Beginning Letters

Subject: Language Arts

Grades: K-2 (Ages 5-8)

Lesson Objective 

  Phonics is the relationship between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters/spellings that represent sounds). It is how the sounds of speech are represented by letters; children use the rules of phonics to read and write. Understanding the connection between letters and sounds is primary to understanding how words are constructed. Emergent readers need ample opportunity to interact with letters and the sounds they represent. In addition to helping students improve comprehension and organize ideas for writing, Kidspiration® can also be used as a tool to help students learn, practice and apply specific phonics skills, supporting the teacher's reading curriculum. In this Kidspiration lesson, young learners will identify beginning sounds and letters.

Teacher Instructions

1. Open Beginning Letters.kia from Kidspiration Starter>Activities>Reading and Writing and read the directions aloud.

2. Show students how they can also have directions read to them by using the Listen tool.
3. As a class, identify and name the pictures in the blue box. Have students repeat the picture names, slightly emphasizing the initial sounds.
4. Demonstrate how to drag a picture to a letter and how the picture can be dragged back to the blue box if a student wishes to do so.
5. Complete the activity as a group. Explain to students that they will now complete the activity independently.
6. Additional phonics activities, including other identifying beginning sound activities can be located in the Kidspiration Teacher Menu>Teacher Resources Online>Lesson Plans.

    

Assessment

• Confirm that students have completed the activity, matching the pictures with the letters appropriately.
• If the teacher elects to have students switch to Writing View as explained in Lesson Adaptations below, assess whether the student uses the first letter/sound when writing the word.
• If the teacher elects to have students read the sentences from Writing View aloud as described in Lesson Adaptations, assess whether the students use the first letter/sound association when reading. Also assess if the student uses the first letter/sound association to monitor their reading.  

Lesson Adaptations

• Have students switch to Writing View and write a sentence about each picture.  Students then may read the sentences aloud. Students may also switch to Writing View and write the names of the picture only.
• The activity may be printed after its completion and used as an informal assessment.
• The activity may be used in a literacy center. Print Kidspiration Beginning Sounds Exemplar.kid activity shown below.

  Place the printed version in the center so students can self-check their work.

• In addition to the symbols in the activity, students may add additional picture symbols to the letters.

English Language Learners
 

Assist English language learners in pronouncing the picture words clearly. Have them listen carefully to the word and the beginning sound, as they also attend to how their lips and tongue are working as the word is pronounced. Should pronunciations of some words be difficult for the student, accept approximations.