It was short e week this time. You will find that these activities look very similar to the ones we did with short i and there’s a reason for this–INDEPENDENCE! It helps to get a routine going so he knows what is expected and can work with more confidence and independence. There’s much less whining and “Mommy, how do I do this?” when he already knows the “drill”. Another added benefit: less planning on my part. 🙂
You can also look here to see what Amy from Teach Mama did with the same sort.
Monday: I introduced the sort by first sorting all the pictures into these rhyming word families: -en, -eg, and -et (this sort comes from here). Once we had sorted all the pictures, it was time to match the words to the pictures. I modeled this first.
After I modeled, I shuffled all the words and helped him rematch them to the pictures. He was very astute and noted that the e in the -en words sounded different than the e in -eg and -et. And from our region of the US, we do say it more like -in. That’s the one quam I have with this sort and the reason I waited to do short e last.
Tuesday: He re-matched with my support. To extend, he got on Starfall and played the en and et word building games, then read Peg the Hen.
Wednesday: He re-matched pictures and words with less of my support.
Going on a Word Hunt
To extend the sort, we read Peg and Ted (from Bob Books: Set 1) and went on a “word hunt”. This has got to be one of my favorite activities to do with a sort. Once the child understands the pattern and the sound, you set them free to find words in context that fit the same pattern/sound.
Thursday: We skipped matching pictures with words and went straight to this dictation sentence: The jet did not get wet. Dictation sentences are great because you can control the vocabulary and use them to review sentence conventions (where capital letters go, spacing, punctuation).
This was his first attempt…not bad.
We reviewed where capital letters should go and punctuation. This was his finished product. (I didn’t stress over the backward g–this time.)
We also played this short vowel review game I purchased on clearance years ago at a Mailbox store. Basically, it’s pictures and the word underneath with the vowel missing (b_x). The child has to figure out which short vowel sound is in the word and sort it under that vowel. Picture sorts like this are great for phonemic awareness because the child has to use his ear to isolate and identify one specific sound within the word.
Friday: He re-matched, read the words to me, and glued them in his Word Study notebook; which is where he keeps all of his former word sorts to use as a resource when needed.
Thank you for joining This Reading Mama on a literacy journey!
~Becky
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