The Sweet Sound of Long Vowels {Freebie}

I'm sitting here again tonight wondering whether I'll wake up tomorrow to yet another blanket of snow. Snow days are great! But only when the stress is taken out of it. I mean, there's nothing more stressful than watching the snow come down and not knowing whether you need to start out for school or not. There's added stress for me because:

• I don't have just one school, so need to check all the schools for closures
• I am seriously phobic of driving in the snow and ice. Seriously, I mean pho-bic. I actually have baaaaad panic attacks which I suppose makes me more of a hazard to other road users than all that snow and ice.

It's been quite bad here over the last few days but I know we've had it easy compared to some. This weekend the boiler decided it would be a great time to break down! No heat all weekend! I've been sleeping in pyjamas, socks, dressing gown, scarf, mittens, hat and hottie! To cap it all, when we tried to plug in a few electric heaters on Saturday evening, the fusebox in the house melted! So we made the call to the power company and were without electricity too for most of Saturday night. All back to normal now, but what a weekend! I almost ran out and booked into a hotel! All that cold made me think about those poor souls who find themselves homeless at this time of year. I'd desperately love to help but don't know how. Makes you feel so inadequate, so grateful for what we've got - and so ungrateful for moaning...

So I haven't managed to get my car moving since last Thursday. I've been on foot and reliant on lots of lifts for the last few days - painful! My poor little car is struggling in this cold weather. Sure, I've turned it over a few times just to keep it warmed up, but it's been having problems starting for a few weeks now {note to self: change car battery}. This morning it just wasn't having any of it. As much as I tried it just wouldn't fire up. Poor old girl! Eventually, after much coaxing, I managed to persuade it to turn over. 

Walking to numerous schools laden with papers, books, supplies (I am my own walking classroom...) etc is not much fun - especially when you live at the top of a mountain! So I've been keeping it simple - off plan as it were (there's nothing like winging it once in a while to keep you on your toes...). This week we've been working on phonics. Easy? Nooooooo. Not so easy when your children are all at different stages of their phonic development. Some children are still working on basic phonemes (that's the easy part). Others are just starting out on digraph blends - or "special friends" as we call them ("best mates" for the older children). Children always need a helping hand with the different ways of spelling the same sounds, and always have problems with split digraphs. So I came up with a little something to help. Knowing how much they love word games, I pulled together "Sweet Sounds" - a phonic word sort game bundle . It's 43 pages full of long vowel words, sorts cards and recording sheets. There is one separate pack for each long vowel sound - perfect for literacy centres. This one has a sweet Valentine theme, but will soon be available in lots of different themes (let me know if you can think of a particular theme).

Packs are also available separately. I'm making the Long A pack a FREEBIE until 8pm tomorrow evening (GMT) so snag your copy now by clicking on the Long A picture below.

Stay safe and warm.

We Heart -ay! And a Phonics Freebie

Teaching Phonics and Idioms

My teaching job is a little off the wall. Like most teachers, I was used to teaching classes of around 30 children. Now I teach upwards of 120 every week! My little ducklings are new to English and are desperately trying to catch up with their peers. My job is to help them do just that. And the image above is typical of my classes - lots of different cultures. It's fab!

Differentiating the EAL Classroom

Every one of my children is at a different level in their language acquisition. Some are almost fluent orally but have huge gaps in their grammar. Some have no phonic awareness so struggle to sound and blend. Others are totally new to the language and are in the "silent period", which can last for anything up to two years! Differentiation is taken to a whole new level in my classes..! In Wales we use the "5 Stage Process" to assess our EAL children, where A is new to the language, B is acquiring the language, C is developing the language, D is becoming more competent and E is fluent. I have given every one of my children individual targets according to what gaps they need to fill in order to move up to the next level. That took a while, I can tell you!

My planning is organised in terms of focus. Every week there is a speaking and listening focus, which is the bread and butter of language acquisition. In addition, there is another focus, either reading or writing. This week my focus will be reading. Last week the focus was writing. 

Phonics and Idioms

Luckily for me, most of my children fall into one of five categories, so I only need to work up five medium term plans for each half term. Last week was the first week back to school where I have been able to properly put it all to the test - and it worked!

My level A learners (new to the language) spend some time working with pictures and building up their vocabulary. Most of them are very young so the learning process continues in the classroom - at that age they soak up language like sponges. We made "mmm" sounds when they saw an apple or ice cream, and "ssssss" sounds for the snake. We had such fun.

My level B readers focused on learning speed sounds M, A, S, T, D, I, N, P, G and O. It seems like a lot, but we had started these last school year, so this was refreshing sounds they already knew. I was pleased that they remembered and were able to use the cards to sound out and build CVC words for themselves.

 Although the resources that came with the phonics pack are very good (see the picture above), I found that the children were building words that they didn't know the meaning of. So I made myself a set of visual aids for each group of sounds. The first set is free, and subsequent sets are available at a very small cost. Click below for the freebie.

