My Montessori Journey

How many claps?--A syllable counting activity

Today I am sharing an activity I just finished for the pre-reading shelf.  In teacher jargon, this activity would be considered a "phonemic awareness" activity.  Research has shown that children who enter school with good phonemic awareness have greater success in learning to read.  It is important to distinguish phonemic awareness from phonics.  Phonics refers to the correspondence between letters and the sounds they make, while phonemic awareness refers to the understanding that a spoken word is make up of individual sounds.  Phonemic awareness relies on "hearing" sounds in spoken language in the absense of printed words.  A child with good phonemic awareness would be able to orally segment the word "cat" into its component sounds.  Prior to breaking words apart into sounds, children should be able to "hear" syllables in words.  A good way to help children become aware of syllables within words is to have them "clap" the word.  A fun place to start is with their own names or the names of their classmates.  For example, "Anna" would be a 2-clap name, and "John" a 1-clap name.  "Samantha" would be a 3-clap name and so on.  It is not necessary to use the word "syllable" with young children.  Instead, keep it fun and talk about the "beats" or "claps" in different words.  Young children, with practice, will quickly learn that "elephant" has "more claps" than "dog".  And their increasing auditory awareness of the sounds of their language will ultimately help them when they begin to read.

Here is the activity on the tray.  The little clear box is holding the syllable picture cards.  The yellow pail is holding the "clap" cards and on the front of the tray is a pair of children's mittens.

To introduce this activity, lay out the "clap" cards in order across the top of the rug.  Then take out one of the picture cards and tell the child you are going to "clap" the word.  Model saying the word while clapping the syllables.  Say, "Hat is one clap.  I'll put it here."  Place the hat picture below the control card showing one pair of clapping hands.  Repeat for a few pictures, then let the child try some.  The mittens are provided to make the "clapping" more fun.  However, the activity can be completed with or without mittens.  The photo on the right shows how I have programmed the back of each picture card with a sticker that shows how many syllables in the word.  Click to view the photo larger.  I have made the clap cards and picture cards available for download below.  There are 6 pictures each of one, two and three syllable words.

Download syllable_clap_counting_cards.doc     Download one_syllable_pictures.doc

Download two_syllable_pictures.doc      Download three_syllable_pictures.doc

NOTE:  A fun variation of this activity would be to take photos of all the children in your classroom and program the back of their photos with how many syllables in their names. 

ALSO:  I did not come up with this activity.  I found the idea on another teacher's website and I cannot remember where.  I apologize for not being able to give credit where credit is due.  I did, however, make the files available for download above.  You are welcome to use them with your child at home or with the children in your classroom.

Language--Part 3

In the last two posts, I wrote extensively about the pre-reading and beginning language materials.  Today I will describe what comes next. 

After the children have completed the red/yellow/blue work including their sound books AND are at the point where they can blend the sounds to read CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, they are ready to read words with consonant blends.  This work is typically the "blue" work from the pink/blue/green series that is commonly used in Montessori classrooms.  As I have said in previous posts, my red/yellow/blue work replaces the "pink" work.  To review, the "pink" work consists of CVC words, the "blue" work consists of words with consonant blends and short vowel sounds, and the "green" work consists of words with phonograms which include the long vowel pairs as well as the consonant digraphs (i.e. /sh/, /th/, etc).  To give you a complete picture of what work will be on my language shelves, the next photos show some "pink" work I made during my training. 

This work consists of four different "boards" with accompanying word cards.  Each set of cards is in a separate clear plastic envelope.  Since I created these 12 years ago, I don't have any files to share.  You can see the work closer in the next two photos.  It would be pretty easy to create these with computer clipart.  Mine is all hand-colored and pasted, something I won't need to do ever again thanks to technology!!  Children should know all the consonant and short vowel sounds to do this work as the words may contain any of the letters, unlike the red/yellow/blue work which is controlled based on the sounds that have been introduced.

On the left is a close-up showing the board and matching cards.  On the right you can see a blackline master I made so children can do a cut and paste to take home.  For this work, they would leave the picture paper intact and cut out the words to glue beneath each corresponding picture.

This photo shows what I would initially present for the "blue" work.  Again, I made these materials as part of my training.  This is the "blends" work.  Each envelope contains a board with pictures that begin with a consonant blend.  The cards have the blends printed on them.  I have divided this work by type of blend.  For example, there are 3 sets of -r blends, 3 sets of s- blends, etc.

The main thing I want children to gain from this material is the understanding that when there are 2 consonants together, they can blend them instead of pronouncing each individual sound.  For example, instead of sounding out "broom" as /b/ /r/ /oo/ /m/, they know they can say it like this:  /br/ /oo/ /m/.  The teacher jargon for this is "chunking."  It is important for beginning readers to learn to look for "chunks" within words instead of relying on the laborious task of sounding out every word letter by letter.

The next thing to introduce after success with the blends matching activity is the blue word drawers.  In my system, I have printed these words in light blue to differentiate them from the "blue" sets of CVC words.  My blue word drawers are available to download here. 

