A Learning Activity is a strategy a teacher chooses to actively
engage students in learning a concept or skill using a digital tool/resource.
You may save this Learning Activity to your hard drive as an .html file by
selecting “File”,then “Save As” from your browser’s
pull down menu. The file name extension must be .html.
Phase:
After/Explain/Elaborate
Activity:
This activity provides a method to check for each student's understanding of phoneme chaining, therefore, this activity is best completed with each student individually.
The teacher should print out a copy of the digital tool. Place counters in front of the child. Touch each counter in turn saying the sounds of the first word. Ask the child to blend the word. Then move one counter and replace it with a new counter while telling the child the new sound. Ask them to blend the new word. Repeat for each word on the list. Digraphs such as ‘QU’, ‘SH’, ‘CH’, ‘TH’, and ‘NG’ are treated as sounds, not letters.
The teacher will move down the list of words in numerical order. The teacher can complete all 25 words, or stop after a particular number.
Assessment Strategies:
The teacher should evaluate student mastery of the standard while completing the phoneme chaining activity mentioned above. If desired, the teacher can use this second list of words to assess student understanding.
Advanced Preparation:
The teacher will need to print the document with the word lists. The teacher will need to secure counters (in different colors, if desired) for the activity.
Intervention: The teacher should identify the specific phonemic awareness skill the student is struggling with (addition, deleting, substitution, or resequencing) and model the skill in isolation (rather than in a word chain). For example, if a student is struggling with substituting the vowel sound in the middle of the word (i.e. top to tap) the teacher should model this skill with other words (i.e. bat to bot, hot to hat, hot to hit, etc.).
Extension/Expansion: Ask gifted students to make lists of words with four or five letters and replace the initial, medial, and final sounds. Additionally, they can study the morphology of those words to understand how some letters and sounds work when you change the endings and some do not.