My level C children worked on the -ay sound. We talked about how we could use different combinations of letters to make the same sound, and brainstormed a few. Then we looked at -ay. They came up with lots of words using -ay. Here are a few:

My level D children are good all round readers and writers, but have gaps in their grammar and find it tricky to understand some of the more subtle nuances in their reading. We worked on idioms, which they absolutely loved! We talked about "raining cats and dogs", and "I'm over the moon". Then we thought about heart idioms, like "I wear my heart on my sleeve" and "my heart is broken". They made fabulous little heart-shaped books to record the idioms and their meanings. Here they are:

How Do You Teach Phonics?

An Update

Only Tuesday and I'm already flaked out...! If I can just make it to the weekend..... Then it's just Monday and I'm on summer break until September 3rd...  But-it's-sooooooo-hard......

A few days ago I blogged about teaching EAL (ESOL) children to read, write and speak English, and the difficulties involved with using phonics. You can see my post and download a free resource by clicking the image below:

I have received some really kind comments about my Monster Match resources. It's great to have feedback from all you wonderful teachers about how you manage EAL (ESOL) children's learning - hmmmm, I feel a linky party coming on....

Without further ado, here is the second resource in the set - Set 1 sounds for letters I, N, P, G and O. All of the Set 1 sounds resources will be available in my TN and TPT stores (I prefer TN because I don't pay commission there) for the very small sum of just $1. The word family resources (when available) will be a little more, simply because they will be longer. I hope you enjoy, and please remember to leave me feedback - every little helps.

 

  

Have a fab day!

How Do You Teach Phonics?

How do you teach phonics?

I am one of those teachers who has never really had to teach phonics widely in class. That job was mostly done by those wonderful teachers in Key Stage 1 (K-1). As a Key Stage 2 (2-5) teacher, I only had occasion to teach letters and sounds to children who had missed out for some reason, or who had additional needs. As such, I was not well versed in using phonics programmes, although I had been trained in various methods and programmes until it was coming out of my ears...

All that changed dramatically four weeks ago when I started my new job. As I travelled around schools in the area assessing children's English language ability, I quickly discovered that all of them - even those who were fluent English speakers - had gaps in their phonic knowledge which meant that it was going to be difficult for them to decode and spell unfamiliar words. As such, I have spent the last four weeks giving crash courses in basic phonic to around 100 children...

It's been great! I am having a ball! But I'm also a bit frustrated. Read on to find out why.

There are lots of really worthwhile phonics programmes on the market. I don't know what you have in the US, but over here lots of schools use Jolly Phonics or Letters and Sounds. Letterland was a great scheme for introducing the alphabet and basic sounds, but not digraphs or split digraphs. Some schools use POPAT. They are all very similar. Over the last two years or so, I have been using a scheme called "Read, Write, Inc". I must admit I was sceptical at first, but having used it successfully at a number of schools. I am a convert. Don't get me wrong, I am not on commission for promoting it or anything, but I thought you might like to know what goes down well over here.

                  

The scheme is suitable for all children, from beginners to phonics right up to those who are proficient and need practice with reading comprehension and writing. As I prefer the freedom to be creative with reading and writing in the classroom, I tend to just use RWI's phonics elements. The programme begins by introducing the first set of speed sounds - the basic 31 sounds. Interesting and colourful books support learning as the sounds are introduced. Once the children are secure with set 1 sounds, sets 2 and 3 are introduced - digraph blends such as -ay, -ee, er etc. As the children read through the books (which get progressively more difficult as they become more familiar with the groups of sounds), they encounter different ways of making the same sounds (eg -air, are etc). There are also "Green Words" and "Red Words" words which can be sounded and blended conventionally, and words which are irregular and have to be learned. The scheme is great fun and the children absolutely love it. I have seen some resources on Amazon if anyone would like to give it a go.

            

So I decided to give it a try with my EAL children. All of them. Even those who could speak English fluently. I found loads of fantastic resources on TPT and TN for teaching phonics, but they were all tailored to teaching phonics to children who have English as their first language. Children who start school with English as their first language know, for example, what a map is, so when they sound out and blend, they have a picture in their heads that they can associate with that word for ever and a day. Not so with EAL (ESL) children who are new to English. They do not know what the word "map" means or what a mug looks like, so they sound and blend in a totally meaningless vacuum. It falls on me to try to illuminate the poor mites, and as I don't speak Polish or Portuguese or Tagalog, I have to resort to acting. Believe me, my miming skills are second to none....! Hence my reason for being frustrated.

We all know that EAL children need visual prompts. Wouldn't life be so much easier if everything came with a picture cards..? So last night I decided enough was enough!. I sat down and started to design something to complement the RWI programme that would help my EAL children to understand what on earth it was that they were spelling out and blending. I came up with this:

It's called "Monster Match" and is based on the first 5 Set 1 sounds - M A S D and T. Top of my summer bucket list is to produce one of these for each group of Set 1 sounds, a resource for Set 2 and 3 digraphe blends, and sentence strips to reinforce learning. After introducing the sounds, children use the cards to build CVC words. Blend the sounds using the sound buttons (one sound) and dashes (digraphe blend) and say the word. Then - and this is the useful part for my EAL kids - match the word to the picture.


Initial sound sorting cards



 

Picture cards
















Picture cards

                                                                                                     

The first set is free, so pop along to my TN or TPT stores to download your copy now.

Happy Sunday!