We have been learning how we can make our sound power extra strength by listening for more complex or challenging sounds. This includes listening for blends, digraphs, short and long vowels. Children have been listening and looking for letter sounds and partnerships within words, using what they notice to try and figure out new and unknown words.
We know to get our mouths ready for the beginning sound when reading a new word. With our extra strength sound power we now know to study the word from beginning to end, using what we know about letters and sounds to read the whole word.
It is essential we spend time applying this knowledge and practicing these developing skills in different ways; from listening for the sounds in words and showing how many sounds using tiles to studying words within text. This kind of work as a reader, writer, and word scientist takes persistence. We will continue to develop these skills and work on applying them with more independence.
Our growing charts and tools!
Blend Hunts at Home!
We have been connecting our learning by going on Blend Hunts at home. Below are a few examples of children's work listening for beginning L Blends on a remote Wednesday.
Listening for vowel sounds!
We have been listening for middle vowel sounds in different ways. Here are a few pictures of sorting words by listening for the middle vowel sound; is it a short or long vowel? Say the word, listen for the sounds; what do you hear?
Writing Workshop
Visuals and familiar tools support the transfer of developing skills and knowledge into our writing workshop! Beckett recently reminded his peers to take all of their tools out of their basket and set up their writing space, like he does. He has his digraphs, blends, and letter sheet next to him.
When working with Peyton, we made sure to take her tiles out. The children's tiles are a familiar tool for hearing all of the sounds in a word; from beginning to end!
You can watch and listen to this video from our writing workshop on Friday. Peyton heard the number of sounds in the word climb, but made an error; the middle vowel sound. At the end of our workshop we invited her to model using her tiles to listen for how many sounds in a word and check her work, ensuring she has the correct sounds.
We practice extra strength sound power in many ways and across content areas, it's important to make the connections (or transfer) visible, using the language and tools of our community. Through her process and share, Peyton reminded us of the importance of self-monitoring and checking our sound work!
Using a familiar tool; tiles!
Digraph Hunts at Home!
Listening for sh and ch digraphs on remote Wednesday!
Reading Workshop
To support the application of these developing skills and knowledge into our reading, we have continued to practice being word scientists; studying words before we read them.
In the short clip below Hayden finds the digraph sh at the end of a word. We had figured out the beginning sound, but we know readers read the whole word, from beginning to end.
The children have been incredibly supportive of their reading community during these lessons. In the video we had to pause and honor the "silent cheer" initiated by Hayden's peers. During these lessons, each child has their own copy of a page from the book and a highlighter in hand. I have a large copy on the chart. First we look at the page and find all of the sight words we know and highlight them. Then we look closely at the new or unfamiliar words on the page. We study the words and talk about what we notice (letters and sounds) to help us read the words.
When we approach reading the page of a new book in this way- especially a more challenging book with more words on each page- the children can look at all of the highlights and realize that they know more words and sounds on the page than they thought they did.
Study the whole word, from beginning to end!
Using stars and next steps from assessments to guide instruction;
During our recent reading assessments all of the children used beginning sound power, looking at the first letter of a new or unfamiliar word. I noticed a pattern in errors; all children looked at the first letter and read a word that made sense (based on the initial sound and the meaning of the story) but it did not make sense when looking at the whole word.
The community star from our reading assessments is that everyone knows to look at the first letter of a new word! Our collective next step is to look at the whole word, from beginning to end. Then we have to make sure the word we read looks right, sounds right, and makes sense. We will continue these lessons, supporting the application of extra strength sound power.
Academic Choice; a beloved time to work on sound power through choice and play!
Below are a few recent examples of the children's use of sound power and extra strength sound power during academic choice.
Small building labels; snow fox, den, and snow!
Little books about rocks has become a new favorite. For a recent community celebration, we introduced more science tools to our academic choice. Children used magnifying glasses to study the geodes and different kinds of rocks in our classroom. Then they made a little book of rock observations. You can see that Roxy wrote "sparkly crystals" as her first observation.
Maia loves the new books she recently got during reading workshop. When reading with her, we noticed how sweet the illustrations are. I invited her to make her own Peeper and Zeep book during academic choice. She has been working hard on her little book!
The children have enjoyed making little books about many, many things during choice. Reid taught us that we can make an I Love You Book; a little book about all of the things you love about someone!
(Can you imagine if a colleague gave you a little book about all of the things they like about you? The world would be a better place if we practiced what the children teach us!)
