Rationale: This game is geared toward children who have difficulty recogning letters in words. The more the children are exposed to words the easier it will be to read words. The goal of the activity is to help children become more familiar with recognizing letters.
 

Materials: Paper, markers, contact paper, and the book AlphaBears, cut the paper into 14 squares, separate the squares into pairs, for reach pair write a letter on one square and draw or paste an animal on the other. Laminate all squares.
 

Procedure:

1.) Lay all squares in random order on the table.
 

2.) The teacher should say "okay we are going to practice some letters before we start let's say /b/... /b/.../b/. Now say bear. Good. Now say /c/... /c/... /c/. Now say cat. Good.
 

3.) The teacher should now model the activity by saying, " I turned over a bear and the letter /b/. Does bears start with a /b/... /b/... /b/. Yes it does! I have a match!
 

4.) Ask for a volunteer and have him/her pick a card and turn it over.
 

5.) Have the class participate by holding up the card he/she chose and having them say letter/ animal. Stand beside them and help by making sure they are saying each letter correctly.
 

6.) Let the volunteer turn over cards until he/she finds one that matches the first card turned over. The children will learn from each card that is turned over-even the ones that don't match the first card.
 

7. Continue to ask for volunteers until all cards are matched up.
 

8. After playing the game the teacher could have the children write each letter they just turned over. The teacher would need to walk around and look at each child's work to make sure they understand.
 

9. Lastly the teacher could read AlphaBear's. The book would need to emphasize letters (maybe matching words with these).
 

Reference: Eldredge, J. Lloyd. (1995). Teaching Decoding in Holistic Classrooms. New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc. (Pp.53-70).

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