Welcome back to Read Not Guess. Today is a review day. We’ll practice blending the sounds we learned this week and then suggest a game to play to help your child master these sounds.
Let’s get started.
Word Practice
First, we’re going to work on “blending” letter sounds into words. Your child can start slowly by saying each sound individually, but each time, they should try to say it just a bit faster.
Ask your child to say the correct sounds as they point to the letters:
m a d m ad mad By the end, make sure your child is reading the word "mad" without any extra sounds at the end. (Ask them to keep blending the sounds faster if they’re still reading it as "muh-aaa-duh").
Let's do a few more:
s a d s ad sad And:
p a d p a d pad A couple more:
m u d m ud mud And:
s u d s ud sud Long Word Challenge
If you think your child is ready, see if they can read this word:
Dis miss Dismiss If they read it smoothly, great! If they stumble, have them try sounding it out another time or two to get it right.
Word Families Game
This one takes a bit of set up. You'll need a sheet of paper, a pen or pencil, and four cups or bowls (any will do).
To get started, fold a piece of paper into 16 squares (see here if you want to see how it's done). Each row is going to represent one word "family." Today, we're going to work with the an, in, at, and ip families.
Use your pen or pencil to write the name of one family in each row. Then fill out the squares with more words that belong in that family. I've given you words to use to fill up your page. It should look sort of like this:
an man pan tan in pin tin sin at cat sat mat ip sip tip dip
Now cut up the paper into the 16 squares.
Put the family names in front of the cups (or tape them on).
Mix up all the rest of the words.
Tell your child that several word families went to a park. They got mixed up, and it's your child's job to get them back in the right home (the cups or bowls).
As they pick up a new slip of paper, ask them to read the word out loud before they put it into the correct family's cup.
After you play the game once, you can repeat it again, add or change the words, or try adding other word families.
That’s it for this week. We’ll see you on Monday, ~Chad