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Always handy & a great resource! A huge collection of over 100 rhyming cards!! Use them all throughout the year to demonstrate rhymes, make matching games, and more!!!Happy Rhyming, RitaYou already own this product if you purchased my Rhyming through the Year Bundle!

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Rhyming Cards Worksheets & Teaching Resources | Teachers Pay Teachers

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Always handy & a great resource! A huge collection of over 100 rhyming cards!! Use them all throughout the year to demonstrate rhymes, make matching games, and more!!!Happy Rhyming, RitaYou already own this product if you purchased my Rhyming through the Year Bundle!

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In my work as a teacher and reading specialist, I have found time and time again that children who struggle with reading often struggle with phonological awareness, too.

And that makes sense, right? If you have trouble hearing the sounds in words, it's going to be harder to put sounds together when you're decoding. It's also going to be harder to spell words if you can't clearly hear their sounds.

For this reason, I always assess my struggling readers' phonological awareness. Based upon the results, I incorporate quick phonological awareness activities into their intervention routine. I've seen very positive results from doing so!

In today's post, I'll describe the different phonological awareness skills I teach, as well as provide free phonological awareness interventions to help your students improve in each area.

And although today's post is part of my series on supporting struggling decoders, the ideas and materials are appropriate for most students in the primary grades. The vast majority of early readers benefit from phonological awareness instruction.

What Is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is, simply, the awareness of the sounds that make up spoken language. It doesn't involve alphabet letters (connecting sounds to print is phonics).

An example of a phonological awareness activity would be a teacher saying a word aloud and students saying each individual sound in the word. An example of a phonics activity would be a teacher writing a word on the board and having students say each individual sound in the word while looking at the letters.

It's beneficial (for K-1 teachers) to spend a 10-15 minutes each day teaching phonological awareness by itself (with no letters or print involved).

At the same time, phonological awareness skills can develop through work with actual print. For example, when children segment words and write their sounds, this helps them practice the phonological awareness skill of segmenting (even though it is technically a phonics-based activity).

Furthermore, it's important for us to help students understand the connection between phonological awareness activities and reading/writing. Saying things like, "You know how we practice saying each sound in a word? That helps us figure out how to spell words" can help them see the connection.

To summarize: phonological awareness does not involve print (alphabet letters or words), and beginning readers should have opportunities to practice working with sounds (without connecting them to letters). At the same time, phonological awareness can be developed through activities involving print, and students need to understand the connection between hearing sounds in words, reading, and writing.

One other note: You've probably also heard the term "phonemic awareness." Phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness - it describes one set of skills that falls under the larger category of phonological awareness. I'll define phonemic awareness and provide teaching activities later on in this post.

What Phonological Awareness Skills Should Students Learn?

Children's phonological awareness skills typically develop along this continuum (adapted from Chard and Dickson's article "Phonological Awareness: Instructional and Assessment Guidelines"):

See the original image at http://www.ldonline.org/article/6254/

Not all children develop in the same way, of course. But kids are typically going to learn to identify rhymes before, say, they can segment the individual sounds in words.

Assessment can help you determine where students are "at" along this continuum, and what they need to work on. I don't recommend administering lengthy phonemic awareness assessments to all your students multiple times a year. However, if you notice that certain students are struggling with either phonological awareness or decoding, you may want to spend a little time figuring out what they need to work on.

A phonological awareness assessment can be very quick and simple. If you use my phonics program, From Sounds to Spelling, you already have phonological awareness assessments (and lessons) built into the program. If you'd like to learn more about From Sounds to Spelling, you can do so at this link.

Reading Rockets also has some general guidelines for creating your own assessment here. An assessment can be as simple as asking a child to identify pictures of rhyming words, generate a word that rhymes, count the number of words in a sentence, count the number of syllables in a word, say the first sound in a few different words, and/or verbally segment a couple of CVC words.

What Should We Do When Students Struggle with Phonological Awareness?

If our assessment results (and observations) indicate that certain students struggle with phonological awareness, we can take specific steps to help them improve.

First of all, we can plan daily practice activities to develop phonological awareness. Research shows that students who struggle with phonological awareness benefit from practicing these skills in a small group setting. However, that doesn't mean that you have to eliminate whole-class phonological awareness instruction.

During my one-on-one or small group phonological awareness activities, I like to have students close their eyes sometimes. This helps them focus on just listening. We show students so many visuals throughout the day that it can be a bit confusing for them when we just want them to listen!

I've also found that hands-on activities can be helpful for struggling students. These same students sometimes have attention issues and can quickly get bored with activities that involve only listening to or speaking sounds. The rest of this post will focus on specific, mostly hands-on activities that you can use to teach phonological awareness. To receive all of the activities and materials (for free!), sign up here:

Rhyming Activities

Rhyming is one of the most basic components of phonological awareness. Using nursery rhymes, poetry, and songs in the classroom (including in a small group setting) is helpful in helping children hear and identify words that rhyme.

