It’s All About Phonics Practice Right?
If you teach primary grades you know it’s all about phonics, phonics……and yes phonics! The #1 reason I love teaching 1st grade is the fact that I get to teach these babies how to read. A crucial life long skill is totally in my hands, and I don’t take that lightly. I love teaching phonics!
READING SMALL GROUP TIME
My reading small groups take up a HUGE chunk of my day. I run 3 thirty minute (yes, I said 30 minute) groups every day. I don’t teach phonics whole group at all. I save those precious minutes and divide them between my small groups so they get more time with me. If you are wondering how I can do this, well it’s because I have proven to my administration that it works and they allow me to teach this way.
PHONICS PRACTICE PAGES
Today I want to share something that is going to make your life so much easier. When I am having these long small group sessions, my other students have to be doing something right? That’s where these phonics practice pages come in handy. My students rotate stations each day and their phonics folder with these review pages is one station they visit daily.
HOW I USE THE PRACTICE PAGES & WHY YOU SHOULD TOO
Every student has a green phonics folder with pages inside that review the previous week’s skill. This ensures they don’t have to come ask me for help (and interrupt my group). We have already spent an entire week on the skill so they are good to go. Another thing that makes these pages so easy is that every skill follows the same types of practice…..color by sound, mazes, sentence writing, comprehension, dice and spinner games, etc. After the first few weeks students get the hang of it and know exactly what is expected of them. I put enough pages in their folder for them to work on the entire week and they just have to turn their folder in by Friday (if they do, they earn Fun Friday!) This allows them to be in control of what pages they chose to work on each day.
ANOTHER REASON TO USE THESE NO PREP PAGES FOR PHONICS PRACTICE
These pages are so easy to differentiate. Some pages will have students only focusing on one sound so you can use those pages for students that had a hard time with the skill the week before while some pages may include 2 or more sounds. Some pages use words while other use pictures. If the comprehension passage is too hard there are some pages with only sentences. Lots of different options to meet all of your needs!
NEED AN ONLINE OPTION?
Also, as an added bonus I have included a Google Slides option for those of you teaching students online this year. If you would like to try some of these pages out I am offering a HUGE 139 page packet for free! This packet includes pages to practice short vowels, long vowels, initial blends, final blends, initial digraphs, final digraphs, vowel teams and r-controlled vowels. It also comes with the Google Slides option as well. Just click the picture to download it now!
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