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Learn More about the Multimedia-Enhanced Phonics Lesson Template Below:Overview:
Slide #1:
Skill: Phoneme Segmentation-Breaking words into individual sounds (Ex: cat = /c/ /a/ /t/)
Each Day: Do one row across. Call and Response Saying: Teacher (Call): "We know our sounds it's true it's true..." Students (Response): "We blend them together to make words, YAHOO!" (Have students use their fists and/or EXPO markers as pretend microphones.) Filling it in: Fill in the boxes with different words that obtain your literacy focus for the week/day. (Ex: short a-cat, plural "s"-cats, ch-chip) Implementation: Read a word aloud, and have students repeat the word into their "microphones." After repeating the word, have students break the words into individual sounds while tracking their hand along from one shoulder to the next. For example, if you said "cat," students would repeat the word, "cat" and then while pointing to one shoulder say, /c/, say /a/ while pointing in between their shoulders, and /t/ while they point to their other shoulder. Have students bring their hands back to their first shoulder and slide it across to their other shoulder as they repeat the whole word once more. Make sure to model this process if this is the first time your students will be segmenting. You may also indicate what sound you are asking them to say during the process by stating, "first sound," "middle sound", and "end sound" as they segment a word. Variations:
*Use the shield at the bottom of the table to cover the days that have not been covered yet.* Slide #2:
Skill: Letter Name and Letter Sound Identification
Each Day: Watch a new video focusing on the letter name/sound. Call and Response Saying: Teacher (Call): "Our letter/sound of the week (or day) is the letter/sound ____" Students/Teacher Combined (Response): "Our listener's responsibility is to lock in words with the ____ sound. I will lock them in!" Implementation: Play the video, and ask students to turn toward a partner and tell them the words that they heard that have the _____ sound. After students have had several minutes to share with one another, call on several to share with the class. Have the class segment the word to ensure that there it has the ____ sound. Variations:
Slide #3:
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Skill: Letter Recognition
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Hey, hey, hey!"
Students (Response): "Hey, hey, hey, I can say my letter names today!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with lowercase, and capital letters (you can have a capital "A" and a lowercase "a"). Make sure to bold the letter that is your primary focus for the week/day if you have one. In the beginning of the year, especially in Kindergarten, you might want to only include the lowercase and capital letters that you have covered thus far, therefore leaving some boxes blank.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the letter you point to. My students have gestures that correlate with every letter/sound that they mimic as they say the letter. For example, for b they hold up a pretend bat (this correlates to the phonics cards posted in my classroom.)
Variations:
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Hey, hey, hey!"
Students (Response): "Hey, hey, hey, I can say my letter names today!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with lowercase, and capital letters (you can have a capital "A" and a lowercase "a"). Make sure to bold the letter that is your primary focus for the week/day if you have one. In the beginning of the year, especially in Kindergarten, you might want to only include the lowercase and capital letters that you have covered thus far, therefore leaving some boxes blank.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the letter you point to. My students have gestures that correlate with every letter/sound that they mimic as they say the letter. For example, for b they hold up a pretend bat (this correlates to the phonics cards posted in my classroom.)
Variations:
- You can play, "Minute to Win It" and time the class for one minute to see how many letters they can read in that time span.
- Make sure to switch up the order of the letters throughout the week, for example rather than always starting out in the top left corner, begin in the bottom right corner and make your way up to the grid.
- Ask students to come up and be the pointer.
Slide #4:
Skill: Sight Word Identification
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "These are our sight words..."
Students (Response): "We need to know them quick as a snap!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with the sight words you have covered so far. Make sure to bold the sight word that is your primary focus for the week.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the sight word you point to. Once they have read the word, have them sing aloud the accompanying spelling song.
Embed: For every sight word introduced (in Kindergarten, I introduce one or two a week), play the accompanying sight word spelling song by HeidiSongs for the duration of the introductory week for that particular word(s). At the end of every school day, as well as, during transitions I will let students choose one of their favorite previous sight word songs to play aloud for the class. You can find HeidiSongs videos on YouTube (also on the References page), the songs on iTunes, as well as, you can purchase CDs and downloads from her website.
