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. :)

Why phonics?

What do you think has the biggest impact on your child's ability to read? Take a look at the list and see if you can find the top two...

• The ability to tell you the sounds in words (like sun begins with an 's')
• Knowledge of letter names
• Kindergarten teachers' prediction of reading success in first grade
• Performance on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (a measure of oral English Vocabulary)
• Parents' occupational status
• Library membership
• Number of books the child owns
• Amount that parent reads to their child
• Gender

All you Freakonomics readers probably guessed the amount that parents read to their children, or the number of books the child owns, but they're both wrong. Give up? They're already in order! A study by Share, Jorm, Maclean, & Matthews back in 1984 found that the top two factors that have the biggest impact on your childs ability to read is their PHONEME SEGMENTATION ABILITY (or their ability to tell you the first sound in the word sun) and their knowledge of letter names.
What does this mean for you and your child? PHONICS, PHONICS, PHONICS!! And while reading aloud to your child is wonderful, it is not enough to teach them to read.

Product: Trader Joe's Alphabet and Number Cookies

Letter cookies are a great way to entice your child to sound out letters and make up goofy words.
My mother brought us a plastic tub of the Trader Joe's Cinnamon Schoolbook Cookies. These have been a lot more fun than I thought. First, Isadora thinks they are a very tasty treat (a vewy tasty and delicious tweat, says Isadora - still can't get those R sounds). But they are also a great way to play around with phonics. I'll grab three or four letters after she is done with lunch and I'll ask her what word we're going to find in our letters. I spread out the letters in front of her, and while I probably would have inhaled them without caring what kind of word they spelled when I was a kid, she actually looks at the letters and tries to make sounds. All the while, dancing excitedly around the kitchen, in anticipation of inhaling them.
"Guh!" says Isadora, pointing to the letter S. Well, I didn't say that she knows how to sounds out words already, but she is making that connection that letters make sounds. "Mmmm," she says, pointing to the letter M. Okay - she knows the sound for M. Good for now. "That says UH," I tell her, pointing to the U. "What word do we have?" "Mooooo!!" she says with excitement! "It's a cow, a cow!" Cookies are now gone and Isadora is talking about something completely unrelated to what we just did, her mouth jammed with cookies.
What I find hopeful in all of that is that Isadora took one of the sounds - the M - and suggested that the word was Moo, a word that begins with M. Nice start! Now we just need to get some alphabet soup!