word work Archives - Tales from Outside the Classroom

Getting Started with the Science of Reading: Structuring Your Explicit Phonics Lessons with printable phonics lesson plan template laid on colored paper

How to Structure your Phonics Lesson Plan: Getting Started with SoR

Next up in my Introduction to the Science of Reading series, we’re looking at our phonics lessons. More specifically, our systematic and explicit phonics lessons. During the last several weeks we’ve been diving into the bottom strands of Scarborough’s Rope focusing on word recognition. I talked about the need for systematic and sequential phonics instruction in my last post. In this one, I’m not focusing on what phonics skills you should be teaching. Most of

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long a cvce blending lines page next to text "5 decoding activities for your small groups"

5 Decoding Activities to Practice Phonics Skills

For some students, depending on their phase of reading development, it can take a significant amount of time before a word is orthographically mapped and stored in their long-term memory for quick retrieval. Meaning, it’s recognized on sight and would be considered a “sight word“. Along the way, students need many exposures and repetitions with words to build the needed connections for automatic word reading. Students need opportunities to practice and review skills well after

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Building Phonemic Awareness through Phonics: Phoneme-Grapheme Activities

Phonics and phonemic awareness are sometimes confused, likely because they are related. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds, phonemes, in words. You can read all about phonemic awareness in a dedicated post. Phonics is the relationship between the sounds of the spoken language and the letters and groups of letters, graphemes, of the written language. Phonemic awareness is critical for applying phonics skills. Students can learn and memorize graphemes, but if

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Word Work in the Middle Grades

As a third grade teacher, I find that my word work center activities cover a variety of skills. I want my students to review and refine their sight word knowledge specifically focused on the correct spelling of many high frequency words. I want them to apply the phonics skills from the previous years and our current year’s instruction. I want them to begin to recognize and apply affixes and have a base level understanding of

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Sight Word Shakers

I receive office supplies from Shoplet.com from time to time to try out. I was super excited when these Astrobright sets arrived at my house. I received the Neon Astrobrights colored paper and the Happy Astrobrights colored card stock sets. I generally just use the colored paper that my school supplies and I rarely, rarely have used card stock. Well, after using both of these sets, I don’t think I’ll be going back to either. I

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Hi! I’m Tessa!

I’ve spent the last 15 years teaching in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades, and working beside elementary classrooms as an instructional coach and resource support. I’m passionate about math, literacy, and finding ways to make teachers’ days easier. I share from my experiences both in and out of the elementary classroom. Read more About Me.

How to Structure your Phonics Lesson Plan: Getting Started with SoR

5 Decoding Activities to Practice Phonics Skills