I am so proud of the littles around this time of year. They are developing so well in their reading and writing skills, all at their own perfect paces.
Kids start to really pay attention to letters and sounds at this stage. They notice when one friend has a "long word" and they begin to venture out into spelling multi-syllabic words. I find this is the perfect time to begin introducing students to sound and spelling patterns that will serve them now that they have even MORE to say!
-ar is a good jumping off point for students because it is in a ton of words that are familiar to them that they might want to use--car, jar, star, start, cart. They will have a blast brainstorming other words that they can hear the sound in--and making up nonsense words with the sound as well.
I introducing the sound and spelling pattern using my district's sound cards which include a phrase "The big dog is barking /ar/ /ar/ /ar/" you can pair with a picture of a dog barking and a hand motion.
You can practice skills such as differentiating words that are spelled similarly, blending onset and rime, reading sentences, segmenting words, etc., throughout the week as you spend between 5-10 minutes reviewing the sound and spelling pattern. Even students who aren't quite ready to use it in their writing will benefit from the exposure and practice.
I love these PowerPoints to get this in to my daily phonics routine. I hope you find them helpful!
Love,
Ms. M
Get the -ar PowerPoint here!
