# data[].attributes.headline
Phonics Lesson Plans and Printable Activities 

# data[].attributes.subject
Phonics Lesson Plans and Printable Activities 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
1st Grade Level 1 phonics lesson plans. Learn phonics with lesson plans for 1st grade students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonics Worksheet Index. From easy to hard, teaches phonemic awareness of CVC words - blends - digraphs (ai-ee-ie-oa) - r-controlled - final e rule - and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chunk It | Fun Phonics Song for Kids | Chunking | Reading Strategies | Jack Hartmann

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Internet TESL Journal Matthew Wilson
educationaladvisor [at] gmail.com
Sendai Board of Education, (Sendai, Japan)

Introduction

Getting students to discover and practice the connections between letters and the sounds they represent should be an important part of any English class routine. The following activities can be adjusted to meet different levels and adapted to fit into any timeframe. Please note that not every activity you do in class has to be extremely challenging. Simple ideas that everybody is able to accomplish can work wonders with student confidence which, in turn, can increase motivation.

The following are ten activities that can assist you in practicing phonics at any point in your lesson:

Letters on the Board

At first, the teacher writes some letters on the board. The teacher reads out a word, one at a time, and asks the students to try and spell each word using only the letters on the board. It is always a good idea to stop after the first word in order to write the correct spelling on the board. This can then be used as a reference point for the students for successive words. After reading out five to ten words, go through the spellings of each word. Also, limit the number of vowel sounds you practice as the variety of sounds they represent can be really challenging for students, especially beginners.

Speed Reading

Write a number of words on the board. If necessary, go over the pronunciation of each word. Then read through a list of the same words at a good speed leaving out only one of the words. The students should be listening to you read the list of words while following along on the board. After you are finished, they tell you which word (words) you didn't read out. This activity can be targeted for a higher level by adjusting the vocabulary used, the speed you read, the number of words you leave off, or by doing additional tasks (e.g., like telling you which word you read wasn't on the board).

Battleship Phonics

This is based on the popular game Battleship. The teacher would draw a grid on the board with initial sounds written across the top, and medial and final sounds written together down the left side of the grid. You would let the students know that you have chosen a few squares as 'special squares' that they should seek out. They find these squares by volunteering to say a whole word made up of a letter at the top and the side of the grid. The intersection of this row and column highlights a particular square. The object is for the students to find all your designated special locations.

Phonics Bingo

Write a good number of sounds on the board, e.g., pha, ma, la, ga. The students would choose a designated number of sounds you wrote and write them on an available space for writing. You would then play this like bingo and read out the sounds one by one. The students can get bingo when they have three of their sounds chosen or all of their sounds chosen. It is a good idea to go over all of the sounds written on the board beforehand to help ease comprehension.

Criss-cross Phonics

All the students stand up. To begin, show a word or a picture. The first student to raise their hand gets called upon and if they can correctly say the first (or last) sound of that word they can sit down and choose if the people in their row, horizontally or vertically, can also sit down. Gradually, there are fewer and fewer students standing. When you no longer have rows to choose from, only individual students would sit. Words and images could also be written/drawn on the blackboard if the teacher had no time to prepare cards.

Missing Sound

Draw or show an image on the blackboard. Beside the image, write all but one of the sounds. For example, there is a picture of a dog on the board, you write 'og' beside it and the students have to provide you with the missing sound, not the letter. This can be made into a group contest or a simple whole-class exercise where you would give the class time to think of the answer and get everyone to say the answer at the same time.

Two Sounds

Good to practice sound distinction. Have two words on the board representing the two different sounds you would like to practice, e.g., MEN, MAN. You would then show the students pictures and get them to put those words under the appropriate column. For example, you show a picture of a pen, the students should write 'pen' under the MEN column. (If you are dealing with beginners, they could just mark their choice with an 'X' under the column instead of asking them to write out the words. You would, however, have to give numbers before every word to help everybody keep track of choices.)

Beginning/Middle/End

Students copy down the chart you provided on the board which is divided into three sections. You can label the three sections, 'beginning', 'middle' and 'end' in English or the native language of your students. You would focus on a specific sound and read out words containing that sound. The students would have to decide if that sound was found in the beginning, middle or end of the word by writing the sound in that appropriate column. This is a good listening activity with some implications for positive phonics reinforcement.

Ball and Cap Game

The students pass around a hat and a ball. When the music stops, the student with the hat must take out a piece of paper with a letter or letters written on it then read out its sound, not the letter name. The student with the ball must guess the letter(s). In lieu of music, the teacher can simply have his back turned and call out "stop".

Pen and Eraser

Students have a pen and an eraser in front of them. You have two sounds you would like to practice, e.g., 'f' and 'v' sounds, and designate one sound for the pen and one sound for the eraser. When you say a word beginning with one of those sounds, the students should pick up the appropriate object (for upper levels, the sound can be in any part of the word not just the beginning). If you say a word not incorporating one of the sounds, the students should make a big X with their arms. This can evolve into a pair contest with one pen and one eraser for every two students. The students would aim to be the quickest to pick up the object after you read out a word.

Concluding Remarks

Matching sounds to letters and letters to sounds can be quite a tricky and daunting task when students are learning English. Activities such as these are simple to initiate, easily adaptable, and are good ways to practice and enforce English phonics.

The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. XIV, No. 4, April 2008
http://iteslj.org/ http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Wilson-PhonicsActivities.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ten Simple Phonics Activities Requiring Little Preparation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Internet TESL Journal Matthew Wilsoneducationaladvisor [at] gmail.comSendai Board of Education, (Sendai, Japan) Getting students to discover and practice the connections between letters and the sounds they represent should be an important part of any English class routine. The following activities can be adjusted to meet different levels and adapted to fit into any timeframe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Phonics anchor charts and blends charts are a great way to teach difficult concepts to beginning readers. Keep them around the classroom, and your students will be able to use them independently for increased confidence and learning!

