Beginning readers need to develop strategies for dealing with unknown words. The following song is dedicated to all of those who have persevered!

Perseverance!

Chant softly:
Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance

(Tune: "Down by the Station")
Down in the first grade,
Early in the morning,
See the ready readers
All in a row.
When we come to new words,
We know how to read them.
Chunk! Chunk! Sound them out!
Off we go!

Chant softly:
Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance

(Tune: "Oh, Where Has My Little Dog Gone?")
Oh, what do you do when you come to a word?
A word that is new to you?
Do you cry and pout, stomp your feet and shout?
Oh, what, oh, what do you do?

Well, we don't give up on those really hard words.
We know all the things we can do.
We work really hard 'til we figure them out.
'Cause that's what good readers do!

Perseverance!

 Sunny Singer

(Tune: You Are My Sunshine)

My name is Sunny, Sunny Singer.

I’d like to sing some songs with you.

We’ll sing of letters and their silly sounds

And we’ll see what letters can do!
 

There’s l – i - c – k, and k – i – c – k.

Tell me what those letters say.

There’s p – i - c – k, and s – i - c – k.

That is spelling the –ick family way.

There’s n – i - c – k, and t – i - c – k.

What is c - h – i - c – k?

And how about q – u – i – c – k

When we’re spelling the –ick family way? 

Cherry Carl, 2004

Note:
Sunny Girl is a puppet that I bought last year in New York and she just looked like the type to sing word building songs. She sat in my sister's kitchen until I was forced to write the song! LOL! Sunny is the redhead on the right. I'm a redhead, so it was perfect for me!  The company has multicultural glove puppets, community helpers, and much more. I also bought a clown girl with pockets to use for introducing sounds. The manufacturer is located in Florida, but the website below provides a list of retailers. You can, however, see a large assortment of pictures of the puppets available.

For two letter rimes, just change the spellings and the lines to the song:

There's c-a-t, cat, and r-a-t, rat,

And t -h-a-t spells that.

There's p-a-t, pat, and b-a-t, bat.

That is spelling the -at family way.

Sunny and Co. Toys, Inc.

P.O. Box 771673 Orlando FL 32877
Tel: 407-826-4910
Fax: 407-251-1312


 
For additional information visit: http://www.sunnypuppets.com

Teacher Tips!

The following ideas and/or comments about using the word family activities come from teachers through my e-mail: carl1404@msn.com. If you have found success in a special way, and would like to share your idea, please let me know and I'll post it here. Be sure to include your grade level and location. For instance, some teachers of second language learners have found it to be very useful and so have resource specialists.

A special thanks goes to Vickie Schultz. She creates a power point presentation every week with the words and pictures that sounds incredible. Her students can access it themselves to study their weekly spelling words. She's sent a sample for the -op family and the -in families and I've posted it below.  I'm going to call these presentations Power Practice and create some additional ones. Vickie also suggested an idea file so that teachers can share activities that they use with the word families, for instance, writing -op words on paper popcorn, making popcorn, etc. Anyone interested in an idea sharing file for each word family. If you have an idea that you'd like to share, I'll post it with the applicable word family and give you credit, of course!

Chasity and Karen in Santee, California send a spelling homework letter to the parents of their first graders. It includes a link to this page so that students can select from the word family activities for that week. Parents can assist in the selection, but those first graders are doing well at self-selecting items that are appropriate for their skill level.

A special thanks to Fred Duffelmeyer of Iowa State University. He discovered this site and has since offered many valuable suggestions for improvement! Thank you, Fred! As a result of his input I reformatted the stationery activities so that they're more appropriate for second graders. There's more room to write and less graphic. He also proofread every single cloze activity! Typos do happen and I'm  grateful to anyone who lets me know when that occurs so that I can fix any errors.
 

Geri Rightmyer, a kindergarten teacher, had a wonderful idea for using the alphabet book with stickers from the Alphabet Avenue page. She says: "I took the alphabet book and the alphabet stickers and made a book using the pictures and velcro so the children could use it over.  I mounted everything on heavy paper with the letters forming the basis of the book.  I then took the stickers and mounted them on heavy paper and cut them out. Today some of the kids were putting the pictures into the book just to be helpful.  It was very interesting to see how they talked their way through the names of the pictures and decided which letter it belonged to.  They choose to do it at playtime and seemed to really enjoy themselves. My class is an inclusion class and I have two autistic children in my room.  Learning the sounds is very difficult for them so I am excited about some of your other ideas and how I can adapt them for repeat usage." She's going to send a photograph of the completed book so that others can use her idea. Thanks, Geri!

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