STAR BLENDING A & B - readskill.com · Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making it...

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PRODUCT CONTENTS MANIPULATIVES: 12 pages – Level A (single phoneme onsets) MANIPULATIVES: 14 pages – Level B (consonant blend onsets) 10 pages of teacher information COPYRIGHT © READING MANIPULATIVES All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of these materials may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. Making copies of any part of these materials for any purpose other than your personal use is a violation of United States copyright laws. SKILL DEVELOPMENT All sets or cards in Reading Manipulatives products are different. Once students are introduced to the skills and shown how to do the activity, they work independently. The individualized materials can be used for seatwork or stations. Students work on needed skills, and teachers are freed for instruction. This guide includes a summary of the skills targeted by this product. Additional teaching aids can be downloaded from the resource section of our web site (www.readingmanipulatives.com). MATERIALS PREPARATION PDF pages are designed to be printed on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets. Cover-weight paper in a variety of colors is available at office supply stores or online. Lamination is recommended if you want your materials to last. Store the student sets in zipper bags. There are two blending levels in this product. The onsets in level A are single phonemes (consonants and digraphs); the onsets in level B are consonant blends. Each level should be printed on a different color to facilitate organization and selection. All pieces in each set have a unique symbol code. STUDENT CHECKLISTS & RECORDKEEPING Checklists for tracking the materials that have been completed are important for recordkeeping. The last page of this guide is a master for student checklists that can be copied and cut. Active involvement builds accountability. Manipulatives encourage cooperative learning, and students naturally assist one another as a need arises. There are no answer keys for Star Blending because the rimes can sometime be placed on more than one onset. Students would benefit from reading the words formed, and this could be done with the teacher or another student. Reading Manipulatives, Inc. 1725 East Mountain View Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85020-2345 www.readskill.com STAR BLENDING A & B PRODUCT CODE: 260

Transcript of STAR BLENDING A & B - readskill.com · Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making it...

Page 1: STAR BLENDING A & B - readskill.com · Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making it the best blending activity for center use. Students work through 2 difficulty levels

PRODUCT CONTENTSMANIPULATIVES: 12 pages – Level A(single phoneme onsets)

MANIPULATIVES: 14 pages – Level B(consonant blend onsets)

10 pages of teacher information

COPYRIGHT © READING MANIPULATIVESAll rights reserved. Published in the United States of America. No part of these materials may be usedor reproduced in any form or by any means, orstored in a retrieval system, without prior writtenpermission of the publisher. Making copies of anypart of these materials for any purpose other thanyour personal use is a violation of United Statescopyright laws.

SKILL DEVELOPMENT

All sets or cards in Reading Manipulatives products are different.Once students are introduced to the skills and shown how to do theactivity, they work independently. The individualized materials canbe used for seatwork or stations. Students work on needed skills,and teachers are freed for instruction.

This guide includes a summary of the skills targeted by thisproduct. Additional teaching aids can be downloaded from theresource section of our web site (www.readingmanipulatives.com).

MATERIALS PREPARATION

PDF pages are designed to be printed on 8.5 x 11 inch sheets.Cover-weight paper in a variety of colors is available at officesupply stores or online. Lamination is recommended if you wantyour materials to last. Store the student sets in zipper bags.

There are two blending levels in this product. The onsets inlevel A are single phonemes (consonants and digraphs); the onsetsin level B are consonant blends. Each level should be printed on adifferent color to facilitate organization and selection. All pieces ineach set have a unique symbol code.

STUDENT CHECKLISTS & RECORDKEEPING

Checklists for tracking the materials that have been completed areimportant for recordkeeping. The last page of this guide is a masterfor student checklists that can be copied and cut.

Active involvement builds accountability. Manipulativesencourage cooperative learning, and students naturally assist oneanother as a need arises. There are no answer keys for StarBlending because the rimes can sometime be placed on more thanone onset. Students would benefit from reading the words formed,and this could be done with the teacher or another student.

Reading Manipulatives, Inc. 1725 East Mountain View Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85020-2345 www.readskill.com

STAR BLENDING A & BPRODUCT CODE: 260

Page 2: STAR BLENDING A & B - readskill.com · Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making it the best blending activity for center use. Students work through 2 difficulty levels

In order to work with any of the Reading Manipulatives decoding or blending products, students mustknow short and long vowel phonemes and spelling patterns. These skills are necessary in order toanalyze and decode the rimes, or bases. Use the following strategies to teach or review the phonemes and spelling patterns.

STEP 1 – TEACH PHONEMESFirst make sure that students can identify and produce the vowelphonemes. Teach the short vowel phonemes in isolation using soundassociations to help students learn and remember these challengingphonemes. The examples to the right are used in the ReadingManipulatives Phoneme Songs & Blending program. Short vowelsposters are available separately, or they can be downloaded from ourweb site. You can also listen to the songs online.

