Fun with Letters, Sounds, and Words

In a kindergarten group, we have been working on learning our letter names and letter sounds. One way we have been practicing to identify our letters is by playing a game where the students use a fly swatter to swat the fly that has the letter that has been called. For example, I might say, “Find the letter A.” Then a student uses the fly swatter to swat the fly with the letter A. We play this game using uppercase and lowercase letters. We also play this game by listening to the letter sound and finding the letter that makes that sound. It is a lot of fun to use a fly swatter to swat our pretend flies with letters!

In a first grade group, we have been using a pop-it to help us sound out CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. The students use a pop-it with three sections, and they pop each section as they say each sound in a word. The green pop-it section represents the beginning sound since green means go on a stoplight. The yellow pop-it section represents the middle sound, and the red pop-it section represents the final (ending) sound. After the students pop and say the sound of each letter, they work to blend the sounds together to read the whole word. We practice this by reading both real words and nonsense words. Nonsense words are made up words, but we can practice using our letter sounds to read them. By using a pop-it, the students have an engaging way to practice segmenting letter sounds and then blending the sounds together to read a word.