When you work with a nursery rhyme, poem, or song, model how to listen for and find words that rhyme. You can say something like this: "Words that rhyme sound the same at the end, like mug and bug. While I read this poem to you, I'm going to listen for words that rhyme." As you go through the text, stop when you hear words that rhyme and point them out to the children. The kids will soon be able to join in and find words that rhyme!

As children's rhyming abilities improve, you can have them clap or raise their hands when they hear a pair of words that rhyme. You can also begin asking them to generate their own rhyming words ("What rhymes with ___?"). To connect rhyming words to print, use a highlighter to show students how rhyming words often have the same endings (i.e. the words mug and bug in the example above both end with "ug."

For some hands-on rhyming fun, try playing Rhyming Words Memory. First, have students practice making matches with the cards turned face-up. Then, turn them all face-down and mix them up. Students take turns trying to find pairs of pictures that represent rhyming words. Make sure that students name each picture aloud when they turn it over!

Rhyming word picture sorts are another fun activity. Divide a piece of paper into two columns, and draw or place a word at the top of each column (like "dog" and "pen"). Have students sort additional pictures into the columns, depending upon what each word rhymes with. For a challenge, students can also draw their own pictures to add to each column.

All of these activities are appropriate for your entire class, as well as for students who struggle with phonological awareness. Struggling students will benefit most, however, from participating in these activities in a small group setting.

Sentence Segmenting

Sentence segmenting is the next skill shown on the continuum. This is the ability to hear the individual words in sentences. Although sentence segmenting is quite simple for adults, it can be very challenging for children. Becauseinrealitywetalklikethis, not........like.......this. Because our spoken words flow together, it's not easy for little ones to distinguish one word from the next!

I try to integrate sentence segmenting throughout the day, especially when I'm modeling writing. When I want to write a sentence, I say it aloud to students, modeling how I count each word on my fingers. Then, we say the sentence together, and the kids count the words on their fingers. Next, I show them how I draw a line for each word. This drives home the point that sentences are composed of individual words, and we have to listen carefully to hear them.

In addition to this daily practice, struggling students also benefit from sentence segmenting practice in a one-on-one or small group setting. Practice can be simple - just say a sentence aloud and have students count each word on their fingers. You can also use counters and a grid to have students push one counter into a square for each word they hear:

As with all of the materials pictured in this post, you can get this resource by signing up here (you only need to sign up once to receive all of these materials in one download):

Sentence segmenting helps with key emergent reading and writing skills, like pointing one-to-one and spacing between words. Explicitly point out the connection between any sentence segmenting activities you do and the literacy activities that they support.

Syllable Blending and Segmenting

Next up is syllable blending and segmenting! I always start with blending, or having students put together syllables to form a complete word, because I feel that it's a bit easier for students to master. To practice blending, say the syllables in a word aloud (cat...er...pil...lar) and then have students pronounce the complete word correctly. You can mix things up by showing students a picture, saying the syllables aloud to name something in the picture ("Do you see the el...e...phant?"), and then having students say the word and point it out in the picture.

To practice segmenting (breaking words up into their syllables), students can jump, clap, or tap for each syllable they hear in a word you say aloud.

You can also try a syllable picture sort. Have students each picture aloud, count the number of syllables in the word, and then sort the picture:

Helping children understand that a word can have multiple syllables is vital in getting students to point one-to-one when reading. You might see some students pointing multiple times when they are "reading" a multisyllabic word, because they think that 1 syllable = 1 printed word. Help them see the connection between the syllable segmentation activities and their pointing during reading ("Do you remember that we found out that some words have a couple of syllables? Even if a word has several syllables, like computer, we only point to that word once because it's still just one word.")

Onset-Rime Blending and Segmenting

Onset-rime blending involves being able to say the complete word when the first chunk (onset) and the vowel + the rest of the word (rime) are broken apart. For example, if you say "r-oad" and the child can say "road," that child can blend an onset and rime.

To practice onset-rime blending, have students practice this skill for just a minute or so per day - it's a great way to transition to activities.

You can also gather struggling students in a small group, show them a picture, and ask them to find certain objects ("Can you find a c-up?"or "Can you find the th-umb?").

Onset-rime segmenting is the opposite: students are the ones who have to break up a word into its onset and rime (taking gum and turning it into g-um, for example). After you've practiced this skill as a class, you can have students break up into pairs (or work with you in a small group) to play my Onset & Rime Mystery Word Game (included in your download).

To play the game, give pairs of students a stack of picture cards. They should keep the picture cards between them, face-down. One student takes the top card, secretly looks at the picture, and says the onset and rime. The second student has to say what the complete word is. Students then reverse roles for the next picture.

Again, you can sign up to receive all these materials here:

Phoneme Blending and Segmenting

Next on the continuum is phoneme blending and segmenting! Phonemes are the smallest sounds in spoken language, like the sound /t/ or /ch/. Phonemic awareness is the awareness of those individual sounds.

Phoneme blending is the ability to put together individual sounds to make a word (knowing that /s/ /i/ /t/ makes the word "sit").

