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
