Teaching phonemic awareness daily is the best way to get your students decoding effectively and becoming strong, confident readers. There are many different skills you will want to focus on with your phonemic awareness instruction. Your students will catch on to some skills quickly, while others take a lot of
Teaching middle sounds in words can be a challenge for your students, especially when it comes to distinguishing short vowel sounds like /e/ and /i/. Stretching out a word slowly to isolate and identify that tricky middle sound takes practice and the right strategies. If you’re looking for ways to
If your students are struggling to blend CVC words, you are not alone. In fact, this is one of the most common phonics problems that arise when teaching students how to read. Your students are able to say each sound of a CVC word, like /c/ /a/ /p/, but when
When teaching phonics in Kindergarten, it is so important to incorporate phonemic awareness practice within phonics skills. In taking some time to work on identifying beginning, middle, and ending sounds in a CVC word, my students have always been more successful and confident when it comes to reading and spelling
One of the most strategic parts of teaching is grouping your students into center groups. Do you group them by skill, ability level, or who will work well together? You want your students to be able to work well together, but also be able to utilize practicing specific skills during
In Kindergarten, phonics is best taught using a combo of small group and whole group instruction. Now that you know what to teach in both small and whole group lessons, what are some go-to strategies you can use during your whole group phonics instruction? Here are 3 of my must-haves
Teachers need to constantly differentiate their instruction for their students. Everyone comes into their classroom at the start of the year at a variety of different levels and abilities, all needing very personalized instruction in order to succeed. It can feel very overwhelming to try and figure out what each
Most Kindergarten teachers would agree that a mix of teaching whole group lessons and small group lessons are important to reaching all your learners. You can’t teach Kindergarten without one or the other. They both work together really well. However, how do you decide what parts of your phonics lesson
Teaching syllables is one of my favorite phonological awareness skills to teach! There are so many fun and engaging activities to practice syllables. You can read more about how to teach syllables in Kindergarten here. Today, I am sharing 3 simple hands-on syllable activity ideas you can try in your
