Do you teach consonants and vowels to your students? Do you understand the difference between these two phonics concepts? Or why they matter? There’s a lot more to know about consonants and vowels than most teachers realized. Let’s dive deeper into the difference between consonants and vowels, how the impact English words, and how we can teach our students about…
Understanding the difference between letter names and letter sounds is one of the first steps of phonics instruction. People often use letter and sound interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Let’s explore why letters and sounds are different . We will also explore strategies to teach these concepts to our students in a simple and meaningful way. Would you…
Teaching phonics. If you’re an elementary school teacher, you are likely working hard to incorporate more phonics and structured literacy into your classroom. However, there’s a good chance that you didn’t actually learn this stuff in college. How are teachers supposed to use a structured, phonics based approach with their students if they don’t understand the rules themselves? The answer…
Teaching new sounds using science of reading based approaches doesn’t have to be complicated. In my first grade classroom, after we review letter sounds quickly, we begin to introduce a new sound each week based on the sound progression from our phonics program. Here are the simple and effective ways we learn a new sound in first grade. Day 1-…
Teaching open syllables to your students can help them decode and write a large number of words. Single syllable open syllable words are some of the most common words used in the English language which means they are very important to teach young students. Here is how you can teach open syllables to your first grade, second grade, or kindergarten…