Then that child counted out the correct number of straws and inserted them into the pocket. I had him or her count the syllables for me, and then I handed that child the pocket and a bunch of straws. So during the second group, I held the pocket in my hand and called on each child one at a time. This “one at a time” method worked MUCH better to manage such a large group “small group” of children! But that’s just not enough for a group of seven children to use all at the same time! Unfortunately, we had some “hoarding” of straws and pockets during the first group because they were having trouble sharing our limited resources. The 24 flash cards are enough to make 24 pockets. The teacher next door to me colored the flash cards I gave her and put magnets on the back! That is how they were able to check their work. Instead, we sorted the flash cards by syllable and then put them on the pocket chart. You can make them self checking if you want to, by putting the correct number of syllables on the back of the pocket, but I chose to skip that this time. The children didn’t even need to be shown how to squeeze the pocket to get the straw inside it. As you can see from the photo, they have already had a bit of use! The children really like them. I covered the pockets with clear packing tape to make them sturdier. You may also want to put more than one staple on the bottom of the pocket, because my kids were constantly pushing the coffee stirrers that I was using all the way down through the small hole in the bottom! Then I glued one of the small flash cards down onto the bottom of the pocket. Then I stapled them closed, making sure that I stapled them so that they would stay open at the top a little bit, rather than totally flat. I used colored file folders to make the pockets, cutting them down to about 4″ by 2.5″ each. Then, as a guided practice or literacy center activity, they practice this skill by putting a coffee stirrer into the pocket for each syllable that they counted in the word. They are included in large and small sizes. These are the small flash cards that you can send home for homework, or cut up for the pockets. The children first learn how to count the syllables in a word by practicing on flash cards in a large or small group lesson. So here is how what you do with the syllable pockets. Once the child can accurately decode and read each syllable of the word- and write it- then he or she can also be taught where to separate the word if it needs to be hyphenated (broken apart) at the end of a line. When learning to spell a long word, it is often helpful to have a child read each syllable of the word back as he or she wrote it to see if any are missing. Later, when the children come to multisyllabic words that they are trying to decode (read) or spell with real spellings, they already realize that a great strategy is to break it down by syllables and take it one chunk at a time. Once I show my students how to do this, they get much better at writing longer words as they sound. When small children try to write phonetically (write words as they sound,) they are less likely to miss sounds if they take it one syllable of the word at a time. When children are trying to write, read, or sound out a word, a great strategy is to take it one section (or syllable) at a time. Therefore, it is a skill that all children should have mastered as they move forward through the grades. First of all, pronouncing and counting syllables is part of the Common Core and it falls under Kinder in the phonemic awareness section.
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