Letter Roll Reading: Blending Sounds

Explicit instruction/Teacher modeling

• Get out the four letter dice.
• Explain to the students that three of the dice have different consonants on all sides, and one of the dice only has vowels.
• Explain to the students that they will throw the dice, one at a time, until each lands on one letter.
• Model throwing the dice.
• Next, explain to the students that they must try to make a word using the four letters.
• Model trying to make a word using the letters on the four dice.
• If you can’t make a word, explain to the students that you must move on and hand the dice to the next player in the group so that he can try to make a word.
• If you can make a word, model recording the word on the recording sheet.

Guided practice/Interactive modeling

• Put the students into groups of four. Pass out the four dice and worksheets to each group.
• Ask for a group of students to volunteer to model how to play the game in front of the other students.
• Have the students model throwing the dice, recording words, and passing the dice on if they cannot make a word out of the letters.

Independent working time

• Instruct your students to play the letter rolling game and create words! Have your students mark down their words on their worksheets.

• Enrichment: Students who need a challenge can try to make sentences using the words they record on the back of their papers.
• Support: Students who struggle and need extra support can use two consonant dice and one vowel die instead of three consonant dice. If the student struggles to write as well, have another student help to record his word on the recording sheet, or offer a whiteboard and whiteboard marker instead of the pencil and paper.

• Rotate during the game to observe students blending together phonemes.

• Ask each group to share some of the words they created.
• Write the words on the board.
• Explain to the students that by blending sounds together and creating words, they are well on their way to becoming excellent readers and writers!