Activity: Spelling mixed up words

Mixing up letters in a word that you just spelled together is a great way to work on letter sounds and help children understand that the letters have to be put in a certain order to communicate the intended message.

The other day while Isadora and I were eating breakfast I spelled out her name with marker while she helped me sound it out and then I suggested that we cut out each letter and then paste them on a piece of construction paper that she chose. She thought it was a great idea. Now I probably should have let her cut out some, but as you can probably note from the picture, I cut them all out quickly so that I could speed things up. As I cut them out, they dropped to the table in a mixed up mess and I presented the problem to Isadora - "How do we get the letters back in the right order?" Isadora initially thought that it didn't matter what order that they were in - DRAASIO was just as right as ISADORA. So I told her that actually, no, the letters have to be in the right order. So here's a little how it went:

"What makes the /i/ sound?"
"I!"
"Okay - after the /i/ sound what do you hear? s-s-s..."
"S"

We continued like this until we had spelled out her name. The only tricky part was the OR in her name, where I explained that the /or/sound was made by the letters O and R together. Normally I would let her by with invented spelling, but I think the name is important to spell correctly.

Next time I'll explain the bunny story that you can also see in the picture. :)