- apple word card
MA Standards:
Foundational Skills/RF.PK.MA.2.c: Identify the initial sound of a spoken word and, with guidance and support, generate several other words that have the same initial sound.
Foundational Skills/RF.PK.MA.3.a: Link an initial sound to a picture of an object that begins with that sound and, with guidance and support, to the corresponding printed letter (e.g., link the initial sound /b/ to a picture of a ball and, with support, to a printed or written ”B”).
Head Start Outcomes:
Literacy Knowledge/Phonological Awareness: Identifies and discriminates between sounds and phonemes in language, such as attention to beginning and ending sounds of words and recognition that different words begin or end with the same sound.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 7: Develop familiarity with the forms of alphabet letters, awareness of print, and letter forms.
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 8: Listen to, identify, and manipulate language sounds to develop auditory discrimination and phonemic awareness.
English Language Arts/Reading and Literature 9: Link letters with sounds in play activities.
Word Play: I’m Thinking of a Word #2
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
ELA Focus Skills: Letter Recognition, Phonological Awareness (Beginning Sounds), Word Recognition
Play a guessing game with children to help them hear and identify the short /a/ sound in the beginning of words. Hold up the apple word card. Ask children to identify the word and say it out loud, together. Then say,
- I am thinking of a word that begins with the short /a/ sound, like a-a-a-apple. I am thinking of a group of twenty-six letters. We use these letters to make words. The word I am thinking of is ________. (alphabet)
- Repeat the procedure with words that begin with the short /a/ sound such as afternoon, alligator, and address.
Adaptation: Challenge children by writing a word that begins with the short /a/ sound on a slip of paper. Give it to a pair of children and ask them to find the word in a picture dictionary. When they locate the word, ask, What does the word mean?
Educator Tip: Guided and independent letter, sound, and word practice continues to take place in center activities. It is helpful to set up the literacy center immediately after the direct instruction and repeat instruction before children work in the literacy center identifying letters.