There are many useless games online, but Between The Lions is a PBS show that has corresponding activities and games online that are really useful. In particular, the Blending Game is fun and simple. You (or a student) simply picks the blend (or, ok, diagraphs!) and the stem, and two football players bearing each combination run together as voices announcing each side eventually pronounce the combinations.
Kids pick the combos over and over. It's simple. It gets the point across. Readquarium has many similar games and programs. Brian Cleary's site is incredibly helpful as well, with many word family games. My website's Beginning Reading page has many links, but here are the two most useful ones (Cleary's and Blending Bowl) The Blending Bowl: <http://pbskids.org/island/preview/gamepreview.html?btl-bowl>from the PBSKids show Between the Lions. This game helps students recognize digraphs - two or more letters that work together, such as pl, or tr, sm. (NOT blends, such as ch, sh, or th) The World of Brian Cleary: Phonics Games. <http://www.brianpcleary.com/phonics/index.html>Play such games as "I Found the Sound", matching and rhyming games. Hearing and identifying sounds, and recognizing rhyming word families, are key to helping young readers quickly build their sight word vocabularies. Children don't need to simply memorize huge numbers of words if we give them the skills to figure out words that they don't know. Brian Cleary has created wonderfully effective books (which I send home) and accompanying games to build these skills. Amy Lesemann, Reading Specialist Lesemann Learning www.amylesemann.com -- Lesemann Learning _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
