Me or my?

This week I have finally started Reading Intervention programs with my new students, as I had been filling in for classroom teachers over the past month so they could do testing of their students.

One problem I notice that keeps cropping up with the Grade 1 children is the difficulty with words me/my, be/by etc.

Here is a strategy I use to help them differentiate between these 2 vowel sounds:

When you say a long 'e' sound, as in 'me', your mouth is wide and smiley, a bit like a letter 'e':

When when you say a long 'y' sound, as in 'my', your mouth hangs down, like a letter 'y':

I draw a diagram like those above, then write a list of words, with an exaggerated wide letter 'e' or extra long letter 'y'. e.g.

me    my
be     by
we    why
she   shy

We then practise reading the words with exaggerated mouth actions, and I encourage the children to use the exaggerated actions when they read those words, or similar words (he, cry, fly, etc.).

After a while, the children will no longer need to actually make the exaggerated mouth action as they read (though they may need reminders at times).

If you like, you can download the pictures above and print them for use with your child or students.

Reading Games to Print

As my working hours and duties have increased this year, I will not be posting each week. However I will try to manage one or two posts each month.

I missed out on posting the January Reading Game here (Internet problems), so I'll post links for January and February games , and leave them available until the end of Feb.

These games are designed to be printed onto light A4-size card, and laminated for use in small groups. You will need some tokens or "movers", a die (dice) or spinner, and if you are using them as reading games, you will also need Sight Words vocabulary cards.

The First Games below are scans of games I made to help children to develop the idea of playing board games, including taking turns and following instructions, and to practise ‘one-to-one correspondence’ with counting, i.e. moving their token one space for each number counted (this can be difficult for young children who are still unsure of number skills). If using a die, children also practice counting the dots on the die.

If you want to use the games for reading practice with word cards, you can write ‘WORD CARD’ in the first of each pair of blank spaces (before you laminate the board). Then when a player lands on the WORD CARD space, they can read a word card and move on an extra space if correct.

I'm also re-posting a Hearts- themed game as it's almost Valentine's Day. This game needs Word Cards as it's for practising Sight Words.

These games are available for free download through to the end of February, for educational, non-commercial use. Click on the images to open the .PDF document for printing.