Alphabetic Principle and Phonics

No entertainment is so cheap as reading,
nor any pleasure so lasting.
by Wortley Montague
 

Phonics...Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

 
You may remember, when you were a youngster, working in your phonics workbook. It had pages and pages of letters and pictures. You had to match the picture with the correct letter and write the letters in the word on the line provided!
 
Phonics is the relationship of letters to the sounds of spoken language. It is how speech sounds are represented in print. Learning the phonics rules helps children spell words when they go to write them. It helps them to decode new, unfamiliar words when they read.
 
Are you getting confused? You may be asking yourself, "What is the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics?" Think of it this way:

                    Phonemic awareness                                               Phonics is the association
          involves what the student hears.                                of sound to the written symbol.
                                   

Sites to visit for alphabetic principle/phonics activities!

The magic pencil writes a word and the child fills in the missing letters. Worksheets can be printed for children to use.
 

This game provides practice with rhyme, spelling patterns, blending sounds to read CVC words, and nonsense words.

A variety of activities are available to print and play. Games include the Soundcatcher game, a memory game, poetry writing, and other worksheets.
 

Clifford, the big red dog, is a favorite of children. Children drag the vowel between given consonants to make new words.

This interactive game allows children to make words by choosing a start sound (onset) and an end sound (rime). The word blender will tell them if they are correct or not. There are 3 levels of difficulty.
 

Activity sheets, Make a Scrapbook, Write Your Own Poem, Cluster Buster, and The Pyramid Game are all activities designed to work on a variety of consonant clusters.

More activities and worksheets to
practice a variety of consonant clusters.
 

These ten colorful, animated poems deal with a different long vowel sound. The child picks a vowel pair and a poem loads. They have a choice to Hear It, Read It, Sound Search, Find the Word, or Print It. Highly interactive and fun!
 

This game provides practice with long vowel sounds and vowel pairs. Children can match phonemes to words or match missing phonemes in words. They can control a timer to try to beat the clock!

Children drag the vowels to finish the words before the time runs out! Timing can be adjusting by moving a slider.

This game provides practice in recognizing the common alternative spelling choices the several vowel phonemes.
 

Children can make their own scrapbook of words and collect a different page each week! Slither your way round Jake the snake or try your luck at domino sounds and silly sentences!

The child works with a variety of vowel phonemes to complete messages in the postcard that they choose.  They have to click on the words that have the identified sound and also drag the phonemes into words. Feedback is immediate.
 

Oswego City School District's Test Prep Center

  PreK-K Elementary Test Prep Center         Grade 3 Elementary Test Prep Center
  Grade 1 Elementary Test Prep Center        Grade 4 Elementary Test Prep Center
  Grade 2 Elementary Test Prep Center
 

Visit Beginning Reading to learn more!

Marie L. Smith
Red Creek Central School District
M. W. Cuyler Elementary School
Last updated on 5-6-07