super Tutor Tool store.

WATCH videos and PLAY online games at the Short or Long Vowels Wakelet Tutorial.

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Hearing and manipulating the sounds in language are important skills for learning to read. Phonemic awareness and letter knowledge have been identified in several research studies as the two key indicators of how well children will master beginning reading skills during the first two years in school. (The Threads of Reading by Karen Tankersly at ascd.org)

Understanding Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Both are about the ability to hear & manipulate the sounds in language…

  • Phonological Awareness – in words & syllables
    • Phonemic Awareness – at the phoneme (individual sounds within words) level.

A Phonological and Phonemic Awareness tutorial at Wakelet includes videos to watch.

Printable Charts:

This chart runs top to bottom
 Build a foundation of skills with increasing difficulty from bottom to top with this chart.

These Phonological and Phonemic Awareness charts are available free at the Super Tutor Tools store at Teachers Pay Teachers Super Tutor store.

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More Resources

Phonological Interventions for Struggling Readers from Learning at the Primary Pond has this illustration of the progression of skills, and lots of ideas for activities for developing them.

Phonological Awareness at Dyslexia Help and readingresource.net provide helpful explanations.

ACTIVITIES

Use CVC picture cards to rhyme, say the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd sound, or listen for the difference between two.

Sightwords.com has great resources for phonological and phonemic awareness. Reading Universe has Skill Explainers for Rhyming, Phoneme Identification, Segmenting and Blending, and Phoneme Manipulation. More activities for phonemic awareness at Reading Rockets.

In phonological and phonemic awareness, the emphasis is on hearing sounds. The activities below can be helpful additions to a Phonics Kit.

Rhyming

crayonboxsort

Syllable Counting: clap or tap, or feel your mouth drop.

Compound Words

Syllable Manipulation: WordList (pdf) to blend, segment or delete syllables.

Identify initial sounds

Phoneme blending

Phoneme segmenting

Phoneme segmenting and manipulation

  • Word list for deleting and substituting from ontrackreading
  • Word Building and Substitution free from Super Tutor Tools at Teachers Pay Teachers. Start with a word, then change one sound at a time and identify the letter.

WordBuilding

PLAY Online games: Phonemic Awareness Symbaloo

Some online games require flash, which is no longer supported after 12/31/2020. There is a workaround with the Ruffle fix at The End of Flash. Clever Learner and others are working with the work-around on a laptop. Some more mobile friendly games are collected at this Symbaloo. More online games at these Symbaloo collections Abcya is free on pc only.

Archived-sadly, both Literactive and Professorgarfield seem to be no longer available.

At Professorgarfield: Rhyme-Meet the gang, Blending-Hayloft & Orson’s Waller, Categorize-Chicken Coop, Delete- Pumpkin Patch, Substitute-Lanolin’s Greenhouse. Beginning & Ending sounds- Fishing with Phonics.

At Literactive: Drums, Rhyming: Lovebirds and Fish, Initial sounds: Easel & Nine Squares,  Middle sounds: Sliding Beaver, Final sounds: Slides and Garden leaves. Odd one out: Laying Hens, Final: slides & garden leaves, Categorize: Laying Hens, Substitute: magic lantern.

Download a Chart with online games in the sequence to build phonological awareness skills.