       

Next up are the phonograms.  As I said above, the phonograms include the vowel pairs and digraphs as well as the consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th).  I would introduce these very similarly to how I introduced the sounds with the sandpaper letters.  I am excited because in the shower I had the brilliant idea to create little phonogram booklets much like my sound books for the red/yellow/blue work.  So I stayed up REALLY late last night getting that ready.  In the first photo you can see the sandpaper phonogram /ee/ and the phonogram booklet.  I put 14 blank pages in my booklet to correspond with the 14 phonograms in my "green series" word drawers.  (Those are available for download here.)  I wanted to have a keyword for children to use to remember the phonogram sound.  That's when another brainstorm led me to create little keyword picture stickers for each phonogram.  So when the child learns the phonogram, they can place the picture sticker on the page and the teacher will write the phonogram as well as the word containing the phonogram.  You can see the example in the second photo.  I am making all my picture sticker files available for you to download below.  I formatted them to be printed on standard white mailing labels (1" X 2 5/8").  I used AVERY 18160 to print mine.  The format has two pictures per label to conserve paper.  You simply cut between the stickers to get two from each label. 

This shows the phonogram sandpaper letters.  Next to them is a holder with blank phonogram booklets and in the back of the holder are the sticker sheets.  I am not sure I will ultimately have them out this way on the shelf, but at least you can see what they look like when printed.  Below are the links to download all the stickers.  There are 30 each of 2 different phonograms pictured on each page.  I've also included the file for the covers of the phonogram booklets.  You can get 8 covers from one sheet.  Trim them to 4" by 2 3/4" and you will hardly waste any paper.  Then just cut apart plain green paper for the back covers.

Download phonogram_book_cover.doc     Download ai_ea_stickers.doc      

Download ar_ee_stickers.doc     Download ch_th_stickers.doc

Download oo_ue_stickers.doc      Download or_sh_stickers.doc

Download qu_ie_stickers.doc     Download oa_ou_stickers.doc

After a phonogram is introduced and placed in the phonogram booklet, the child is ready to do the corresponding word drawer.  In the green series, each word drawer contains only words with that phonogram.  This photo shows the /ee/ word drawer.

During my training year, I made the work shown above.  This work consists of 5 sets of pictures/word matching sets, each corresponding to a different long vowel sound.  Additionally, each long vowel has booklets with words containing that vowel pair.  On the right you can see the envelope for long "e" as well as the long "e" booklets.

Inside each long vowel booklet are words corresponding to the vowel sound.  As shown, I underlined the vowel pair with red in each word to emphasize it.

Here is a close-up of the long "e" vowel work.  As with the pink work shown earlier in this post, there is a corresponding cut and paste paper for each envelope.      

               

Language downloads ready

As I mentioned yesterday, I have completed the "green" series of words and pictures for my word drawers.  I am making them available for you to download to use with your own children or the children in your classroom.  Each page has 6 words and corresponding pictures that have been grouped by phonogram.  For example, one page for all words with /oo/, one page for /ee/ words, and so on.   I am planning on putting mine in the word drawers that were already in my classroom.  See the photos below.

NOTE:  This photo shows a close-up of one of the drawers with the OLD cards in it.  The new cards that I have just redone and made available for downloading include colored pictures.

When finished, I will have 2 word drawer "boxes", each with 21 drawers.  Those 42 drawers will contain all the red/yellow/blue CVC words, then the blue series words (consonant blends with short vowels), and finally the green series words (words with vowel pairs and consonant digraphs).  I have created a document that will allow children to record their work (if they wish).  There is a place at the top where they will circle the number of the drawer they are working on.  Then below that is a table with space for them to write each word and draw the corresponding picture.  If they don't have the fine motor skills to write the words, they should be able to use letter stamps to stamp the words.  You can view and download this document by clicking here:  Download word_drawer_record_sheet.doc

And here are all the files for the word drawers.  There are three labelled "mixed" that contain words with a variety of phonograms.  NOTE:  If you download all my language materials, you will have more than enough to fill 42 drawers with 5 cards each.  Of course, given your individual situations, you may choose to use the cards differently anyway.

Download green_seriesai.doc      Download green_seriesar.doc      Download green_seriesch_qu.doc

Download green_seriesea.doc      Download green_seriesee.doc     Download green_seriesie_ie.doc

Download green_seriesoa.doc      Download green_seriesoo.doc     Download green_seriesor.doc

Download green_seriesou.doc      Download green_seriesue_ue.doc    Download green_seriessh.doc

Download green_seriesth_ch.doc  Download green_seriesmixed.doc  

Download green_seriesmixed2.doc    Download green_seriesmixed3.doc

The one thing I would appreciate very much is getting feedback on the free downloads I am providing.  I would love to know if you are finding them useful at all.  I will continue creating things for my own classroom use regardless; however, if I receive feedback that people are enjoying the free downloads, I will continue to provide them.   

Object Boxes

I have been working hard on getting my language shelves ready to go.  In the last few posts, I included links for downloading my red/yellow/blue (CVC words) and blue series (consonant blends with short vowels) files for the word drawers.  I have also finished creating my "green" series of picture and word cards.  These have the consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th) and the vowel pairs and phonograms (i.e. /ee/  /oo/, etc.).  Within the next few days, I will make those available to download.  For future reference, I have added a "Free Downloads" link on the sidebar that will take you to the posts that contain free downloadable files. 

