Activity one: The pop-up game.  With this you choose a word.  The word for this example is cat.  You would give one student the (c) sound, another (a) sound, and the third the (t) sound.  You would then ask the students to pop up one at a time with their sound and then the class would put those sounds together to form the word cat. You can modify this by having a child clap when a new sound is heard to have them follow along.  

Activity two: Singing a familiar song like Wheels on the bus and saying the sounds of the word |c| |a| |t| the wheels on the bus all day long.  

Activity at home: Singing twinkle twinkle little star.  Teaching a nursey rhyme can help enhance language development.  

Website: https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home

Reading Rockets is a great website for families to get ideas on what they can do at home to encourage phonemic awareness. There is a question-and-answer section that parents can use and read.  They provide additional help for those who may be struggling as well.  

Activity two: Have a list of words on a sheet of paper.  If you are working with the letter |a| have words like.  Cat, Bat, Hat, Mat, Can, Man, Ham. Have the student highlight the letters and say the sounds as they highlight the word.  

At home activity: Have the parents point out objects in the home and have their child repeat.   

Website: Reading 101 for Parents: Phonics and Decoding https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/reading-basics/phonics-and-decoding 

Reading Rockets is a great website for families to get ideas on what they can do at home to encourage learning with phonics. This can help parents know what phonics is and give examples of what they can do at home to help their child learn this skill.  

Activity two: Fill in the blanks.  Have the students match the vocabulary word with the definition.  Those who need additional help you can read the definition to them and give the similar words to help with recognition.  

At home activity: Give them a fun word search with the vocabulary words that they can do together with their parents.  

Website: Reading Rockets with Parents https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/reading-basics/vocabulary 

This website gives parents great information on how their children are learning vocabulary. Then they can tie these concepts from school to home.  

Activity two: Add a timer for reading. Working on increasing the number of words that they can read in that time.  Can track it with a growth chart.   

At home activity: Parents can read a familiar story and have their child read it back to them.  

Website: Reading Rockets with Parents. https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/reading-basics/fluency 

This website gives parents great information on how their children are learning fluency.  It gives examples of what to look for to help their child with fluency. Fluency will increase with practice and time.  It is good for parents to be involved and see their child grow with this skill.  

Activity two: Read a long. Start with a story that they can follow as someone reads aloud.  Then answer questions at the end.  Some students may not want another voice to read so they can turn that off and read themselves.  Others may need to read along for additional help.  The questions at the end are multiple choice.  You can answer as a group and put a check mark next to the correct answer.  

At home activity: Have your child read you a story.  At the end have a conversation about what happened in the story, can even ask why do you think and what would be a different ending to the story.  

Website: Reading 101 for Parents: Comprehension https://www.readingrockets.org/literacy-home/reading-101-guide-parents/reading-basics/comprehension 

This is a great website to show parents how their children are comprehending what they read and gives them fun tools to continue this at home.