New Sound Box (Elkonin) Task Cards--Ending Blends and Digraphs

I admit, my posts have been few and far between.  To tell you the truth, I have been neglecting this blog because I am working on a book.  I have the "meat" of the book written, which is more of a resource book than a text book.  I will save my text book for when I get my doctorate someday.  I am looking (not actively) for a professor who is into speech and pathology and early reading.  I don't know if one exists, but that's my dream.  If anyone knows of a professor like that, please email me.  Maybe my resource book can help pay for my doctorate.  Dreaming big!

This blog is up to 3,500 visitors!  Unbelievable!  Yay! (That's how I spell it, I hate spelling it yeah.)

Anyway, I just finished creating some more Elkonin Sound Box Task Cards.  This time they focus on ending blends and digraphs.  It is very difficult to find words that can be represented with pictures, but especially hard to find words that are also short vowel words.  Students who are at the end of the letter name phase of spelling, are the ones learning ending blends, and still need to reinforce short vowels.  Interestingly, I have noticed that kids who I thought had mastered a certain short vowel, will sometimes misspell the short vowel in a word that has a difficult ending blend.  It trips them up and they make mistakes on the vowels that need reinforcement and have only been mastered recently.  This is happening repeatedly in my classroom this year. 

I have been careful when creating these task cards to use only pictures with short vowels, but I couldn't find enough "th" words that are able to be represented with pictures for the digraph, so my solution was to include two words with long vowels, but write the long vowel patterns on the cards. 
I did not do that in the set I created, just my own personal set.  I figure it is up to the individual teacher to determine if they want to do that.  However ALL of the ending blends are short vowels.

If you are interested in them, you can get them separately or as a bundle at my TPT store:

Digraph Sound Box Task Cards
Ending Blends Sound Box Task Cards
Digraph and Ending Blend Bundle 

There is also a bundle of short vowel task cards here: Short Vowel Sound Box Task Cards Bundle

You can laminate the task cards, or put them in plastic sleeves.  I personally like to use plastic sleeves.  I printed off several copies of the sets and made multiple folders (the plastic ones with brads) out of them.  I made 6 of each vowel so that I could use them for centers.  I also purchased plastic sleeves at the office supply store that holds 25 pages in one.  I print off the answer sheets and keep them in the expandable plastic sleeve (I hate prep work, so if I can find a way to do it once, I will). 


Thanks for visiting me.  Next week, I will be writing about why teaching sight words is an inefficient use of your time.  In the world of teaching, that is bound to spark some controversy.  I will be discussing why I think there is enough scientific evidence to support my views. 

Happy Teaching!  We only have 59 days of school left!  (Yes, I love kids, but I can't wait for summer.  Have you ever heard of the phrase "sharpening my ax"? )

Anna

p. s.  If you have not downloaded the free Short A Sound Box/ Elkonin worksheet, you can do so here:  Short A Sound Box worksheet
 

Free Elkonin Task Cards

In honor of Cyber Monday, I am giving away my Elkonin Short A picture task cards.  I successfully avoided shopping at the stores that opened on Thanksgiving this weekend, instead I bought a few things from small businesses on TPT (for myself!).  I don't think I will be able to avoid going to the big stores, though, when I start to really shop for my boys.  Fortunately for me, as I am sure many of you can relate, they are out of the toy phase, so cleaning up is slightly easier.  But unfortunately toys are cheaper than what they are asking for.  It's always electronics these days.  Maybe I will be able to avoid it if I shop online.  If anyone knows of any small businesses that sell electronics, drop me a line.

So to those of you trudging to work today like I am after this nice long break for Thanksgiving, here is a small token for all that you do.  I love these cards.  I use them for seat work during center rotation (or as my principal prefers, "Literacy Stations").

Am I the only teacher who thinks it is hysterical when kids are spelling one of these words and gets to the end of a word,  suddenly pauses in confusion, thinking to themselves, "um, there's two more squares left and I only felt/heard one?"  I just love to watch them look around wondering what to do and then finally decide they are going to try to sound it out slower and feel for those last two sounds.

It's the little things......

 If you are interested in the rest of the short vowel task cards, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store.


Short A Elkonin Task Cards

5 Short Vowel sets of Elkonin Task Cards 

Happy Monday!

Anna

Elkonin Boxes

Welcome Manic Monday visitors!  I hope you enjoy this Elkonin box freebie.  I can't wait to see all of your submissions as well.  Come on in and take a look around.  There are other freebies on this site to be had. Visit the home page: tchrgrl.blogspot.com

Elkonin Boxes help students build phonological awareness by guiding them to count the number of sounds in the word and emphasize to them that it does not always translate to the same number of letters).

Elkonin Boxes  help students better understand the alphabetic principle in decoding and spelling.  Using Elkonin boxes strategically with students in the letter-name phase can help advance a student’s knowledge of spelling.  Elkonin boxes help students build phonological awareness by guiding them to count the number of sounds in the words.  I have found them helpful in training students to slow down and feel for all of the sounds in the words, especially the ending blends.  In addition, students in my class who have been slow to pick up on beginning digraphs (sh, th, ch), are automatically reminded to consider that the sound is represented by two letters and then use the charts in the room to recall which two letters make that sound.  Invented spelling is great for writing for several reasons, but I love that Elkonin boxes require students to practice spelling rules and patterns-especially if a teacher can correlate them to the student’s spelling level.  For example, Elkonin boxes centered on short vowels, blends and digraphs can be used with students in the letter-name phase and Elkonin boxes centered on long vowel patterns can be used with students in the within word phase of spelling.  

I will be creating more long vowel resources in the future, but for now, my creations have focused on short vowels.  Here is a short vowel elkonin box worksheet I created for the short a sound:

Short A Elkonin Boxes Freebie

Elkonin Boxes Set of 5 Short Vowels Printables