You can play "guess the word" for a minute or two each day by breaking up a word into its individual sounds and then having the children say the complete word. Check out this not-fancy video of me demonstrating two different possible ways to incorporate movement into phoneme blending (they can also be used for working on phoneme segmentation):

To have students practice phoneme blending in a small group, print out a variety of pictures and spread them out on the table. Say the sounds in one of the words, and then have students all point to the picture. (This is best done in a very small group of 2-3 students to avoid some students simply following the lead of the others.)

Phoneme segmenting is a bit trickier. It requires students to be able to break apart a word into its individual sounds (i.e. turning "top" into /t/ /o/ /p/.

In addition to daily oral practice, Elkonin boxes are another great way to practice phoneme segmenting. Give students a small grid with 3 or 4 boxes (depending upon what type of words you are working on). Have them touch one box or push a counter into a box for each sound that they hear in a word.

I recommend using Elkonin boxes in a one-on-one or small group setting so you can closely monitor how students are doing.

Phoneme Identification and Manipulation

Last but not least, we have phoneme identification and manipulation! When I say "phoneme identification," I mean the ability to identify whether a sound in a word comes first, in the middle, or last. This skill is helpful in teaching students to write words phonetically. You can have students practice with the Elkonin boxes featured above ("Say each sound in the word hop. Now touch the box that shows where the sound /p/ comes.")

Phoneme manipulation is the ability to add, remove, and substitute phonemes in words. Here are some examples (say the words out loud if you are confused by any of these!):

Phoneme Addition: "If I add /t/ to the end of go, what do I get?" (goat)

Phoneme Deletion: "If I take away the /c/ sound in cat, what word do I have?" (at)

Phoneme Substitution: "Say the word hop. If I say /t/ instead of /p/, what do I get?" (hot)

Phoneme manipulation can be fun, playful, and helpful in getting kids more skilled in working with words. It may also be difficult at first, but research shows that it can further develop as kids learn to read.

Conclusions

To best support your struggling readers with phonological awareness skills, remember the following:

Many, but not all, struggling readers have poor phonological awareness

Instruction should be brief - the majority of your instructional time should be spent on phonics

Phonological awareness skills will develop over time and may take lots of practice for some children

What Causes Decoding Difficulties in Beginning Readers, and What Can Teachers Do About It? How To Analyze Running Records (And Get a Ton of Valuable Information About Your Beginning Readers!) How to Teach Decoding Strategies to Struggling Readers Phonics Interventions for Struggling Readers in K-2 How To Give Struggling Readers More Practice Time Through Volume Reading Chard, D. J., & Dickson, S. V. (1999). Phonological awareness instructional and assessment guidelines. Intervention in School and Clinic, 34(5), 261-270. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 2000. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction: Reports of the Subgroups. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, NIH Pub. No 00-4754. *The authors of these texts are in no way affiliated with this blog - I am referencing their work as a means of explaining and supporting the ideas I set forth in this post.*

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Phonological Awareness Interventions for Struggling Readers - Learning at the Primary Pond

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In today's post, I'll describe the different phonological awareness skills I teach, as well as provide free phonological awareness interventions to help your students improve in each area.

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Best Practices for Remediation

Target students individually - use the data to determine which students need to improve on which skills or standards.

Use small groups or stations to let students work in teams based on similar needs.

Chunk skills into small tasks that can be done over time rather than giving one large review packet.

Use peer tutors to explain concepts in different words.

Take advantage of flipped remediation with videos and resources that have already been created.

Have students track results to see if their remediation led to improved performance on the next benchmark.

Use self-grading activities through Learn Study Island, Mastery Connect and other digital resources to give students immediate feedback.

Provide a little time each day to spiral review in addition to new content. Remediation should not be seen as punishment.

Have students reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the results of their class and home activities.

Create interesting graphic organizers to help students organize important information with more aesthetic appeal Sometimes all it takes is a simple stray-from-the-norm approach to help engage students. Check out these organizer ideas or these great mindmapping / organizing digital tools:

Bored with these? Check out Richard Byrne's of Free Tech For Teachers review of several mindmap digital tools.

Discovery Education SOS Strategies

Overview

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Target students individually - use the data to determine which students need to improve on which skills or standards. Use small groups or stations to let students work in teams based on similar needs. Chunk skills into small tasks that can be done over time rather than giving one large review packet.

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
A note on terminology: The acronym ESL is used less often now in schools than it used to be, because we recognize that many students who are learning English already speak several other languages, so English would not be a "second" language. I use it several times in the post because schools sometimes refer to the teachers as ESL teachers, and the term is still widely used as a search term for this topic. My intent in using the acronym is to make this post easier to find online.

You have a new student, and he speaks no English. His family has just moved to your town from Japan, and though he receives English as a Second Language (ESL) support, he will also be sitting in your room every day to give him more exposure to his new language. How can you be a good teacher to someone who barely understands you?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, an average of 9 percent of students in U.S. public schools are English Language Learners (ELLs); that number is closer to 14 percent in cities. Although many of these students start off in high-intensity, whole-day English programs, most are integrated into mainstream classrooms within a year, well before their English language skills would be considered proficient.

