Practice will always make perfect, especially when teaching kids how to read! Reading will always be the most essential skill we will learn as humans but for kids, it can often feel like a chore. This is even more evident as we grow throughout the year and introduce trickier phonics lessons. The key is to have a variety of phonics activities with our phonics lesson plans that keep kids engaged.
I like to use posters, cards, sorts, games, pictures, and so much more when practicing letter sounds and blends. This keeps students engaged in the lesson and excited to “play” more. But the phonics activities never take over the skill being taught, so they are learning their standards without the boredom that can come from repetitive assignments.
Today, I wanted to share with you a week in the life of our phonics lessons! I am breaking it down day by day to give you an idea of how you can structure your lessons to make them more varied and fun. Plus, you’ll walk away with an entire week of phonics lesson plans and activities for FREE!
For our week in review, we will be focusing on the -ed ending. We begin with a full set of lesson plans for the week. Each day we’ve outlined the focus for the day and which phonics activities we will complete for learning about and practicing -ed words.
First things first, we will begin by introducing the letter sound of the week. I like to use phonics posters to showcase this and since endings can have multiple sounds, it’s important to show them the various endings through images and verbal confirmation.
In our example, we start by showing students the –ed poster and discuss that –ed endings help show when something has happened in the past. We then have students repeat various words and ask them to notice the difference in the ending sounds.
Here’s an example of the set of words we use:
We then focus on words that make the /d/ sound when pronounced and make sure to display and discuss “doubling rules”, when consonants double, using the Doubling Rules Poster and word cards.
Pro tip: Have students put their hands on their vocal cords to distinguish voiced sounds like “g”, “m”, “n”, etc.
Next up, we practice.
On day one, we like to keep phonics practice simple. You don’t want to bombard your students with heavy phonics activities on the first day. We use our -ed endings printable and have students use images to begin to identify the -ed words.
On the phonics printable, students look at the picture and find six verbs to record. They will record the words using the -ed ending and make a sentence.
That’s all the practice they would need for the first day as they are slowly introduced to the skill.
You will want to begin the second day of phonics lessons with a review. Using the same -ed posters from the day before, go over the rules of the phonics sound again and have students practice verbally.
Next, we can move on to having a little more fun with our words! Over the next 3 days, you’ll go all in with fun phonics activities for practicing and reviewing the sound of the week.
We love to have students work together for some of the activities to get them excited but also, so they can assist each other as they learn!
We begin with a partner game, Roll and Read! Students will break off into pairs and take turns rolling the dice. Students will then read a word from the number row they landed on.
Then, we move on to individual practice. After working together with their partners, students may have a better grasp of their ending sounds and they can move on to independent practice.
We use an I Spy printable for students to find images that correlate with words using the -ed ending. They will find 8 words from the images and write the words that describe the image using “ed” and then color them!
We make sure to include images that do and do NOT include the -ed ending so that we can monitor their level of comprehension.
Pro Tip: Using visuals is one of the essential strategies for teaching phonics. If you’re looking for more teaching strategies for phonics, you can check out THIS post.
On the third day, we want students to dig deeper. We want to get a look at how much they’ve learned so far without worrying about a formal assessment. We opt to have them get more hands-on with their words.
We start with a game! If you can’t tell by now, we love playing phonics games in the classroom. Students learn and stay focused on the lesson when they’re having fun with it.
So, on day 3, we introduce the Blackout game to our students. For this form of phonics practice, students will be using a spinner to find an image. Whichever image they land on, they must write the -ed word that describes it. Each partner will take turns until their row is full.
These phonics activities allow us to see if students can generate the phonics focus words on their own.
We move on to more individual practice. Students will use a sort to identify the differentiation in sounds for the -ed ending.
Using the Sounds of -ed Sort, students will cut out images and place them in the correct box for that sound, either /d/, /t/, or /id/. Next to the images, they will write the corresponding word.
It’s important that students can showcase their understanding of how the ending varies in sound.
As the week is winding down, you’ll be closer to assessing your students. While they’ve had lots of hands-on practice throughout the week, they will still need one last push before they are assessed.
We start day 4 with a phonics mini-lesson. As a class, we review our letter sounds again using picture cards and then sort them into the three sound categories for “ed”. Be sure to emphasize the importance of the sound variations and model them as you go.
Then, they do one more round of phonics activities individually and with partners.
As partners, students will practice fluency. The more students say the words aloud, the easier it will be for them to comprehend how the sounds differ.
For the Fluency with -ed Words Game, students will roll dice to find a number. Whichever number they land on will be the sentence they have to read. Each partner takes turns reading each sentence, paying close attention to the words ending in -ed.
Students play their own individual phonics game with spin and color. Using the spinner, they can choose 3 colors to label each ending sound. Next, they will spin and land on a letter sound. They must then color in a picture for that sound and write in the word. They will repeat this process until they fill the board!
Pro Tip: Paperclips make the perfect spinners! Buy them in bulk to have throughout the year.
On the final day of the week, it’s time to put all of that practice to the test!
In the phonics assessment, students will use the images to identify -ed words and write them in. They will also use two words in a sentence!
After a full week of phonics activities, lessons, and games, your students will be well on their way to acing the test. But don’t take my word for it, grab these phonics lesson plans for your students!
{If you like what you see and could use more attention-grabbing phonics lesson plans, activities, and games, then check out our 2nd Grade phonics bundle on my TPT shop here.}
You can test out this entire week of phonics lesson plans in your classroom with this weeklong FREEBIE! We’ve included lesson plans and activities.
Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.
Sample a day of Rooted in Reading with these lesson plans and activities for Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Grammar!
