Words, Words, Words- Consonant Blends and Digraphs, Triple Consonant Blends, Short Vowels, Long Vowels

Consonant Cluster Word Lists and worksheets

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What is a blend?

In the human language, a phoneme is the smallest unit of sound and is one of the MOST important aspects of learning to read because without learning how to isolate individual sounds a child can not learn to connect units of sound or isolate units within larger groups of sounds.

For example, isolated sounds are connected to written letter forms and children can easily match the same beginning or ending sounds (unless there are some learning disabilities like auditory processing).

Cat, bat, mat,

Note that phonemic awareness is auditory and does not involve words in print (although the sounds are connected to the symbols).

Phonemic awareness worksheets

LeapDesk Workstation teaches phonemic awareness

Post from: Blisstree

Phoneme Use in the English Language

Take for example the word marry (as in, to marry someone).

1. ma-rry

2. mar-ry

In the first example the pronunciation is May-re but in the second it is mar-ee, which is correct.

Now, to learn how to find the number of syllables and to count them please head to this site on Syllable Rules (because I can’t summarize the entire thing without copyright issues).

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Reading Activity: Sound it Out, Counting Syllables

If children can’t decode words then they can’t work their way effectively through increasingly harder texts. What happens then is that their frustration level rises and teachers and parents start seeing them struggle and fall behind. Comments like “I hate this” or “I can’t do this” start to become common place.

Decoding is the ability to read a single word in isolation even if the meaning of the word is not there. A later grade student should have skills to decode a word, no matter the size of the word.

Word decoding goes back to phonics, phonemes, and syllables and those things were taught to kids in early elementary school. So, a child struggling with 7th or 8th grade text and is just now having trouble with decoding is not going to want to start all over again with learning to decode words using “phonics”.

Unfortunately, that is what is needed to help the student be a successful reader. When I was working as a reading specialist, just after I got my Master’s Degree, I worked with many students who had this exact problem. I explicitly taught them how to decode words, taught them sight words that they never learned, and showed them how to teach themselves how to be successful.

Post from: Blisstree

Is Word Decoding Important?

When I was teaching middle school I would incorporate predictions into every reading log and students would predict at the end of each chapter or reading session, even if it was as simple as “the girl will go into the house”.

Another activity you can do is make predictions on what will happen in the story based just upon the title. This best works with an entire class.

The final activity that I loved to use is to make predictions as we were reading as an entire class. I would make a t-chart on the board for the class with predictions on the left and evidence on the right. Before we began reading I would ask students what their predictions for the chapter were. As we were reading students would add evidence that proved their predictions came true or evidence their predictions were disproved.

In sum, predictions work well to make students think about what they are reading. Active thinking and active reading make active learners.

Post from: Blisstree

Prediction Activities

The money was used to purchase several books from Little, Brown, and Company. According to legend, the books were brought by wheelbarrow to the new library and the librarian, Mr. Jonathan Dexter.

The doctor, Dr. Learned created the first free and continuous children’s library in the nation.

Information from Robbins Library.

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The First U.S. Children’s Library

But, when did we, as children, start learning spider tales? Well, there are the pre-school versions of the Itsy Bitsy Spider, There was an old lady…, etc.

And apparently, October is the month for SPIDERS! Classrooms all over the country are building webs, singing spider songs, and counting legs. Over the next few days watch our site for spider resources…lesson plans, printables, and of course, the best books.

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October is Spider Month!

His first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, published, however, required a great degree of persistence – it was rejected 27 times before being published by Vanguard Press. The Cat in the Hat, perhaps the defining book of Ted’s career, developed as part of a unique joint venture between Houghton Mifflin (Vanguard Press) and Random House. Houghton Mifflin asked Ted to write and illustrate a children’s primer using only 225 “new-reader” vocabulary words. Because he was under contract to Random House, Random House obtained the trade publication rights, and Houghton Mifflin kept the school rights. With the release of The Cat in the Hat, Ted became the definitive children’s book author and illustrator.

As a teacher or as a parent you can use Dr. Seuss to help teach Word Families and reading.

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Dr. Seuss Teaches Word Families

One of my favorite activities involves in encouraging young writers.  I enjoy visiting schools and working with teachers, either coordinating something they’re teaching or planning my own workshop.  It’s rewarding to see youngsters become excited about writing stories, poetry, plays, essays and often illustrating them.

Youngsters work at various speeds and with differing degrees of inspiration.  When you can get a youngster, who professes to hate writing, turned around so he/she enjoys it, that’s a height of joy for a teacher.  Because I’m also a teacher (doing solely substitute teaching now), I can keep up with what teachers are teaching about writing and what’s expected of the students.

In future posts, I shall be giving some writing suggestions and prompts for young writers and hope I inspire them.

(Amazon image; click image for details)

(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen

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Mary Emma’s Writing Activities for Young Writers

The list is divided in to give age groups, from infant to ages 12 and up and contains an annotated bibliography of librarian recommended reading. There is also a Classics section.

“One of our goals as librarians is to provide all children with quality reading materials,” said ALSC President Pat Scales. “By teaming up with Oprah’s Book Club, we’re able to connect with a wide range of people we may not have reached otherwise. Whether children come into our library or are given a book from our recommended reading list, we are helping our youngest and most important patrons.”

The list was compiled by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Quicklists Consulting Committee.

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Oprah’s Kids Reading List Announced