How prepared are you to teach these students? If you're like most classroom teachers, you have little to no training in the most effective methods for working with English language learners (Walker, Shafer, & Iiams, 2004). So that means we have a problem here: Lots of ELL kids in regular classrooms, and no teacher training to ensure the success of that placement.

Below, three ESL teachers tell us what they know about the things regular classroom teachers can do to improve instruction for ELL students. These 12 strategies are simple, they are not very time consuming, and best of all, they will help everyone in your class learn better:

1. Make it Visual

"Avoid giving instructions in the air," says Melissa Eddington, an Ohio-based ESL teacher. "ELL kids have a harder time processing spoken language." So instructions - even basic directions for classroom procedures - should be written on the board whenever possible. Challenging concepts should be diagrammed or supported with pictures. And modeling the steps of a process or showing students what a finished product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. "Sometimes showing our students what to do is all they need in order to do it," Eddington says. Not only will this kind of nonlinguistic representation improve comprehension for ELL students, it will help all of your students grasp concepts better.

2. Build in more group work.

"Kids aren't just empty glasses that we pour stuff into and then at the end of the day they dump it back onto a test," says Kim, an ESL teacher who was the subject of my very first podcast interview. "If you really want the kids to learn, they've got to be engaged." That means less teacher-led, whole-class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a more personal, lower-risk setting. And if ELL students attend your class with a resource teacher, make use of that person: In most cases the resource teacher doesn't have to work exclusively with the ESL students; they can work with smaller groups that happen to contain these students, helping to improve the teacher-student ratio and give kids more time to practice.

3. Communicate with the ESL teacher.

Mary Yurkosky, a former ESL teacher in Massachusetts, credits much of her students' success to the strong relationship she had with the regular classroom teachers. "The classroom teachers were always talking to me about what they were doing in their classes," she says. "They made it so easy for me to support them: If a teacher was going to be doing a unit on plants, I could make sure we used some of that same vocabulary in the ESL class."

Ideally, this could be systematized, where ESL teachers could regularly get copies of lesson plans or collaborate with regular classroom teachers to build solid back-and-forth support, but "it doesn't have to be that much work," Yurkosky insists. "Just talk to each other. Talk about what's going on in your classrooms, invite each other to special presentations, share what your students are learning, and the words will naturally find their way into the ESL class."

4. Honor the "silent period."

Many new language learners go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. "Don't force them to talk if they don't want to," says Eddington, "A lot of students who come from cultures outside of America want to be perfect when they speak, so they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they're perfect." Just knowing that this is a normal stage in second language acquisition should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward talking too quickly.

5. Allow some scaffolding with the native language.

Although it has been a hotly debated topic in the language-learning community, allowing students some use of their first language (L1) in second-language (L2) classrooms is gaining acceptance. When a student is still very new to a language, it's okay to pair him with other students who speak his native language. "Some students are afraid to open their mouths at all for fear of sounding stupid or just not knowing the words to use," Yurkosky says. "Letting them explain things or ask questions in their first language gets them to relax and feel like a part of the class."

And this doesn't only apply to spoken language. If you give students a written assignment, but the ELL student doesn't yet have the proficiency to handle writing his response in English, "Don't make them just sit there and do nothing," Eddington says. "Allow them to write in their first language if they're able. This allows them to still participate in journal writing or a math extended response, even if you can't read what they write." There has even been some evidence that allowing second-language learners to pre-write and brainstorm in L1 results in higher-quality writing in L2 in later stages of the writing process (Yigzaw, 2012).

6. Look out for culturally unique vocabulary.

"For most of these kids, their background knowledge is lacking, especially with things that are unique to American or westernized culture," says Eddington. It's important to directly teach certain vocabulary words: "Show them videos of what it looks like to toss pizza dough, show pictures of a juke box or a clothing rack - things that are not common in their own language."

One way to differentiate for ELL students is to consider the whole list of terms you're going to teach for a unit, and if you think an ELL student may be overwhelmed by such a long list, omit those that are not essential to understanding the larger topic at hand.

7. Use sentence frames to give students practice with academic language.

All students, not just English language learners, need practice with academic conversations. Sentence frames - partially completed sentences like "I disagree with what _________ said because..." - show students how to structure language in a formal way. Keep these posted in a highly visible spot in your classroom and require students to refer to them during discussions and while they write.

For this kind of language to really sink in, though, Kim says it has to become a regular part of class. "They won't do it if it's not the norm in the class, because they'll be embarrassed to use it among their peers," she says. "But if they can put it off on the teacher and say, Oh, well, you know, Miss Kim makes me talk like this, then they don't look as hoity-toity as they would otherwise."

8. Pre-teach whenever possible.

If you're going to be reading a certain article next week, give ESL students a copy of it now. If you plan to show a YouTube video tomorrow, send a link to your ESL students today. Any chance you can give these students to preview material will increase the odds that they'll understand it on the day you present it to everyone else. "That kind of thing is wonderful," Yurkosky says. "The kids feel so empowered if they've had a chance to look at the material ahead of time."

