Rationale:
In order for children to be successful
readers they must acquire the skill of blending and understand how each
letter blends together to create a word. The following activity will
give children a fun and engaging way to learn this skill. As a result
of this activity students will be able to blend sounds together to form
words.
Materials:
- Felt board
- A miniture closet created with a shoe box and a rod
going through to hold the clothes
- Felt stick people
- Felt shirts- with ri, si, di, and hi written on them
- felt pants- with p, d, t,g, and m written on them
- set of cut out clothes for each student
- Copy of Tin man fix-it by: Sheila Cushman- This book
is part of a set published by Educational Insights
Procedure:
- Ask the students:
Does anyone
know the special trick to reading? The special trick is called
blending. Blending is what we do when we read words, when we read words
we push all the sounds that the letters make together and that's what
makes the word.
- Today we are going to
blend some short i words. Does everyone remember
what sound short i makes? Great! The short i makes the /i/ sound, like
icky sticky (shake your hands and say /i/).
- Now that we know what
sound short i makes, I wanat everyone to listen
while I blend together these sounds: /s/ /i/ /t/.
sssssssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttt. Did everyone hear the word
I made from those sounds? I made the word sit! Now I am going to show
you a fun way to remeber how to blend words.
- I will show the class my
closet (shoe box) and explain that in my
closet I have many different sounds. I will put the felt people up on
the felt board and explain that we want to dress them. To have an
outfit tou need a shirt and pants, you can't go to school without one
or the other, can you? Just like you have to have letters to make a
word, you have to have all the sounds together to make the word, right?
So to make a word we need a shirt and a pair of pants, or skirt. Let's
pick out an outfit, "O.k. I am going to pick this shirt (di) and this
skirt (g) and I will model blending it. When we put the shirt and pants
together we have an outfit, but when we put together(blend) the sounds
we have a word. dddiiiiggggggg. What word did I make? dig! great job!
Then I will have volunteers come up and demonstrate to the class how to
blend.
- "Now I want you to
practice blending at your desk. You will each be
given a stick person and a couple of shirts and a couple pairs of
pants. I want to see how many words you can make by blending
different
outfits together.
- Have the children read
Tin Man Fix-It individually and note any
miscues. While one child is reading have the other children continue to
blend at their desks.
- Review teh story and my
closet full of blends procedure. For more
practice do this same activity with different sounds. Maybe have each
child make their own closet to store the sounds and blends that they
have mastered.
References:
“Blending
Bumper Cars”
by: Anna Maner
http://www.auburn.edu/rdggenie/breakthroughs/manerbr.html
