Large Movable Alphabet

Building Longer Words (Blue Level)

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EXERCISE 1: Word building with 4 or more letter phonetic objects

MATERIAL:

• Large Movable Alphabet
• Blue boxes containing attractive small objects whose names are longer phonetic words. Example: helmet, plug, basket, camel, hot dog.

PRESENTATION:

 

After the child has been successfully building and reading two and three letter phonetic words, the teacher can introduce word building of longer phonetic words using the blue level materials. This is more difficult because we are now requiring the child to attend to blends.

 

The teacher invites the child to set up the large movable alphabet on a mat on the floor. The teacher also asks the child to bring a blue box of objects. The child opens the alphabet box and sets it on its lid on the mat. The teacher invites the child to name the objects in the box. The child chooses an object, for example, "skunk", and builds the word with the movable alphabet. She continues building the names of the objects in the box. After she has completed the word building, the teacher can read the words back to her. Sometimes children like to read along.

EXERCISE 2: Word building with 4 or more letter picture cards

MATERIAL

• Blue boxes containing pictures of four or more letter phonetic objects. These are mounted on blue cards. Example: hand, mask, crib, duck, desk, frog.

PRESENTATION:

 

After the child has built words for all of the objects in the blue boxes, we can tell her that she can begin new word building work, this time using any of the blue picture boxes described above. She continues as before.

 

The teacher must be sure to provide a lot of material for this work, so that the children master their phonetic word building skills.