Variations:
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "These are our sight words..."
Students (Response): "We need to know them quick as a snap!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with the sight words you have covered so far. Make sure to bold the sight word that is your primary focus for the week.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the sight word you point to. Once they have read the word, have them sing aloud the accompanying spelling song.
Embed: For every sight word introduced (in Kindergarten, I introduce one or two a week), play the accompanying sight word spelling song by HeidiSongs for the duration of the introductory week for that particular word(s). At the end of every school day, as well as, during transitions I will let students choose one of their favorite previous sight word songs to play aloud for the class. You can find HeidiSongs videos on YouTube (also on the References page), the songs on iTunes, as well as, you can purchase CDs and downloads from her website.
Variations:
- You can play, "Tap It" and ask students to point to the sight words that you call you out. They also must spell the word once they tap on it. This can be played in teams or as a way to earn class points.
- Asking students to use sight words in sentences by sharing them in partners and then to the whole class is another way that this page can be implemented.
- Make sure to switch up the order of the sight words you point to throughout the week, for example rather than always starting out in the top left corner, begin in the bottom right corner and make your way up to the grid.
- Ask students to come up and be the pointer.
Slide #5:
Skill: Letter Sound Identification
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Do you know your letter sounds?"
Students (Response): "I do, I do! I know my letter sounds! It's true, it's true!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with the letter sounds (and other sounds) that you have covered so far. You can include both the lowercase and capital letters. If you are inputting sounds that only come at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, use lines to indicate where the sound can be located in a word. (For example, if you are covering the /str/ sound, write it as str_ because it only comes at the beginning of a word.) Make sure to bold the sound that is your primary focus for the week.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the sound you point to. I use the same gestures for letter sounds as I do for the letter recognition page that correlate to my posted alphabet cards, and I also have sayings/gestures that go along with the sounds that are not singular letter sounds:
Examples: (Vowel teams: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and the second one gets 'Shhhhh!'," th=we stick our tongues out, ch=we move our arms up and down like a "Choo choo train," sh=we put a finger up to our mouths and say, "shhhh," and for all r-controlled words we call the r "Bossy R," and the "Bossy R always tells the vowel what to do.")
*You can also find videos for all of these sounds by searching your sound on YouTube and/or by referring to my References page.
Embed: At this time, you can play the same video as you did previously in the lesson or you can choose another video with the same letter sound focus. You can find links to videos on my References page.
Variations:
Each Day: Do the whole grid.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Do you know your letter sounds?"
Students (Response): "I do, I do! I know my letter sounds! It's true, it's true!"
Filling it in: Randomly fill in the boxes with the letter sounds (and other sounds) that you have covered so far. You can include both the lowercase and capital letters. If you are inputting sounds that only come at the beginning, middle, or end of a word, use lines to indicate where the sound can be located in a word. (For example, if you are covering the /str/ sound, write it as str_ because it only comes at the beginning of a word.) Make sure to bold the sound that is your primary focus for the week.
Implementation: Call on the whole class, rows, table teams, groups of students, partners, or individual students to quickly read aloud the sound you point to. I use the same gestures for letter sounds as I do for the letter recognition page that correlate to my posted alphabet cards, and I also have sayings/gestures that go along with the sounds that are not singular letter sounds:
Examples: (Vowel teams: "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and the second one gets 'Shhhhh!'," th=we stick our tongues out, ch=we move our arms up and down like a "Choo choo train," sh=we put a finger up to our mouths and say, "shhhh," and for all r-controlled words we call the r "Bossy R," and the "Bossy R always tells the vowel what to do.")
*You can also find videos for all of these sounds by searching your sound on YouTube and/or by referring to my References page.
Embed: At this time, you can play the same video as you did previously in the lesson or you can choose another video with the same letter sound focus. You can find links to videos on my References page.
