Sound Out Snail

Did you see little sound-out snail in the free coloring club last week?

Your little learners can write a word on the snail trail and celebrate how much they love reading (and writing) words! 

sound out snail craft

Using any book you are reading in your existing literacy program (no matter if its shared reading, modelled reading, instructional reading, guided reading, topic reading for another subject or independent reading) pause and take a look at a page. Help your students find words on the page that they can sound-out (this will vary depending on what program you are using). 


Write the words on a chart or on your board and review them at the end of your reading session with your learners. Use sound-out snail as a visual and point to each box and you sound out beginning-medial-final. 

decoding words

P.S Have you seen the Grumpy Cat books? Hilarious. 

learning to read

Of course you can use this activity without a reading lesson and just help your children create a garden of words! 



writing words

During your regular small group word-work you can also use the sound-out snail. Have a student snail and teacher snail with some counters. Students place a counter in each section as you make and say words together. Either laminate your snail to use with a dry erase marker or pop some sticky notes down, allowing you to quickly make multiple words. 

sounding out words

You could also use the snail for some fun math games:
  • Roll 3 dice and create a 3 digit number to record. Talk about place value and the value of each digit. 
  • Roll 3 numbers and order them from smallest to biggest.
place value snail


We hope you love sound-out snail! If you're not yet a member of the Coloring Club, we'd love to have you!

Find more ideas for One Little Snail on the resource page too!