9. Learn about the cultural background of your students...

Our second-language populations grow more diverse every year. Taking the time to learn the basics of where a child comes from - exactly, not 'somewhere in the Middle East/South America/Asia/Africa' - tells the student that you respect her enough to bother. Kim remembers one time when she had to set the record straight about the diverse South American population at her school: "I was listening to the teachers talking about the 'Mexican' kids in our building," she says, "and I was like, 'We don't have any Mexicans.'" Not taking the time to at least correctly identify a child's country of origin, much like not bothering to pronounce their name correctly, is a kind of microaggression, a small, subtle insult that communicates hostility toward people of color. Make a commitment to be someone who bothers to get it right.

Once you have the country straight, take things up a notch by learning about students' religious and cultural practices. If he is a practicing Muslim, he should be told if one of the pizzas you ordered for the class party has sausage on it. If she comes from a culture where eye contact with adults is viewed as disrespectful, you'll know not to force her to look you in the eye when she's talking.

10. ...but don't make a child speak for his entire culture.

In her podcast interview, Kim shared a story about watching a teacher ask a new Iraqi student how he felt about the war in his country, right in the middle of class. "That's not cultural inclusiveness," she explains. "I've seen teachers do this and then pat themselves on the back. The students' English is limited so they can't express themselves very well, and they don't want to 'represent'; they just want to be there." If you anticipate a theme coming up in your class that's going to be relevant to one of your students, have a conversation with them in advance, or check with your ESL teacher to see if they think it's appropriate for in-class discussion.

11. Show them how to take themselves less seriously...

By modeling the risk-taking that's required to learn a new language, you help students develop the courage to take their own risks, and to have a sense of humor about it. "I tried to say the word 'paint' ( pinta) in Portuguese and instead I said the word for 'penis' ( pinto). They all roared with laughter while I stood there with a What?? look on my face," Yurkosky says. "When they explained what I'd said, I laughed so hard! I told them that laughing was fine because sometimes mistakes are really funny, but ridicule is never okay."

12. ...but always take them seriously.

One of Kim's pet peeves about how teachers interact with English language learners is the way they often see students' efforts as 'cute,' missing the whole point of what the student is trying to say. "A student will be desperate to communicate, and the teacher will get distracted by the delivery and miss the message," she says. "That's painful for me to watch." It bothers her when teachers mistake a lack of language for a lack of intelligence or maturity. When a child can't express themselves as well as they would in their native language, it's far too easy to assume the concepts just aren't in their heads.

"It breaks my heart when I hear teachers say (ELL kids) don't know anything," says Eddington. "These are brilliant kids and they know a lot. They just can't tell us in English yet." Make a conscious effort to see past the accent and the mispronunciations and treat every interaction - every student - with the respect they deserve.

"They're doing twice the job of everybody else in the class," Kim adds, "even though the result looks like half as much." ♦

Further Reading

The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide is one of the highest-rated books on teaching English-language learners available. In addition to offering an overview of the research on second-language learners and best practices in teaching ESL, it also includes a whole section on teaching ESL in the content areas and another specifically geared toward teaching ELL students in mainstream classrooms.
References:
Walker, A., Shafer, J., & Iiams, M. (2004). "Not in my classroom": Teacher attitudes towards English language learners in the mainstream classroom. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 2(1), 130-160.

Yigzaw, A. (2012). Impact of L1 use in L2 English writing classes. Ethiopian Journal of Education and Sciences, 8(1), 11-27.

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12 Ways to Support English Learners in the Mainstream Classroom

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Advice from three ESL teachers on the things regular classroom teachers can do to help English language learners thrive in mainstream classrooms.

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LEARN HOW TO READ "AT" RHYMING WORDS with this FUN SONG!! (KINDERGARTEN AND PRESCHOOL CVC RHYMES) II

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High light the rhyming words in the special needs students books, this will draw their attention to them.

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Utilizing visuals for special needs students

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Rhyming with word families for ELL students

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Rhyming with word families for ELL students

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https://www.aworldoflanguagelearners.com/rhyming-and-word-families-with-ells/#:~:text=Rhyming%20and%20Word%20Families%20with%20ELLs

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This is a great nursery rhyme to help ELL students learn rhyming

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"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" or "1, 2 Buckle My Shoe" is a counting song dating back to late 18th century USA.

It was heard for the first time around 1780 somewhere around Wrentham, Massachusetts. However the first published version of this traditional nursery rhyme is found in London in a children songs book called "Songs for the Nursery" that appeared in 1805. A different version of the song appears in 1810 in Gammer Gurton' Garland aka "Nursery Parnassus".

The main purpose of the song is to teach kids how to count. Originally the song might describe a regular day of lace-makers who were traditional workers back in the 17th and 18th centuries: 1, 2, buckle my shoe would mean that the workers are getting ready to work; 3, 4 shut the door - the workers are now in their workshop; 5, 6, pick up stick - getting their tools (wooden sticks were tools used at the lance-making machine in the past); 7, 8, lay them straight - fixing the sticks; 9, 10, a big fat hen - one possibility is that is describing a kind of support for the lacework (more like a pillow), or simply it refers at the dinner time as the song continues with references at kitchen and plates.

