Recommended Age: 4 years and onwards
Purpose: To make possible further exploration of the child’s own language and to give more keys to reading, writing and spelling
Level of Parent Involvement: Low, the adult must model this activity for the first time then once shown the child may work independently
Prerequisites
- The child must know all if not most sandpaper letters
- The child has worked with the phonogram object box
- The child has memorized at least 3 sandpaper phonograms
- The child has been introduced to the small moveable alphabet and has revisited this on many occasions
Materials
- The small moveable alphabet (2 sets of alphabets one in red one in black)
- OR if doing this exercise with the child at home you be using the paper version of the small moveable alphabet (refer resource pack)
Preparation
- None
Steps
- Invite the child, the child may get the small moveable alphabet and bring to the mat (if using the paper version at home, help the child set up the two sets prior to commencing this exercise)
- Ask the child “what is your favourite phonogram?”
- Let’s say for example the child responds with ‘sh’
- Show the child how to make the ‘sh’ using the red letters
- Now say to the child, “today we are going to see which letters we can put in front of the ‘sh’ to make a word”
- Begin with ‘a’, placing it in front of the ‘sh’, saying to the child “is ‘ash’ a word?”
- Repeat for b, c, d, allowing the child to see that not many letters go in front to make a word
- Say to the child “what happens if we leave the ‘a’ in front of our ‘sh’ and then place letters in front, exploring what words can be made (bash, cash, dash etc) draw the child’s attention to letters which don’t create a word ‘e’ash ‘f’’ash etc
- The child may choose another phonogram and repeat as above
- Leave the child to work independently
Note: double consonant phonograms such as ‘sh’ and ‘th’ are easier to make words with if you leave a vowel in front. Double vowel phonograms such as ‘ee’, ‘oo’ need a consonant added.
Variations
- The child may create lists of the words they have made, writing the phonogram in red
