Park that Word!

Blending Words with Vowel Digraphs in a Game

Stage of Literacy Development:

Stage 1: Beginning Literacy
Stage 2: Consolidation / Fluency

Ages:

4-7

Grade Range:

K 1st

Food Groups:

Primary:
Phonemic Awareness, Spelling
Secondary:
Letter-Sound Correspondences, Motivation for Literacy

Transcript

Teacher: Here we have a bunch of cards with different sounds on them and some of the sounds are like the diagraphs that we've been working on. Do you remember what a diagraph is?... It's when two letters make one sound. Ok, so can you find the diagraphs? Two letters that make one sound Yeah, what does that one say?

Student: /oi/e/or/.

Teacher: Or! Ok, so these are all of our vowels and these are all of our consonants, all right? So let's make some words that you can sound out in that parking lot. So the first word I want you to make is toy.

Student: /t//oy/.

Teacher: Toy! Ok, now I want you to change the first letter and make the word soy Now sound that one out.

Student: Soy.

Teacher: Perfect, ok. Now I want you to try to make the word sort Ok sound out the word sort.

Student: Sort.

Teacher: Sort. /s/o/r/t/. Sort. Ok now, this is really hard, I want you to hear all of the sounds and make the word snort.

Student: /s/n/. /s/n/ort.

Teacher: You heard them all in order, ok. Can you move the sounds around? Take away the s and move them around to make the word torn?.. Sound out the word torn.

Student: /t/o/r/n/.

Teacher: Really good. Ok we're going to end with a really hard one. Can you make the word storm? You're not going to have enough parking spots for this word.

Student: /s/t/o/r/

Teacher: Storm. Good sound it out.

Student: /s/t/o/r/m/.

Teacher: Storm. Great parking job!

Activity Objective

The goal of Park that Word!: Blending Words with Vowel Digraphs in a Game is to help students develop their decoding skills using two-letter vowel sounds. This teacher creates a fun one-on-one game to help her students build confidence in finding and sounding-out diagraphs.

Quick Tips

Additional Comments:

- You can also ask students to write down these words as they go to help them develop their writing and spelling skills. Think about covering-up the word they just sounded out to encourage them to spell using the sounds they just heard.
- This teacher uses cars but you can change the manipulatives to trains or just about any other manipulative pertaining to your students' interests. This will make the game feel more welcoming and fun.