Play with Product Name Phonics

First graders who are beginning to learn to read are taught by their teachers to “sound out” words or “break them into chunks.”  At home you'll want to stay consistent with the way your child is learning at school, but this can sometimes be difficult when you aren't sure about the methodology the tacher may be using. Here's an easy activity to help you and your child practice “breaking words into chunks.”  You'll need very few supplies and you can do this activity over and over again. Not to mention, your first grader will enjoy it as well. 

Breaking words into chunks simply means to separate the letters in the word into smaller pieces that are easier to decode, so as not to be overwhelming to your child. Take the word “swing” for example, teachers will teach him to first look for parts of the word he can already read. Many children learn early on that the letters “ing” make a complete sound when they appear together in a word; thus “ing” is a word chunk.  All words containing the “ing” chunk can also be referred to as a word family.   In school, your child will learn that words such as swing, ring, spring, ding, ring, etc. all belong to the same word family and contain the same sounds. In this activity, you and your child will be focusing on these word families to help your first grader gain confidence with these sounds as they are learning to read.

What You Need:

• Old magazines or store newspaper circulars from variety of grocery stores
• A composition or spiral notebook
• Glue
• Pencil

What You Do:

1. Before you begin working with your child, search through the magazines or store circular advertisements with him for a picture of a product that contains a word family chunk in its name. For example, if you are looking through the grocery store paper and find a picture of grapes, you can cut that out and use the “ape” sound for the activity. You can use any picture you find that is simple enough for him to build a world family around. The possibilities are endless. 
2. Each time you and your child do this activity you will need to use a new page in the composition or spiral notebook. First, have your child title his notebook “Product Name Phonics Journal.”
3. After selecting the product that will be the focus of the activity, have him glue that picture onto the top of one of the pages in the notebook. 
4. Review with him the sound you want him to focus on today. Under the picture have him write the letters of the word family. For example, if the product you have chosen is dog food, have him write “og” for the word family. 
5. Next, under the picture you will have him, with assistance if needed, write all of the other words he can think of that have the “og” sound in them. You may have to give him some help to start. Words he could write could include dog, fog, smog, jog, log, etc.  Assist him in spelling these words by sounding out the word or isolating each sound as he hears it.
6. Continue to add pictures of products and practice making more word families and sound chunks with him. As he becomes more familiar with the activity, he can start choosing his own sound chunks to focus on.  He'll get better and better at identifying words that belong to a family the more he does the activity.  

Be creative! Look for possible product names to use everywhere in your environment. You can choose names of restaurants, stores, toy brand names, etc. - anything he may be familiar with. The more creative you can get the more likely he will be to remember that word family!  He'll be building his reading, writing, spelling and language arts skills each time he does this activity and more importantly, he'll have fun doing it!