Variations:
- You can play, "Minute to Win It" and time the class for one minute to see how many sounds they can read in that time span.
- Make sure to switch up the order of the letters throughout the week, for example rather than always starting out in the top left corner and proceeding through the rows, begin in the top left corner and go in columns.
- Ask students to say the sounds while doing a physical activity by row. For example, ask students to hop on one foot while saying the sounds in the first row, and tap on their heads while saying the sounds in the second row, etc.
- Ask students to come up and be the pointer.
Slide #6:
Skill: Reading CVC/whole words.
Each Day: Do one row across.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "I can blend! Can you, can you?"
Students (Response): "You bet we can! It's true, it's true!"
Filling it in: Fill in the boxes with different words that obtain your literacy focus for the week/day. (Ex: long a-lake, oo-book and moon, th-bath)
Implementation: Point to a word and ask students to identify sounds they spy. As students share aloud the sounds they spy (ex: a with super e), mark them using a whiteboard pen if you project onto a whiteboard. If you do not project onto a whiteboard, you can use sticky notes, push pins, or tape. Once all of the sounds have been identified, ask students to get their "Sound Out" hands ready, and have them place one hand on one shoulder. As they say each sound, drag your finger/pointer under the sounds as they move their hand across their chest and ending at their other shoulder as they say the last sound in the word. Then have students immediately read the whole word without segmenting the sounds as they again move their hand across from one shoulder to the other.
*Blending and reading whole words is a skill that will need to be modeled appropriately and significantly.
Embed: Once a week, and far more often at the beginning stages of teaching students how to blend to read whole words, I show videos/songs about blending and reading CVC words. Check out my References page for YouTube channels that have these types of videos!
Variations:
*Use the shield at the bottom of the table to cover the days that have not been covered yet.*
Each Day: Do one row across.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "I can blend! Can you, can you?"
Students (Response): "You bet we can! It's true, it's true!"
Filling it in: Fill in the boxes with different words that obtain your literacy focus for the week/day. (Ex: long a-lake, oo-book and moon, th-bath)
Implementation: Point to a word and ask students to identify sounds they spy. As students share aloud the sounds they spy (ex: a with super e), mark them using a whiteboard pen if you project onto a whiteboard. If you do not project onto a whiteboard, you can use sticky notes, push pins, or tape. Once all of the sounds have been identified, ask students to get their "Sound Out" hands ready, and have them place one hand on one shoulder. As they say each sound, drag your finger/pointer under the sounds as they move their hand across their chest and ending at their other shoulder as they say the last sound in the word. Then have students immediately read the whole word without segmenting the sounds as they again move their hand across from one shoulder to the other.
*Blending and reading whole words is a skill that will need to be modeled appropriately and significantly.
Embed: Once a week, and far more often at the beginning stages of teaching students how to blend to read whole words, I show videos/songs about blending and reading CVC words. Check out my References page for YouTube channels that have these types of videos!
Variations:
- Students can segment words using different variations of the "Sound Out Hand." For example you can have students sound out words beginning at their heads down to the toes, from one shoulder down to the hand, or even by hopping across boxes that you have made using masking tape on the floor.
*Use the shield at the bottom of the table to cover the days that have not been covered yet.*
Slide #7:
Skill: Writing CVC words and complete sentences.
Each Day: Depending on your students' present writing levels and needs, have students write one letter, word, or complete sentence that obtains the phonics focus for the week, and then use the stars as an editing checklist if your focus is writing a complete sentence.
*Students will need a dry erase marker, as well as, something that is lined for primary writers to write on, such as, a whiteboard or lined paper in a plastic sheet.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Our writing goal is..."
Students (Response): "To ___________ (Choose a writing focus. For example, "To use a capital at the beginning of my sentence," or, "To write a sentence that makes sense when you reread it."
Filling it in: If you are asking students to write a:
Each Day: Depending on your students' present writing levels and needs, have students write one letter, word, or complete sentence that obtains the phonics focus for the week, and then use the stars as an editing checklist if your focus is writing a complete sentence.
