Monday 9 January 2012

How to teach consonant blends

Knowing how to blend consonants is a critical skill - successfully blending and segmenting (breaking apart blends) will mean the child is able to read words and spell them without having to memorize them and/or learn them parrot fashion. Many teachers are successfully implementing these but to help we've put together some Consonant Blend lesson plans - just some simple fun ideas to help with lessons... good for finding the night before...

Each of the lesson plans has an overview of the importance of blending consonants, then some options for getting the class engaged and warmed up; each lesson plan also gives guidance for using our software to teach CVCC and CCVC words - great for helping to up-skill from simple CVC words to their four letter friends!

We've also put together a series of resources: flashcards, bookmarks and homework sheets - have fun using them... you don't need the software to use the resources or lesson plans but you'll definitely have more fun getting interactive with the software...

Friday 6 January 2012

Congratulations in order...

Congratulations are in order to Julie Brown, special education teacher in Orange New South Wales - Australia. Julie won our festive prize draw of $150 after buying Tricky Words to use at Bletchington Public School. Julie uses the software with small groups of 8 students using the SMART board (age 6 to 8)... to quote Julie '... the students love it' (ed. Thanks Julie).

For those who haven't explored the Tricky Words games yet... it's all about Zara, our space wildernaut, learning her tricky words via flying through space... probably the only space wildernaut game out there! Comes with over 300 words to learn, plus wall displays, book marks and more. Check out one of the lesson plans.

Have fun using the software and spending your winnings Julie!

Tricky Words challenge screen...