Phonics Instruction-

I believe that early readers must develop a relationship with each letter.  I take a week to introduce the first few letters in my classroom-/A/, /B/, /F/, and /D/.  Then, we will begin to move through the alphabet covering two to three letters each week.

Each Language Arts block begins with a puppet, or character telling a story.  These are some of my friends from /F/ week.  The stories often include words and adventures that start with the current letter.

Then, we do our cheer chart.  My Super Student of the Day comes to the front and uses a pom-pom to lead the class.  We jump and cheer out each word on our cheer chart.

We follow our cheer with a Skywriting activity.  Students sharpen their imaginary skywriting finger and we draw the capital and lowercase letter using our story.  We pretend to write in a house.  The area above the dotted line on the printing paper is the bedroom.  The area below the dotted line is the kitchen.  The basement is the area below the writing lines.  For instance, the capital F story is slide down the pole, clean the ceiling, clean the floor.  The lowercase f story is start in the air, make a candy cane and put a cross on it.

Next, we get out our Magic Pockets.  We sit in our seats with great writing posture and use an Intensive Phonics technique.  The teacher says /F/ and makes the sound two times.  Then, the students say /F/ and make the sound two times.  We write the letter one time.  The class follows the procedure until we have written two capital and two lowercase letters.

Then, we look at Animals A-Z website to learn about an animal that starts with the letter that we are studying.  Other fun activities include counting objects into the counting can that begin with the letter that we are discussing.  We counted flies for the letter F.

We complete several papers each week that focus on the letter that we are focused on.  These are the letter F papers.

I wave my magic wand before we begin printing.  The magic helps us use proper posture and writing techniques.  The printing house is displayed on this magic pocket.  My magic wand is pictured to the right of the pocket.  

We enjoy reading books that begin with the letter that we are touching on each day.  The class enjoys checking the letter can to see what pictures are included.

Our class is working toward completing four guided reading centers each day.  Our centers are focused on the letters or skills that we are discussing. 

Our next letter will be /D/.  The children are sure to enjoy the new characters that they will meet!