*Students will need a dry erase marker, as well as, something that is lined for primary writers to write on, such as, a whiteboard or lined paper in a plastic sheet.
Call and Response Saying:
Teacher (Call): "Our writing goal is..."
Students (Response): "To ___________ (Choose a writing focus. For example, "To use a capital at the beginning of my sentence," or, "To write a sentence that makes sense when you reread it."
Filling it in: If you are asking students to write a:
- Letter: You can include a picture of something that starts or ends with the letter.
- Sound: You can include a picture of something that has the sound at the beginning, middle, or end.
- Word: You can include an image of the word.
- Sentence: You can include an image that is a visual representation of the sentence.
- Letters and Sounds: Ask students to identify the sound at the beginning, middle, or end of the word seen in the image. Then work together with students to correctly practice the lowercase and capital formation of the letter. I use the sayings derived from Handwriting Without Tears, but any explanation of how to write the letters will work, just make sure you stay consistent! Begin by forming the letters together in simple steps, and through gradual release, and then have them practicing writing the letters on their own as you walk around to assist.
- Words: Ask students to sound out the word depicted in the image. Have them sound it out once more and work with students to write every sound they hear in the word. Make sure to have them check their work by having them point under each of their written sounds, and then swipe their finger underneath the whole word to check and read the whole word. You can then ask students to change the first, middle, or last sound and read the new word. Asking students to write a rhyming word is also an option.
- Sentences: Dictate a sentence for the students to write. Have students repeat the sentence aloud (I have mine clap while they say each word). Work with students word by word (You write on the whiteboard or paper in the front of the classroom, while they write with their own device) using the above process for writing words to write the sentence. Make sure to teach grade-level appropriate conventions, such as spacing between words, and punctuation through the process. Gradually release student responsibility in this process as the year progresses.
- The "5 Star Checklist:" Use the following editing checklist to teach your students how to edit their sentences (As you go through the checklist, check off the stars):
- Red Star: Does my sentence start with a capital? (Check to make sure there are no other misplaced capital letters.)
- Orange Star: Does my sentence have punctuation at the end? (Check to make sure the correct punctuation is used.)
- Green Star: Do I have finger spaces between all of my words? (If students struggle with this, I have them use a large craft stick to place after a word before they write a new one.)
- Blue Star: Did I use neat handwriting? (You can check letter formation at this time.)
- Purple Star: Does my sentence make sense? (Have students point to and reread the sentence.)
- The "5 Star Checklist:" Use the following editing checklist to teach your students how to edit their sentences (As you go through the checklist, check off the stars):
- Adding adjectives into sentence writing: Add a sixth star (I do a sparkly star because we call adjectives "Sparkly Words" and ask students to use the image you have posted on the page to help them come up with words to describe a noun in the sentence, and then add a the "Sparkly Word" to the sentence, and follow the sentence writing implementation steps listed above. (Ex: If the dictation sentence is, "The cat sat," you could ask students to describe the cat by using the image on the slide. Give students the following prompt, "The cat is _____" or "The cat is so _____." Let's say they tell you, "The cat is black," then you can have students repeat the following sentence after you, "The black cat sat."
- You can model for students how to incorporate more detail in the sentence by describing when or where it is taking place, as well as, by using "and" to combine ideas.
- Multi-syllabic Words: When writing a multi-syllabic word, have students clap the syllables (or dance, hop, tap their head, etc.) and focus on one syllable at a time when sounding out and spelling a word.
Useful Tools to Accompany ABC ME:
(Click on the name of each tool to go to that particular website.)

Standards:
The focus standards for these lessons are the Common Core State Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills, including Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, as well as, Phonics and Word Recognition for Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade. These standards can be found online here, as well as, in the "Lessons" section.
The focus standards for these lessons are the Common Core State Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills, including Print Concepts, Phonological Awareness, as well as, Phonics and Word Recognition for Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade. These standards can be found online here, as well as, in the "Lessons" section.