Amber Strickland
EDUC 230
SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTION FOR PHONICS
Phonics stage Characteristics of Stage
(3-5 bulleted points)
FCRR Activities (2)
(3-5 sentence description and direct link to
center activity)
Scribbles
Scribbles are making marks on a
surface.
There are 3 stages of Scribbling:
random/disordered, controlled,
and naming Scribbles. Children
start with random scribbles,
which are just haphazard marks
on the paper or surface. There
is no defined shape.
The child then moves on to
ordered scribbling, where they
use more precision to draw.
They understand the motor
skills needed to create their
drawing. In the last stage of
Scribbling, children begin
naming their drawings and
engaging in stories about what
they have drawn. (Alnasuan,
2016)
N/A
Letter Naming
In Letter Naming, the child can
now start associating sounds
with their corresponding letter.
The child begins to understand
short vowel sounds, blending
sounds, and can identify the
sounds in the beginning and end
of words.
Letter Naming also focuses on
letters and blends that create a
puff of air when sounding it out.
(Young et al., 2022, p. 53)
Phoneme Go Fish is played just like
regular Go Fish, however instead of
using numbered cards, it uses cards
with initial sound pictures. Instead of
asking for a number, a student asks
for any card that start with a specific
letter. Students must look at their
cards and decode the initial letter
sounds to play.
Letter Sound Bingo is played like
traditional bingo, however, a card
containing a picture is drawn and the
student must decode the initial
sound before placing their chip on
the corresponding letter. Students
must
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decode every initial word sound to
determine if the letter is on their
bingo board. Each picture card
provides an opportunity to practice.
Within-Word
Within-Word helps students to
understand sounds as well as
letter patterns within a word.
(Young et al., 2022, p. 53)
Students may recognize patterns
such as long vowel sounds and
be able to spell the word
correctly.
Although students may
recognize the sound and letter
patterns, they may still misspell
the word. For instance, a
student may recognize the long
vowel sound in the word
“meat” but misspell it as
“mete”. (Helman, 2012, p. 13)
Wild Word Dominos is played similar
to regular Dominos. Wild Word
Dominos are spread out on the
working surface. Each Domino
contains a word on one side, and a
“clue” to another word on the
opposite side. A player starts by
putting down a Domino and the next
player must add one by matching the
sound or clue to a Domino
containing the word.
Fishing for Vowel Digraphs is a card
game where students are looking for
pairs of similar sounds. Students will
ask their opponent for cards by the
sound and spelling. If the opponent
has a matching word, they will hand
it over. If the opponent does not
have a matching word, the student
asking must draw a card. This is
played very similarly to Go Fish.
Syllable Juncture
Students are able to decipher
how syllables are joined in a
word with Syllable Juncture.
They understand open syllables
have a vowel at the end of the
syllable and will result in a long
vowel sound.
They also understand that
closed syllables have a
consonant at the end of the
syllable and will result in a short
vowel sound. (Helman, 2012, p.
14)
Syllable Trivia begins with trivia cards
in a deck facing down, and each
student receiving one Trivia triangle.
A card is drawn from the top of the
deck and the Trivia clue is read. The
student must find the answer on
their Trivia Triangle and place a chip
on the word. Clues may contain
things such as open and closed
syllables as well as the number of
syllables.
In Inflection Reflection, students will
use cards to make words. In one
stack of cards are words, and in
another are inflections. Students
must attempt to put them together
to make a word.
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Derivational
Relationship
In Derivational Relationship,
students understand that “words
may be derived from base words
or word roots.” (Helman, 2012,
p. 14)
Common uses of Derivational
Relationships are when a word
contains a silent consonant or
the long vowel sound in a word is
changed to a short sound or a
schwa to change the word.
“Define” and “definition” are an
example.
(Young et al., 2022, p. 53)
Syllable Share is an activity where
students match the first syllable to
two different final syllables to create
two different words. The matches
will always share one syllable. Root
Hoot is a matching game played
with two people. A deck of cards
containing word cards and root
cards are placed face down.
Students are dealt 5 cards each. The
first player turns the top card of the
deck over on the table. The second
player must read the word aloud,
identify the root, and place another
card that shares the same root on
top.
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References
Alnasuan, A. (2016). Developmental Review on Child Art. American Research Journal of Humanities and Social
Sciences, 2. https://doi.org/10.21694/2378-7031.16017
Florida Center for Reading Research. (n.d.). Student Center Activities | Florida Center for Reading Research.
Florida Center for Reading Research; Florida State University. https://fcrr.org/student-center-activities
Helman, L. (2012). Words their way with English learners : word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling (p.
14). Pearson.
Young, C., Paige, D., & Rasinski, T. V. (2022). Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading. Taylor & Francis Group.
