We work on many different phonemic skills throughout the year. These skills are very helpful when reading and decoding tricky words. At school, most of these skills will be taught as needed using individually leveled sorts. At home, work with your child on the skills he/she needs help with the most. Make sure your child knows all the letters of the alphabet (and their sounds) before moving on to anything else.
First Grade Phonemic Skills:
- identify letters and their sounds
- produce short and long vowel sounds
- identify rhyming words
- identify words with the same beginning, middle or ending sound
- identify correct sounds for blends and digraphs
- clap syllables in words
- blend letters to make words (/c/ /a/ /t/ becomes cat)
- separate words into individual sounds (cat becomes /c/ /a/ /t/)
- learn about long vowel patterns (ee, ea, ai, oi, ou, etc)
- learn about "bossy r"
- read compound words and contractions
- use root words and their endings (s, ed, ing)
Click on the button above and print out all four pages. Cut out all the cards on the first two pages. Leave page 3 and 4 intact. AGAIN--DON'T CUT APART PAGES 3 AND 4. Have your child choose a "chunk" card (one of the cards you cut apart from the first 2 pages) and run it down past all the consonants on page 3 and then the blends and digraphs on page 4. If your child makes a real word, do a thumbs up. If it is not a real word, do a thumbs down. This is a fun and effective way to get the sequence of letters in a chunk learned and to introduce and explore vocabulary. By the way, a chunk is a piece of a word with a vowel in it. You can make new words by putting different consonants, blends and digraphs in front of chunks. Blends are two consonants and you can hear a little bit of each letter. Digraphs are two consonants but they make ONE sound.