The lyrics may have much literal interpretation; the truth is that the original meaning of traditional songs like this can be lost back in time, and only suppositions can be made about their real symbols.

"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" Lyrics

Modern version

One, two,
Buckle my shoe;
Three, four,
Knock at the door;
Five, six,
Pick up sticks;
Seven, eight,
Lay them straight:
Nine, ten,
A big fat hen;
Eleven, twelve,
Dig and delve;
Thirteen, fourteen,
Maids a-courting;
Fifteen, sixteen,
Maids in the kitchen;
Seventeen, eighteen,
Maids a-waiting
Nineteen, twenty,
My plate's empty

"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" Original lyrics

Thirteen, fourteen, draw the curtain,
Fifteen sixteen, the maid's in the kitchen,
Seventeen, eighteen, she's in waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, my stomach's empty

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"One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" or "1, 2 Buckle My Shoe" is a counting song dating back to late 18th century USA. It was heard for the first time around 1780 somewhere around Wrentham, Massachusetts. However the first published version of this traditional nursery rhyme is found in London in a children songs book called "Songs for the Nursery" that appeared in 1805.

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Teacher will create a fun quiz with Kahoot

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Join a game of kahoot here. Kahoot! is a free game-based learning platform that makes it fun to learn – any subject, in any language, on any device, for all ages!

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review word charts daily

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Teacher can use their white board to write down rhyming words as the whole class sounds them out

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Work independently as well as in groups on worksheets

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What could we do to improve Education.com?

Please note: Use the Contact Us link at the bottom of our website for account-specific questions or issues.

What would make you love Education.com?

What is your favorite part about Education.com?

Submit Form

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What could we do to improve Education.com? Please note: Use the Contact Us link at the bottom of our website for account-specific questions or issues. What would make you love Education.com? What is your favorite part about Education.com? Submit Form

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Read rhyming books.  (The cat in the hat)

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Read rhyming books.  (The cat in the hat)

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CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2.A
Recognize and produce rhyming words.

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Work on Spelling and Vocabulary

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VocabularySpellingCity's Teaching Resources pages provide free lesson plan ideas and great supplemental materials and spelling resources for teachers in all subject areas and grade levels.

K-12 teachers can access background information on grade level topics to assist in creating extensive lesson plans and spelling lists for English Language Arts concepts like grammar or figurative language that are extremely important for kids to learn. The Educational Topics section offers teachers information on research-based best practices, such as how to effectively implement literacy centers and create great, fun lesson plans to work through with students.

To further enhance lesson plans, teachers will find free K-12 literacy teaching resources and K-12 content specific vocabulary lists. Lists and resources support the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Pages provide a review of CCSS and specifications on how resources and materials align to grade level standards.

In addition, teachers' spelling lists can be paired with VocabularySpellingCity's interactive learning games for kids and free printable worksheets. K-12 teachers will see suggestions as to what interactive games are best suited for students to practice and build spelling and vocabulary proficiency.

Word Lists & Lessons offers video lessons, enrichment strategies and spelling resources for teachers, parents and homeschoolers, plus useful word lists for grades K through high school. A variety of K-12 Language Arts lessons are offered including Analogies, Compound Words, and Figurative Language. Thousands of word lists are here, ready to import into your account while logged in, such as Beginning Spelling Curriculum, Sight Words, and Academic Vocabulary.

Remember that our word lists fit general guidelines. Since curricula and students' abilities vary, be sure to check more than one grade level to find exactly the words you need.

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VocabularySpellingCity's Teaching Resources pages provide free lesson plan ideas and great supplemental materials and spelling resources for teachers in all subject areas and grade levels. K-12 teachers can access background information on grade level topics to assist in creating extensive lesson plans and spelling lists for English Language Arts concepts like grammar or figurative language that are extremely important for kids to learn.

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Games, Assessments, and Interactive lessons.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Fun Creative Learning

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Practice whole class, or small group

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Phase 5 Phonics Flashcards - Sub-Saharan Africa

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Help children with phase 5 phonics using these wonderful flashcards. Aimed at phase 5, these helpful flashcards contain all of the phase 5 phonemes and a corresponding picture prompt. They are really useful for whole class teaching, small group games, or used in the provision for independent activities.

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Watch Phonics Videos with Students

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19 Phonics Videos Your Students Will Love

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Phonics videos are great to use in a variety of settings! I use phonics videos to get my students started in the morning, during indoor recesses, brain breaks, 5 minute time gaps, and of course in reading block. They are a great tool to get your students up and moving, while learning phonics skills. Here are some of my favorites covering many of the phonics skills our students have to learn.

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Make Learning Fun and Interesting with this game

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Use ping-pong balls to practise letter names and sounds with a fun fishing and matching game for pre-schoolers!

