We are working on r-controlled vowels for the next couple weeks.  

ar - like car

or - like horn

er - like her

phone - sound or voice

photo - light

tele - far

micro - tiny

graph, gram - to write

ortho - to make straight

port - to carry

form - shape

uni - one

verse - vert - to turn

I have been a TERRIBLE blogger this semester!  Please forgive my inconsistency!  

We have been working through Vowel Teams and the boys are doing a great job!  It can be so tricky because sometimes there is no way to know the correct vowel team except to "just know". For example:  long e (e-e, ee, ea, y)

We are going to review -ful and -ly this week as well as oo (school, book) and ow (snow, plow).  We will talk about ph after Spring Break.

We have been working on vowel teams and will continue with that for a few weeks.  We have done ai, ee, ea, oa, oe, ow (long o), These are often tricky as many words sound the same (meet, meat) so you need to pay attention to the meaning of the word and just "know" which is which (through much practice and exposure).  Through repetition and continuous practice we will attempt to strengthen our orthographic memory as we continue to see, write, and work with these various vowel patterns.  This week we will review all of the above and also work with oi (coin) and oy (boy).  

  

We have worked A LOT on prefixes, bases and suffixes so far in 2021!!  The kids have done a GREAT job learning the motions for the prefixes and bases.  We are also entering the world of vowel teams (ee, ay, oa, ai, ea, oe, oo, oi, oy, ow).  This will open up a lot more words for us, but it does make spelling tricky.  

 

Keep up the good work with practicing the spelling of red words and reading those nightly passages (M-TH)  to help with fluency!

 

 

Thank you for your patience and persistence  last week in dealing with and trying to figure out Google Classroom this past week.  We went through it all on Thursday and talked about some of the glitches that we experienced.  I learned a lot.  Hopefully we won't have to rely on that for virtual school again, but it was a good "dry run" just in case.  

 

In OG this week we will add several prefixes (re-. pre-. de-. pro-) and we will talk about -stle (castle),  which is a lot like consonant + le.  

 

Let's start the new year out right by being consistent with our nightly passages (Mon. - Thurs.) and practicing red words.  

We are learning about the Tiger and Camel (sometimes called Robin) Rules for syllabication.  We are also reviewing y at the end of a word that can say long e (happy) or long i (cry).  The Tiger and Camel rules involve words that have the pattern VCV.  It is a Tiger Rule Word if you divide after the first vowel,  making the first syllable Open so it has a long vowel (ti/ger).  The Camel Rule has us divide the word after the consonant, making the first syllable Closed so the vowel is short (cam/el).  

I look SO FORWARD to talking with all of you at conferences next week!  

 

This week we are doing some assessments (red words, cold reads) and review of previously taught skilled.  Next week we will work on what we call the "Ostrich Rule" (VC/CCV) and add several new elements of morphology:

prefix - con - (together, with, join)

bases - ject (to throw or cast) act, (to do), cent (hundred)  bi (two) tri (three), ped,pod (foot)

The kids did really well with Soft C last week.  We are going to work on it one more day in isolation before we move on to Soft G.  Together these two skills are called "Gentle Cindy".  When the c or g comes before an e, i,or a y it makes the soft sound.  Example:  cent, rancid, cycle.

 

I will look forward to seeing you at Conferences on either Nov. 9 or 10.

We will be working with Soft C this week. The kids have already shown me that they can read soft c words, no problem.  What we will be working on is spelling them.   The rule is that if a c is followed by an e, an i or a y then it makes the soft /s/ sound.  The next sound will be Soft G.  Together we refer to these two sounds as "Gentle Cindy".  

We will be working with the syllable pattern VCCVe this week.  It is similar to what we did last week (VCCV- divided the word between the two consonants) except that the 2nd syllable is a magic e syllable so it will have a long vowel sound.  

 

We did a little mini assessment last week of the red words we have practiced so far to see if we have really learned them.  The kids did well overall, but you may see some repeat words that we need to go back over.  

 

Keep reading those fluency passages!

Last week we reviewed several suffixes:

     -ment, -ness, -ful, the 3 sounds of -ed

 

This week we are talking about "Wild Old Words" which contain the "welded sound" -ost, -old, -olt, -ind, -ild.  These are considered one sound that is made up of 3 letters.  The vowel in each of these has the long sound.  The key words for each are:

-ost (host)

-old (cold)

-olt (colt)

-ind (kind)

-ild (wild

 

Keep reading daily to improve FLUENCY (reading smoothly like we talk) and practicing those RED WORDS!  

Last week we reviewed several suffixes:

     -ment, -ness, -ful, the 3 sounds of -ed

 

This week we are talking about "Wild Old Words" which contain the "welded sound" -ost, -old, -olt, -ind, -ild.  These are considered one sound that is made up of 3 letters.  The vowel in each of these has the long sound.  The key words for each are:

-ost (host)

-old (cold)

-olt (colt)

-ind (kind)

-ild (wild

 

Keep reading daily to improve FLUENCY (reading smoothly like we talk) and practicing those RED WORDS!  

I hope you all enjoyed that nice long weekend!  This week we will be continuing to review magic e, the floss rule, digraphs (ch,sh, th, wh) and -tch while we add a new skill -dge.  We may also talk about the 3 sounds of -ed.  

 

Thank you for reviewing red words with your child daily and for reading the passages sent home. If you are able, please read the passages several times.  The goal of the reading is to, of course, practice the patterns we have been working with and to improve fluency.   

This week we will look at the skills:

 

-tch (catch)

-dge (fudge

 

We will also look at works with the suffix -ist.