Teaching kids to blend, or combine, sounds in order to pronounce new words is an important element to first grade reading. Segmenting the sounds that make up a word, and then blending those sounds to pronounce them correctly, can be a tricky skill to master. This lesson helps take first graders through this process, with guided practice and helpful examples.

This lesson is a continuation of place value practice, and offers more instruction on identifying tens and ones in 2-digit numbers. Once first graders are able to quickly identify place value they are then able to understand on a deeper level what larger numbers actually mean. This is crucial for the math fluency that will support higher-level concepts in the later grades.

Second grade phonics covers more advanced rules that build upon kids' foundational reading skills, such as vowel pairs (ai, ee, ea, oo), long and short vowels, and the silent E. This guided lesson covers these three areas in order to enhance kids' skills with decoding more challenging texts. You can boost reading fluency further by printing the phonics worksheets that go with this lesson.

Letter writing is a very engaging and authentic way to learn formatting, punctuation and grammar. The activities in this unit should be learned in tandem with actual letter writing to aunts, uncles or other special far-away people. That way, students can learn and practice the letter writing skills and then apply them in their own letters. It would be especially rich to include their thoughts about books they are reading.

First graders' fluidity with comparing numbers is an important building block for the higher-level math concepts to come in the later grades. You can give first graders a leg up with this lesson, featuring guided instruction and practice problems in comparing numbers. Once kids get through this lesson, you can download and print the suggested comparing numbers worksheets in order to provide even more opprotunities for practice.

Multiplication facts can be tricky for students, but giving them plenty of practice can familiarize them with these numbers. From tables to questions to interactive games, there are many different ways that students can practice fact families. In this guided lesson, students will practice one-digit multiplication facts, preparing them for higher-level math skills later on. When they're comfortable with these facts, other math problems will become a breeze. Practice now!