Recently I found a large box of ping-pong balls for only £1 in the Pound Shop and bought them up (like I always do!) thinking they would be useful for something one day! They've turned out to be fantastic for making alphabet games with, and here is the first one that the girls enjoyed doing recently. Using a Sharpie permanent marker I simply wrote one letter of the alphabet on each ball, uppercase on one side and lowercase on the other.

Then we dropped them into a large tub of water which I'd coloured with a few drops of blue gel food colouring.

Next I wrote out the letters of the alphabet into the spaces in some empty egg cartons and we placed those next to the tub, ready for filling up with the fished out balls. With a little fishing net set out next to the set up , we were ready to play!

They took it in turns to find the letter of the alphabet that I was calling out. I made the letter SOUND rather than said the letter name itself (used the phoneme rather than the grapheme) and they had to join in repeating the sound out-loud with me as they looked for its corresponding letter. When they found it they fished it out and looked for its matching letter in the box and put it in.

They continued until they had found all the letters of the alphabet, and then (with my newly 5 year old) we used some of them to make small CVC words together . There are lots of other hands-on ways to play with these alphabet balls and we will share some more fun activities soon.

Cakie: 5.0

Pop: 3.6

Bean; 18 mos
What they are learning as they play:
literacy: letter and phoneme correspondence, phonics, sight recognition of graphemes, simple spelling

maths: matching and sorting

physical: gross motor co-ordination skills

See all our other Playful Literacy learning activities here!

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Alphabet Sounds Fishing and Matching game - The Imagination Tree

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Use ping-pong balls to practise letter names and sounds with a fun fishing and matching game for pre-schoolers! Recently I found a large box of ping-pong balls for only £1 in the Pound Shop and bought them up (like I always do!) thinking they would be useful for something one day!

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Personalized reading, and assessments

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Parents, get 30 days free! Educators, get it free in class

How to get your kids reading & loving it!

MORE FEATURES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Personalize their daily reading.

Daily age- and level-appropriate recommendations customized to their interests.

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See what books your kid likes, time spent reading and more.

Get content that grows with them.

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Build confidence.

Endless books, videos and more to grow their skills and feed curiosity.

Teachers: bring your lessons to life.

Free, easy access, in-class integration, class rosters, assignment tracking and more.

EPIC IN SCHOOLS

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SPARK BY EPIC

Get inspired with the Epic blog.

Discover tips, ideas, book lists and more for educators and families.

Go to Epic blog

Parents, get 30 days free! Educators, get it free in class

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Parents, get 30 days free! Educators, get it free in class How to get your kids reading & loving it! MORE FEATURES AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Personalize their daily reading. Daily age- and level-appropriate recommendations customized to their interests. Track progress. See what books your kid likes, time spent reading and more.

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Starfall Education: Kids Games, Movies, Books & Music for K-5 and above

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At Starfall, children have fun while they learn - specializing in reading, phonics & math - educational games, movies, books, songs, and more for children K-5 and above.

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Available on
Step-by-Step Learning Path

"Love the progressive activities! I don't have to take the time to search for activities for my 3-year-old, and my 5-year-old just follows along when she's playing by herself... So I know everyone's doing the right things for their ages!" -Crystal, mother of 3- and 5-year-old girls
computers, tablets, and smartphones!

The Reading Curriculum Includes:

Uppercase and lowercase letter recognition

Phonics

Rhyming words and word families

More than 450 books and beginning readers

Sentence structure

Parts of speech

ABCmouse.com's reading curriculum spans the entire range of early reading, from learning the names of each letter and the sounds they represent to being able to read books, starting with a few words on a page and gradually advancing to paragraphs.

The curriculum for first grade also includes writing and language skills, such as sentence structure and punctuation, parts of speech, and practice with writing genres.

ABCmouse.com's reading curriculum spans the entire range of early reading, from learning the names of each letter and the sounds they represent to being able to read books, starting with a few words on a page and gradually advancing to paragraphs.

The curriculum for first grade also includes writing and language skills, such as sentence structure and punctuation, parts of speech, and practice with writing genres.

The Math Curriculum Includes:

Recognizing and counting numbers 1-120

The base ten system

Place value

Addition and subtraction

Names and attributes of 2D and 3D shapes

Length, time, and money measurement

The Math Curriculum Includes:

Recognizing and counting numbers 1-120

The base ten system

Place value

Addition and subtraction

Names and attributes of 2D and 3D shapes

Length, time, and money measurement

ABCmouse.com teaches numbers, addition and subtraction, shapes, patterns, measurements, and more! Our games and creative activities make math fun while giving young learners the practice they need to build a strong foundation for success.

The Science and Social Studies Curriculum Includes:

The body and health

Plants and animals

Weather, climate, and the seasons

Earth's environments

Maps

Regions of the United States

The Solar System

Matter and its properties

Science and Social Studies

ABCmouse.com's science and social studies curriculum helps children understand the world they live in and inspires curiosity.

