Thing 7b Reading Specialist article from reader

I subscribed to The Reading Specialist because the site contains easy lessons backed with research. Many 4th grade students still need work with decoding and phonemic awareness. Until they are proficient in these basic reading skills, they will struggle as advanced readers. This site offers some easy lessons. I especially want to remember this lesson, as it will easily integrate with Debbie Murphy's "worms wiggle" complete sentence lesson. I could use the whole group constructed sentences as an extension for phoneme practice with those students who still need that small group instruction. The activity is copied from the link:

ctivity: That’s Just Silly! (Grades 4 and up)

from Reading Specialist Blog by teachbook

Materials: No special materials needed.

What: This activity is a way to focus students’ attention on distinguishing and saying individual sounds in words.

Why: Research indicates that many older students who struggle with reading simply are not able to distinguish subtle differences in speech sounds—sip/ship, goal/gold, tot/taught. Games such as this one give practice in hearing and saying specific sounds.

Note: Although most early phonemic awareness activities are purely oral, research suggests that for older students in particular, the inclusion of print appears to contribute to rather than detract from phonemic awareness development.

When: Before reading

Who: Whole class

How:

Prepare
Have ready 2 or 3 silly sentences, such as the following (including some sentences made up of words that begin with blends or digraphs):

Monkeys make music.
Sleet slithers.
Pretty princesses practice.
Shelly’s shadow shimmered.

Model/Teach
Choose one of the sentences and write it on the board, leaving spaces between words. Read the sentence, and then call on students to suggest other words with the same beginning sound that you can to add to extend the sentence, such as:

Monkeys make music.
Mad monkeys make music.
Mad monkeys make marvelous music.
Mad monkeys make more marvelous music.

Pretty princesses practice.
Pretty princesses practice prancing.
Pretty practical princesses practice prancing.

Extend
Say a sound, such as /ch/, then call on a volunteer to write a silly-sentence starter with words that contain the sound. Have the class expand the sentence, with the student writing the words they suggest.
 

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