Phonics and Spelling City

What is phonics? Phonics is the ability to understand that each letter in a word represents a sound. Sometimes two letters will make one sound; we call these digraphs and vowel teams. The digraphs we learn about in 1st grade are sh as in sheep, th as in bath and this, ch as in chair and wh as in whale. The vowel teams we have covered so far are ee, ai, oa, and ea as in bread and team. We often say the little rhyme, "When 2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This just means that the first vowel in the vowel teams says
it's own name. Other times in words, there will be blends. A blend is a grouping of 2-3 letters that each make their own individual sound. For example, in the word splash, we tap out each individual sound on our fingers: s-p-l-a-sh. I refer to these terms whenever we learn about or review a blend, vowel team or digraph. When you are at home, practicing spelling words with your child, you can go over this blends and digraphs chart to reinforce what we are learning about.
The goal of our phonics/spelling program is not for the students to memorize the words, but it is for them to apply what we are learning to spell new words. An example of an activity I would do with small groups would be this:

• "Let's make the word meat. Now change the word meat into cheat. How are those words similar and different? They both have the -eat word chunk or they both have the -ea vowel team. Now change cheat into cheap. Now how are they similar or different? The have the same beginning and middle sound, but their ending sound is different."

You can do this with so many words to challenge them in order to see whether or not they are applying what we are learning. A set of magnetic letters from the dollar store would be a great investment. Another way for your child to practice their words would be to visit Spelling City. On this website, they can practice their words, play games and even quiz themselves. Click the picture below to head to Spelling City and see our current list (Week 9). We all know how much kids love playing on the computer :)