Chutes and Ladders or Candyland Reading Game

Robbie and I have been playing modified versions of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. I made word cards to use instead of the color cards (Candyland) or spinner (Chutes and Ladders). Each card has a word for the player to read and a value (based upon phonetic difficulty) of 1, 2 or 3. I don't wish to discourage him by using only difficult words. This older photo shows some of his first set of cards.

When it's his turn, Robbie draws a card and reads the word. If he gets it on the first try, he can move his game piece the number of spaces listed on the card. If he doesn't read it correctly on the first try, I help him and it is set aside to be re-read at the end of the game.

This game has been a big hit at our house. I can simply update the cards whenever he learns a new rule or needs to review a concept. I believe that it would also be a fun way to practice sight word lists for those of you who use them. It could also be used for spelling if another player draws the card and gives the current player the word to spell.

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Reading... a break from lessons (and a printable)

I know I haven't posted a reading update in a few weeks. Our weeks have been mostly reading books. We've taken a bit of a break from the lessons. We'll be getting back to them, but I thought it would be fun to simply... READ.

What has Robbie been reading?

His big books from his Hooked on Phonics lessons. He's re-reading these for review. He's loving how easy they have become since he's moved forward in his lessons.


He's started reading his way through our Beginner Books collection. He may need help with a word here or there, but he's really doing very well. Sometimes the books are too long for him to read in one sitting, so I allow him to bookmark them and come back later.


He also enjoyed having a Helper Word (sight word) scavenger hunt around the house.

I also made this vowel/consonant coloring sheet to help Robbie review which letters are vowels and which are consonants. Simply click the image below to download the file.



What reading skills have your students been working on?

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Hot Rods and Another R-Controlled Vowel Printable

Learning to read on a short week...

Robbie picked up the "ar" sound very quickly this week. For reinforcement, he's been coloring our r-controlled vowels word cards and our new ocean-themed "ar" word cards.


Today, his reading lesson had him read instructions. He thought this was very cool. He got to cut and fold to create a paper hot rod. (I copied the hot rod onto card stock so that we wouldn't have to cut up his book.)


The instructions...


Decorating his hot rod...


Of course, he's still doing a page in his Explode the Code daily and reading lots of books to me and RockerDad. He's also reading most of the conversations between characters on his Super Mario Galaxy 2 game and anywhere else he sees printed words (sometimes with a bit of help).

I can't wait to see what fun things others are doing with their children as they learn to read.

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A Glimpse of Robbie's Reading Lessons

Robbie has been doing his Hooked on Phonics lessons daily. We only spend about 5 minutes per day on these.

These are a few pages from this week's lessons...


Here is the story he will read for his lesson today...


Robbie finished his new helper word rocket this week. He surprised me when I presented the words. I had originally planned to introduce a few each week, but he read every word but "could" on the first try.


He colored half of his helper word cards earlier in the week. He'll be coloring these today and/or tomorrow.


Since he knows his helper words a few lessons early, it will give us an opportunity to play around with r-controlled vowels. I'll use our printables as well as some other things I've found on the web. Hopefully, that will be part of next week's post.

Here is a shot of the board where we keep his literacy work and sticker chart.


He's been doing one page of his Explode the Code daily. He was doing more, but I cut him back to a page per day. It's a good review.


Here is a pic of his page for today.


These are the books he will read to me today. They are below what he is working on, but they are helping to build his fluency and keep his confidence up.


I placed a small magnetic board on his literacy shelves with the alphabet, but I removed some of the letters. I thought it would be a fun into to working on alphabetic order.


He enjoyed doing it. Next week, I plan to just let him put all the magnets on in alphabetical order himself.


He found his old c-v-c puzzles and worked them in his room one day.


This seems like a lot, but we actually spend very little time on structured learning. Usually less than 45 minutes per day, in small chunks.


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R-Controlled Vowels Printables

Since the consonanant blends (beginning and ending) which are the main focus of Hooked on Phonics 1st Grade seem to come pretty naturally to him, I thought that Robbie could begin to learn some of the skills which will be taught in the 2nd grade levels. HOP 2nd grade seems to cover many skills, so having an emerging grasp on them will (hopefully) make it go as smoothly as the other grades have.

I decided to start with some basic r-controlled vowels, as these come up fairly frequently in his everyday reading. These printables are simply words to color (or trace) with the vowel and the r underlined to help him remember the rule.



Simply click the image above to download the printables. I don't know if these will be helpful to anyone else, but I thought I'd share them... just in case. :)

Here are some other free r-controlled vowels activities and printables:
Bossy R's
Starfall Word Sorting
Boggles World

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Learning to Read and Spell with Games

As Robbie makes his way through his reading lessons (which we will probably be speeding up... what is covered in the rest of his Hooked on Phonics 1st Grade seems to be pretty natural to him), we are having fun with some games and other fun things.

He plays Boggle, Jr and works these puzzles... I don't have pics of him working the puzzles. He can now find all the pieces to the 3, 4, and 5 letter words (one letter per piece) for all 26 puzzles. It takes time to find the pieces, but I'm happy that he knows which letter he needs. (It's a bit frustrating for him when he finds the correct letter, but it's to a different puzzle, though. LOL)


He always plays Boggle, Jr with the flap covering the word. I think he's spelled every word in the stack too many times, now. It's just getting too easy.


The most challenging part is turning over all the dice to find the letter... lol.


Even though it's easy, he still has fun with it...


He made RockerDad a card for Father's Day using letter stickers. He spelled 100% phonetically, so it was very cute. I don't have a pic, though. :(


RockerDad found this old Scrabble Sentence Cube game at Goodwill for less than $1.


Robbie and I have had fun creating silly sentences for each other to read.


We've had lots of fun with these games and puzzles. What reading and spelling games do your children like?


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How We Handle "Helper Words" (Sight Words)

As you probably know, we have been using Hooked on Phonics (HOP) since January. We started with the Kindergarten, Levels 1 & 2 and are now 1/3 of the way through 1st Grade, Level 1.

I was only comfortable using the word family/helper words (a.k.a. "sight words") approach on my own terms. I've tutored too many children who guess more than they read due to being immersed in word families and sight words without a decent grip on phonics.

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Our Current Literacy Shelves

I thought I'd share some photos of what is currently happening on our literacy shelves. These are simply reading, writing/coloring and fine motor activities. Robbie is free to choose these activities whenever he wishes.

His reading lessons and related activities are not included in this post. I'll talk more about those next week.


READING

Robbie's books (I got the idea for keeping books he's mastered in an easily accessible bin for him from Carisa at 1+1+1=1. I apologize for not being able to find the exact post. The good news is that any of her posts are sure to inspire you.)


Here are some of the books that were in the bin on the day I took the photo.


Magnetic white board and letters (Robbie loves to spell).



WRITING

Stencils and markers


Various crayons


Wipe-off pre-cursive tracers



FINE MOTOR (pre-writing activities)

Beads and Baubles


Tweezing patterns


The game of Perfection


Homemade lacing/tying shoe


What literacy activities do you have in your homeschool? Please link up at Teach Me to Read Thursdays and share!!


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