Use our Sounding Out Train and Stretch It Out Like Bubblegum concept to help your little ones learn to hear the sounds needed to read and write words (phoneme segmentation).
The word train will help them focus on the beginning, middle and end of words. It is great for both encoding and decoding and helps give some structure to your early word work lessons. You can read more about the sounding-out train on a blog post from 2011
When you first introduce it, take a packet of bubblegum to class and show them how stretchy it is (just in case some students have not had some). Pretend to take a piece and tell your students that the piece of bubblegum is a word. Pretend you can't spell the word (e.g snail). Tell them you will chew it up and stretch it out to help write the word.
Pretend to stretch the bubblegum right out of your mouth in a long string (which you may want to remind them, is very poor manners) saying the sounds clearly and slowly 'ssssssnnnnnnnaaaaaiiiiiiiilllllllllllll'
Repeat this a few time, review the sounds you can 'hear', pretend you can't hear a few, and repeat until all are heard. Next, model how to write them down in order as you stretch them out again.
Once introduced, ask your students help 'stretch' words out and listen for the sounds every day for practice. They really enjoy it.
They then apply this strategy when they are doing their independent writing and all I have to say is 'stretch it out like bubblegum' and they know what to do!
Click on the images below to see these packs on TpT
Thanks so much for stopping by the blog to find out more about our prinatbles. Have a wonderful day!