Word Families

I do most of my word family teaching with the Words Your Way Spelling. When the students get to the sort, I teach them that word family (or those word families). Of course, I continually practice them with the students who need more practice with them.

When my Kindergartners are ready to learn digraphs and dipthongs, I teach those as a whole class even if some of my students are still on basic word families. Introduction is never a bad thing in my opinion, I just don't hold them to knowing those if they are still learning og family (example). It won't hurt them getting the lesson and practice though!

I found a website where I use 1-2 pages from her downloads as worksheets while we're learning that digraph or dipthong. I do not have the time nor the desire to do so many worksheets. But I do like the cut and paste word with picture page for all my students and the sentence page for my higher group. I do like that she has picture and word cards - this will save me from writing the words on the white board everyday. These items are in her "sets" as she calls them.  Click here for the website.

When I start to teach these dipthongs, usually more than half my class are ready to read a lot more than 1 sentence per page. Plus I wanted to start saving paper. Instead I wrote little stories to send home as a practice/homework. They have a word bank with the dipthong words. Then the story. On the back, I print the questions that go with the story. This way it practices similar concepts as my sight word books. It is just a tad harder now... being paragraphs - but I believe is doable.