To kick start the new academic year, the K2 students are learning ‘Word families’ to improve their reading abilities. ‘Word families’ are also called phonograms. They provide students with groups of words that have a predictable pattern. A word family is any grouping of words that have the same ending and they rhyme. Here is an example, the ‘op’ word family.
To begin, the students were introduced to the ‘op’ sound. We practice the sound repeatedly. When they are ready and confident, I drew their attention to the word family ‘mop’. I demonstrated how they can read the word by first making the ‘m’ sound and then the ‘op’. Students repeated it slowly and then more quickly. They did the same with some other members of the ‘op’ family like top, hop, pop and cop. Here is Kira is practicing the word family ‘ag’
This approach helped the students recognize word patterns. They have learned many words and are becoming fluent in reading various words within a word family. Check out Annie reading a CVC story ‘Hop, Hop, Hop’
Once students recognized the word patterns well, we moved on to reading simple CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) stories. The students feel incredibly successful at their accomplishment. We also develop their handwriting skills through copying the stories. Eric writes well!
Word families are truly efficient at getting my students to read. In no time, they will master the one-syllable phonograms and move on to decode longer words. I am so proud of them!