Here are 20 blends and phonics anchor charts we love.

Source: 1 and 2 With Mr. Su

Students will love putting words to the test both with a silent e on the end and without. Have students hold up a floating e so they recognize both words.

2. Hard and Soft C

Source: Mrs. Jones's Class

The different sounds made by the letter C can definitely be tricky to understand. You might have your students help you create this anchor chart, coming up with words that fall into both categories.

3. Row Your Boat

Source: Shining and Sparkling in First Grade

We like how this anchor chart puts vowel digraphs that make the same sound side by side.

4. Explaining Consonant Blends

Source: Consonant Blends/The Inspired Apple

When you work on consonant blends, have students compare each letter's sound individually. Then have them pay close attention to what happens when they blend together.

5. Beginning Blends

Source: The Mall-ard Kindergarten Marquee

The best part of this chart is that you can add blends as you introduce them in class.

6. Double E Tree

Take one single concept, like the double e, and come up with every single word that it applies to.

7. Vowel Pairs

Use this anchor chart to help define the rule, and then encourage your students to come up with their own examples to add.

8. Recipes for Blends

Source: Smitten With First

A cute analogy that will encourage students to try different letters together, creating and testing their own word "recipes" too.

9. It's Owl Right

Source: Mrs. Jump's Class

This cute owl chart shows students the many words that contain an "ow" sound, whether it's spelled "ow" or "ou."

10. The Many Ways to Spell the Long A Sound

Source: Hello Literacy

One of the trickiest things about phonics for students to learn is how the same sound can be spelled lots of different ways. It helps to see side-by-side examples, like in this anchor chart that describes the different spellings of the long A sound.

11. Bring in the Blender

Source: Tales of a Teacherista

Put the current blends you are studying "in the blender." Cute!

12. The H Brothers

We love how this anchor chart creatively shows the different sounds digraphs containing the letter H make.

13. The Bandit Y

Source: First Grade Fresh

Try this anchor chart to help your kids learn how tricky Y can be!

14. Pairs, Digraphs, and Diphthongs

Source: Mrs. Gillespie's Thoughts

What are the differences between these vowel pairs, anyway?

15. Sounds of G

Source: Glitzy in 1st Grade

Is it a hard G? Is it a soft G? Students will easily learn the difference between the two and get great examples too.

16. Ow vs. Oa

This chart shows the differences between words that contain a long O sound. We like how the beginning and ending blends are highlighted too.

17. Phonics Charts for Every Digraph

Source: The Inspired Apple

We love the idea of creating different phonics charts for each digraph you are studying and adding words as you learn them.

18. Lesson From a Pirate

Source: Mrs. A's Kindergarten

Get your pirate voice ready because you're definitely going to want to use it when you go over words with "ar" in them.

19. Long I Storytelling

Source: Tied Up With String

It's fun to write a class story or poem using a certain sound as many times as possible.

Practice saying "Bossy R" words with your students. It really helps them to hear it said out loud.

Love these phonics charts? Check out our anchor charts archive for even more subjects and grades!

Plus, watch this video to see these phonics charts up close!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
20 Perfect Anchor Charts To Teach Phonics and Blends

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonics anchor charts and blends charts are a great way to teach difficult concepts to beginning readers. Keep them around the classroom, and your students will be able to use them independently for increased confidence and learning! Here are 20 blends and phonics anchor charts we love.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do your kids like to play BINGO? Mine sure do! So much so that I created a Phonics BINGO Bundle Pack. This pack includes six different phonics BINGO Games, perfect for ages Pre-K through 2nd grade! Each set has six game boards, which is great for small group instruction!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
junior learning® cvc word builders activity cards

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Junior Learning® CVC Word Builders Activity Cards

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Set of 48 CVC cards with picture and color guides for building 3 letter CVC words with CVC Tri-Blocks® Tub. Children follow the progression as they learn to sound out and build words. 3 levels to follow: blue, orange, violet. Teach phonemic awareness, synthetic phonics, spelling. Cards are self-checking with answers on back.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students practice identifying words with short-vowel sounds and sound-spellings.

# data[].attributes.body
Decodable Books and Phonics Lessons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Use Decodable Books to have students practice phonics skills-search by skill or browse by genre or title. Students who learn phonics master the sound/symbol code, enabling them to read and spell. Instruction is most effective when combined with plenty of reading and writing practice. Decodable Books-used in combination with Alphabet, Sound/Symbol, and Read-Aloud Books -make vital connections between letters and sounds to support key early reading skills.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Use Decodable Books to have students practice phonics skills-search by skill or browse by genre or title. Students who learn phonics master the sound/symbol code, enabling them to read and spell. Instruction is most effective when combined with plenty of reading and writing practice.

# data[].attributes.body
Activities, games, and lesson plans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Activities, games, and lessons that help students learn early reading, spelling, and verbal skills

# data[].attributes.body
Digital Resource

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We have the full program. It's well worth it. My daughter was having trouble catching on in reading this fall. Her teachers were concerned. When I tried teaching her at home with traditional book programs, she wouldn't focus for long. This program has completely changed that, and she LOVES to come home after school and "do her phonics."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Phonics Instruction: the Value of a Multi-sensory Approach

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Phonics instruction lends itself to multi-sensory teaching techniques, because these techniques can be used to focus children's attention on the sequence of letters in printed words. As such, including manipulatives, gestures, and speaking and auditory cues increases students' acquisition of phonics skills. An added benefit is that multisensory techniques are quite motivating and engaging to many children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading Rockets is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of research-based reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in helping struggling readers build fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills.