Color It Out

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Pass out the How Many Sounds Do You Hear? worksheet to each student.
• Show students notecards with appropriate spelling words. (It can be useful to color code or number these by difficulty level.)
• Demonstrate to students how a partner will pull a card and say the word.
• Then, demonstrate how another student would say the word stretching out each sound. Count on your fingers all of the sounds as you stretch out the word.
• Say the word stretched out again and have students recognize what letters correspond with those sounds. Demonstrate how to write the word on the worksheet and color in the appropriate number of rays.
• Repeat this process a couple more times until students seem familiar with it.

Guided Practice

• Ask for another student volunteer.
• Have that student draw a card and say the word to the class. The student volunteer can call on another student to stretch out the word.
• The class should determine how many sounds they hear and try to spell the word. The student volunteer should demonstrate writing the word and filling in the appropriate number of rays on the worksheet.
• If necessary, this can be repeated again with different student volunteers until students understand the process. Before breaking the class up into partners or small groups to continue playing the game and working on their worksheets, ask if there are any questions. Make sure to review any expectations and rules for independent work time.

Independent working time

• Working as partners or in small groups, students should take turns pulling cards, saying the words out loud for one another, and filling in their worksheets. Any adults in the room should be circulating, monitoring behavior, and answering questions. If it becomes evident that students are struggling with certain words or the activity as a whole, this is a good time to correct key misconceptions and provide supporting materials.