Today I had a few hours up at school and got busy organizing my object boxes.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, these are boxes that contain a set of letters along with corresponding little 3-dimensional objects to match to the letters by initial sound.  The previous teachers already had these boxes ready to go and divided into the red/yellow/blue groups.  However, I found some clear plastic flip-top containers at Wal-Mart that I decided to use to hold the materials.  I printed labels for each box as well.  Here is the link to download the labels if you are interested:  Download object_box_labels.doc    I just printed these on white shipping labels and stuck them on the lid of the boxes. 

This is a photo of the first object box.  So, after a child has learned the first four sounds (r  a  m  f), they can do this work.  The photo doesn't show it well, but the letters are actually little wooden puzzles, so the letter part comes out of the base.  These were already here when I came on the scene, and I kind of liked them, so I'm keeping them with this work for now. 

Here is a photo of one of my language shelves.  (The one that is closest to being "ready").  Each shelf has the activities for each letter group (red/yellow/blue).  At the far right on each shelf are the two object boxes for that group of letters.  I have a few things to add to these shelves before I'm satisfied.  When I have them completely ready, I will devote an entire post to this shelf with close-ups of each activity so you can see the sequence.  Today I just thought it would make me feel better to show a shelf that looks ready to go.  (Even though I know it's not totally ready.)

Eureka! I think I figured it out!!

I am, admittedly, a little technologically inept.  However, I am learning a lot, especially from doing the blog.  Yesterday, I posted about the language materials I have been making.  As of that post, I didn't know how to insert a link so my readers could download a document I created.  And just now, I think I figured it out.  So..............last night I worked on the "blue" series of word drawer cards.  These consist of words written in light blue with a corresponding picture.  The words in the "blue" series all begin with a consonant blend and contain short vowels.  Each page has 6 word/picture sets and there are 6 pages in all. I am happy to share these, so I will try to insert the links below.  PLEASE let me know if you are able to download these.  THANKS!

Download blue_series_1.doc

Download blue_series_2.doc

Download blue_series_3.doc

Download blue_series_4.doc

Download blue_series_5.doc

Download blue_series_6.doc

NOTE:  Read my post here to see how I am planning to use these cards.  I made them especially to fit into the drawers I have.  When trimmed the word card part is about 1 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches and the picture card is about 2 1/2 inches square.  I am going to put about 5 sets of picture and word cards in each drawer, and I will label and color-code the backs of the cards somehow so they can easily be sorted out if they get mixed up.  When I get that set up in my classroom, I'll post photos.

NOTE:  I just edited the previous post so that you can download all the red/yellow/blue CVC word drawer files.

Latest word on the word drawers

A few days ago I wrote a post about my dilemma with the phonetic word drawers I inherited.  After looking through all 8 drawer sets, I noticed that all the words were CVC words.  Since the cards have been used for many years and are in kind of beat-up shape, I decided to redo them.  I stayed up way too late last night working on them, but I know I will really like the finished outcome.  Instead of color-coding the words by vowel and consonant, I color-coded them according to the letter "set" they are in.  As I mentioned in the previous post, in my training the letters were divided into three groups.  I have listed the groupings here:

          Red:  r a m f b i t g          Yellow:  p o n l h u s c            Blue:   d e x q y z v w j k

For the word drawers, using Microsoft clipart and text boxes in a Word document, I made matching word and picture pairs using the letters in each color group.  Of course, the red group will have the fewest number of drawers, because it has the fewest letters and the other two groups incorporate letters from the previously learned groups.  Each drawer will have five words and their matching pictures.  I was able to come up with over 90 word/picture pairs, and I think that is a sufficient amount to allow lots of practice in decoding CVC words.  My training did not include the pink/blue/green series, but the way I have it set up my red/yellow/blue drawers would replace the "pink" series.  I plan to also make a set of "light blue" word drawers which will have words using short vowels and blends as well as a set of "green" word drawers which will include the vowel pairs and digraphs.  Below is a photo of one of the pages I made last night.  I will print this on white cardstock, laminate it and cut it out.  Then it should be able to fit into the word drawers I photographed in the previous post.

Here are links to the 16 pages I made.  You are welcome to download them and use them with your own children or children in your classroom.

Download red_word_drawer_1.doc        Download redyellow_word_drawer_2.doc

Download yellow_word_drawer_3.doc    Download yellow_word_drawer_4.doc

Download yellow_word_drawer_5.doc    Download yellow_word_drawer_6.doc

Download yellow_word_drawer_7.doc     Download yellow_word_drawer_8.doc

Download yellow_word_drawer_9.doc     Download yellowblue_word_drawer_10.doc

Download blue_word_drawer_11.doc      Download blue_word_drawer_12.doc

Download blue_word_drawer_13.doc      Download blue_word_drawer_14.doc

Download blue_word_drawer_15.doc      Download blue_word_drawer_16.doc