Learning Letter Sounds with Starfall
Using the SMART Board to Teach Phonics
Stage of Literacy Development:
Stage 0: Foundation for LiteracyStage 1: Beginning Literacy
Ages:
3-6
Grade Range:
PreK KFood Groups:
Primary: Letter Sounds & Phonics
Secondary: Motivation for Literacy
Transcript
Teacher: Today boys and girls, were going to look at the letter A on Starfall on our SMART Board, and were going to play a game. Here we go. SMART Board: A Teacher: A SMART Board: A Teacher: A. What sound does the letter A make? Students: /a/a/a/a/a/ Teacher: Let me hear you. Teacher and Students: /a/a/a/a/a/ Teacher: Come on up and touch the arrow, lets see what happens, [Students Name]. SMART Board: /a/ Teacher: Let me hear you. Teacher and Students: /a/ Student: Apple Teacher: A is for... Students: Apple Teacher: Lets clap out apple. Teacher and Students: /a/pple/ Teacher: What sound does apple begin with? Students: A Teacher: A, what sound does the letter A make? Teacher and Students: /a/a/a/ Teacher: Come on up and touch the letter A and find out what happens please, [Students Name] come on up and touch the letter A and find out what happens. SMART Board: /a/, apple Teacher: Apple. Lets clap it out. Teacher and Students: /a/pple/ Teacher: Im going to ask [Students Name] to touch the arrow, and lets see what happens next. SMART Board: /a/ Teacher: A is for... Teacher and Students: Alligator Teacher: And lets clap it out. Teacher and Students: /al/li/ga/tor/ SMART Board: Click and drag the letters to the correct basket. Capital A, lower case A. Teacher: Get ready, if I call your name youre going to come on up and youre going to sort the upper case As into this basket, and youre going to sort the lower case As into that basket over there. Im going to call upon [Students Name] to come on up and see if he can sort one of the letters into our two baskets. SMART Board: /a/ Teacher: [Students Name], what sound does the letter A make? Student: /a/ Teacher: Thank you. One more letter needs to find its home. Is it an upper case basket? Or is it going to go into the lower case basket? I wonder. Come on up, [Students Name]. Lets see if you can sort that. SMART Board: /a/ Teacher: What sound does that make everybody? Students: /a/! SMART Board: That was great! Teacher: Good job! Give yourself thumbs up. SMART Board: /a/ Teacher: Give yourself thumbs up.
Activity Objective
The goal of Learning Letter Sounds with Starfall: Using the SMART Board to Teach Phonics is to use technology to motivate and engage the whole class in learning letter-sound correspondences. This teacher uses an interactive whiteboard extensively in her kindergarten classroom, introducing the students to various literacy websites, including Starfall. The teacher leads whole class lessons on the SMART Board but students also have opportunities to utilize this technology independently in small groups.
Quick Tips
Additional Comments:
- Although the example provided in this recipe pertains to younger students, websites like Starfall have great literacy resources for a variety of ages and skill levels. - If you don't have access to a SMART Board in your classroom, you can invite your students to play various literacy games on the class computers or in the school computer lab. - If you would first like to be able to demonstrate how to use the website but you don't have a SMART board, you can call small groups over to the computer to demonstrate.
Other Recipes by this Teacher
Create a New Song!: Building Phonemic Awareness through Play
PreK - 1st
The Name Game: Building Awareness of Sounds and Letters
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Classroom Post Office: Letter Writing for Motivation and Communication
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Learning Targets: Fostering Student Success in Kindergarten (Virtual Tour)
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Extra Special Student: Using a Vocabulary Wheel to Ask Questions (Virtual Tour)
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