During the week of Oct. 26-30, we looked at two words. One word is “extraordinary” (after reading the story Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed<\/em> by Emily Pearson), and the other word, “recycle”, after reading the story Why Should I Recycle?<\/em> by Jen Green.<\/p>\n Extraordinary has the word ordinary in it, but the pronunciation changes.<\/p>\n We looked at the word cycle and how it is in other words we know (e.g. bicycle, tricycle) and it relates to something circular. After talking about the steps of recycling, (reduce, reuse, recycle), we noticed that all of those words have a prefix “re” which indicates something we do again (e.g. reread, rewrite, redo).<\/p>\n We began working on phonemic awareness on September 16. Please note that reading and writing go hand in hand. Most often, children will become fluent readers before becoming fluent writers. However, the two go hand in hand and the skills we learn for reading are necessary skills for writing. Please look at the list below to see what we have been working on.\u00a0 We talked about how letters have names, like we do, but they also have a sound that they say (these are called phonemes).\u00a0 The slant marks on either side of the letter are called \u201cvirgules\u201d (\/_\/) and they indicate the sound that they make.\u00a0 Letters are either vowels or consonants. The placement of their tongue, whether the mouth is open or closed, and whether we blow through our teeth change the sound of the letter. Formulation of the sounds (articulation) is important when speaking, but it is important in reading and writing as well.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The literacy bag has a hearing phone, a mirror, and a reading finger (which will be used later in the year). The hearing phone helps to amplify the sound and the mirror helps student to ensure proper mouth formation, which include the tongue placement, lip formation, and how the air is traveling. Sometimes air comes just from our mouth making a softer sound (such as \/s\/ or \/f\/) or it comes from our lungs passing the vocal cords which make the sound louder as it vibrates through our vocal cords.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Reading individual sounds (phonemes) helps from left to right is the beginning stage of reading.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As of Oct. 5, we have been practicing making words (real words and nonsense words) remembering to go left to right picking one letter from the first column, one letter from the middle column, and one letter from the third column. Then they read it back to me. This skill is important as the beginning stages of reading, but it is also important when we are trying to sound out words to spell unfamiliar words.<\/p>\n On September 16, we began learning proper letter formation. Printing letters is an important skill to have as it helps guide the students in becoming fluent readers (reading and writing left to right, up to down) and better writers.\u00a0 Proper letter formation is important in printing to ensure that there are no mix ups (b and d, and e and g, are often written interchangeably which inevitably gives incorrect spelling errors).\u00a0 At the moment, we are focusing on lower case letters but will move onto upper case letters later on in the year.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To help the students remember the correct order, these are the sayings we have been using.\u00a0 Please be reminded that we are not learning the letter formation in order of the alphabet, but in conjunction with our phonemic awareness.\u00a0 In our class, we refer to the lower-case letters as being \u201cshort\u201d, \u201ctall\u201d, or \u201chang down\u201d.\u00a0 The \u201ctall\u201d letters (capital letters and numbers included) touch the top and bottom lines, and cut through the middle-dotted line, \u201cshort\u201d letters touch the middle and bottom lines, and the \u201chang down\u201d letters start from the middle line, pass the bottom line and have part of the letter hanging down like our legs hang off of a chair.\u00a0 My reason for teaching lowercase letters first is because most of the letters in print form are lowercase letters, whether we are reading or writing. Uppercase letters are at the beginning of the sentence, at the beginning of proper nouns, and in a title book, article, poem, chapter, etc. We have practiced printing in the air, printing on someone’s back, and then practicing them on a lined sheet. Please encourage your child to print from left to right, from up to down, so prepare and practice reading.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These words, known as \u201chigh frequency words\u201d or \u201csight words,\u201d are words that are common in many books we read<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>Becoming familiar with these words will help in the decoding process of reading. These words are posted on the word wall in the classroom and are what I call the \u201csecrets to reading<\/span>\u201d,<\/span> This will help your child build reading fluency and writing. Please note that the words that are <\/span>bolded<\/span> and italicized are words that do not follow the phonemic rules and cannot be sounded out. <\/span>They have to be recognized for easier decoding and fluency.<\/span> The notation “pp” denotes “pre-primer” which are words that are found in board books and books we have read to our children since they were born. I refer to sight words as “one of the secrets to reading and writing.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Words that sound the same but are not spelled the same or have the same meaning are called homophones. The first part of the word “homo” means the same and the latter part of the word “phones” refers to anything that refers to sound.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sd41blogs.ca\/sokugawas\/files\/2026\/10\/IMG_1927.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\nPhonemic Awareness<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nLetter Sounds\/Phonemes<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n
Letter Formation<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n
\n
Sight Words (High Frequency Words)<\/h1>\n
Homophones<\/h2>\n