Science and Social Studies

ABCmouse.com's science and social studies curriculum helps children understand the world they live in and inspires curiosity.

The Art & Colors Curriculum Includes:

Primary and secondary colors

Shades of colors

Paint-by-number activities

Number and letter dot-to-dots

The Art & Colors Curriculum Includes:

Primary and secondary colors

Shades of colors

Paint-by-number activities

Number and letter dot-to-dots

ABCmouse.com's unique drawing and painting program gives children of all ages the opportunity to use lines, shapes, and colors to create original works of art. Games, books, paint-by-number activities, and puzzles teach children to name and use a variety of colors.

"My daughter loves this site! She has learned so much more than I thought she could learn at her age. ABC's are her favorite things to do, and since I started her on this website she has learned to read words well above her age level." -Morgyn, mother of a 2-year-old girl

"My child absolutely loves everything about this site, and I see improvement in her counting and color association already. I think this site is fantastic." -Father of a 3-year-old girl

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Available on Step-by-Step Learning Path "Love the progressive activities! I don't have to take the time to search for activities for my 3-year-old, and my 5-year-old just follows along when she's playing by herself... So I know everyone's doing the right things for their ages!"

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Learn with Homer

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Phonics: A Key Step in the Learning Journey

A step by step approach that leads to proven results

A step by step learning program personalized for your child

Complete guided lessons on ABCs, phonics, and sight words

Start tracing letters and build fine-motor skills

Build your child's working memory and story-telling skills

Take a break from your learning plan

Practice favorite activities to build mastery

Revisit your favorite stories and interactive learning games

Increase self-expression and creativity through drawing, painting, and creating your own stories

Featured in the New York Times

5/5 stars by Common Sense Media

16,000+ Ratings 4.5/5 stars on Apple App Store

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Phonics for Kids | HOMER - Games, Activites, & Lessons

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Phonics: A Key Step in the Learning Journey A step by step approach that leads to proven results A step by step learning program personalized for your child Complete guided lessons on ABCs, phonics, and sight words Start tracing letters and build fine-motor skills Build your child's working memory and

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Learn these Phonic songs with your students

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Have the students create a phonic dictionary

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We hit the classroom floor running at the beginning of the school year to help our students master their letter sounds. One of our favorite year long activities (No, that's not a typo...This lasts pretty much the entire school year for our class) for practicing our phonics skills is My Letter Sound Dictionary. We recently pulled it out to prep for the coming school year and noticed it needed a major metamorphosis. We are so excited about what emerged!

This unit got a major overhaul. The biggest change is that we've added mini word walls WITH pictures for all of the consonants and vowels. We love them!

Our first grade friend Stephanie over at Falling into First has a great tutorial on how to DIY this little anchor chart stand that we made to hold all of the mini word walls in one place. So, the kids will just flip to the one they need and get to work independently. We love the "I" word!

We make each of our students their own Letter Sound Dictionary and bind the pages together, but we have also had years where book binding combs are not in our budget, and a good old fashioned stapler (heavy duty) works just fine.

At the beginning of the school year, this is a whole group activity so we can teach procedure and expectations. But, as soon as they've got the hang of it, we incorporate this activity into our daily Workshop (centers) time. They use the Letter Sound Dictionary directions card to follow directions independently.

For our fluent readers, we give them word rings...Same words as the mini word walls, but without picture support. Differentiation is a must in our classroom, and between the mini word walls and the word rings, we've got all our learners covered. We make 4 word ring sets so there are plenty for each student to use their own. They just flip to the letter they are working on, read the words and chose 5 to draw and write in their books. To extend their sound skills, we have them go back and rainbow write (choose 3 different colors and trace on top of their pencil writing) the targeted sound anywhere they find it on their page. They love this part!

At the bottom of each page, we ask them to choose one of their words from above and write it in a complete sentence. This takes them some time, but in the beginning we work whole group to teach expectations and super sentence writing. For more support, we'd give them a patterned sentence such as, "I see the _____".

This unit went from just under 70 pages to over 100. It's got everything we need for sound success and independence.

If you've already got this one, please be sure to update your download on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Exciting news! Our Cali Pal Hadar over at Miss Kindergarten is hosting an amazing Try it Free Tuesday on her blog all summer long and today's "try it" is us!

You can give this activity a try by heading over to her blog and downloading our Try it Free Tuesday sampler. Enjoy!

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Student Dictionaries ~ Phonics Printables - Fluttering Through the Grades

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We hit the classroom floor running at the beginning of the school year to help our students master their letter sounds. One of our favorite year long activities (No, that's not a typo...This lasts pretty much the entire school year for our class) for practicing our phonics skills is My Letter Sound Dictionary.

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find the rhyming words and put them together

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Printable Rhyming Activities for Kids - This Reading Mama

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Looking for some printable rhyming activities for your toddler, preschooler, Kindergartner, first grader, or even an English learner? You’ll find what you need in this rhyming word collection! You can read all about rhyming words and their importance. *This post contains affiliate links. Printable…

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Below is a link to help in supporting our ELL students in the kindergarten classroom