Long vowels are easier to master. Remind students that the longvowels “say their names.” Long u is somewhat troublesome since it has two sounds (as in fuse [fyooz] and plume [ploom]). Work with the easier vowels first. Students tend to predict the long u sound without any difficulty after they become familiar with short and long vowel phonemes and patterns.

STEP 2 – TEACH SHORT/LONG VOWEL PATTERNSOnce students can identify and make the short and long sounds, teach vowel spelling patterns. Simplifythe basic concepts being taught. Teach this rule for short/long vowel patterns:

When there is one vowel in the word (at the beginning or the middle), the vowel is short.When there are two vowels, the first vowel is long and the second is silent.

Reading Manipulatives flip strips demonstrates this rule. Students readthe short vowel word. When the second vowel is flipped over, the word isthen read with a long vowel.

Most one-syllable words follow this rule, making it an excellent buildingblock for beginning readers. This concept is taught before the introduction ofvariant vowels, which are obvious exceptions.

STEP 3 – DECODE WORDS THAT FOLLOW THE PATTERNSOnce students know short/long vowel sounds and spelling patterns, they can use these to decode orencode words. With ample practice, application becomes automatic.

Reading Manipulatives offers products that provide decoding practice. One uses matching games.Students look at the word to determine if the vowel phoneme is short (one vowel) or long (two vowels).Then they read the word and match it to a picture. Another has scrambled sentences that contain wordsthat follow the SLV patterns. The sentences can be one of the first reading experiences for children.Students decode the words, arrange them into sentences, and match the illustrations.

If you do not have these materials, make up activities that include words following the patterns.Our web site has resources that will help you, including words and directions for making flip strips.These would be particularly helpful as an activity to precede introducing SLV word families. They drillspelling patterns and lay a groundwork for blending, which is a difficult task for beginning readers.

SHORT/LONG VOWELS & SPELLING PATTERNS

Copyright © Reading Manipulatives, Inc. Star Blending A & B 4

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Phonetic blending is the ability to join phonemes in a smooth enough manner to approximate apronunciation that enables identification of the word. Blending is a challenging skill, but if teachersmodel blending and separating sounds and provide plentiful practice, students develop blendingproficiency. Research indicates that students who spend greater than average amounts of time onblending score higher than average reading test scores through the second grade.

The following are the steps students should follow when working with Reading Manipulativesblending materials.

• Figure out the vowel sound based on the vowel spelling

• Read the graphemic base, or rime (vowel to end of word)

• Blend the initial sound (phoneme or blend) to the base

VARIED BLENDING METHODOLOGIESReading Manipulatives offers three sets of blending materials: SLV Word Families, Star Blending A & B,and Intermediate Blending. Each of these products utilizes a different type of methodology.

Word families are the easiest method for developingblending proficiency because rhyming facilitates the process.Reading words in the 91 word families should be done on a one-to-one basis. This product is ideal for teaching blending, but it isnot suitable for student seatwork.

Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making itthe best blending activity for center use. Students work through2 difficulty levels in this series. The 26 sets afford extensive practice blendingonsets and rimes. Each set has 3 initial sounds (8 per star) and 27 rimes thatfollow short/long vowel patterns. All common phonemic bases are covered.Five or more variant vowel bases (underlined to signal their occurrence) arealso included. These extra points give students a few additional choices.

Intermediate Blending drills this critical skill in an open-ended manner.The 20 sets are grouped by digraphs, L-blends, R-blends, and S-blends. Eachset has 4 to 7 beginning sounds and 32 to 35 bases that follow the short/longvowel patterns or contain variant vowel phonemes (underlined to signal theiroccurrence). The final set in each group contains 3-letter blends. Students line up theblends or digraphs. Then they sound out each base, blend it to the initial sounds untilthey find a word, and place it there. Since a base may blend to more than one beginningsound, answer keys are not possible. Once students complete the activities, they shouldread the words that they have formed to a teacher or another student.

EXTEND BLENDING CONCEPTS INTO ENCODING ACTIVITIESStudents are focusing on phonetic elements and spellings, so consider integrating blending concepts(onsets and rimes) with writing and spelling programs. Teach students to remove the rimes of spellingwords and change the onsets. Ask them to write rhyming words for words in spelling lists. If the groupcan handle it, expect them to be able to spell any word that rhymes with list words on spelling tests.

Students must segment the base of a spelling word (i.e., make = ake). Dictate multiple words forthem to spell that have this base (bake, cake, rake, shake, take, wake). After practicing this skill for sometime, include rhyming words on spelling tests.

BLENDING

Copyright © Reading Manipulatives, Inc. Star Blending A & B 5

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ock Q

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id Q

im Q

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ove Q

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ap Q ownQ

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ash Q oonQ

oamQ

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ath Q orkQ

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eat Q airQ

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ess Q issQ

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et Q ugQ

aceQ

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Page 5: STAR BLENDING A & B - readskill.com · Star Blending is a close-ended blending activity, making it the best blending activity for center use. Students work through 2 difficulty levels

ame X

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aze X

end X

ink X

ock X

own X

ue X

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eep X urX

usX

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eeve X owX

umX

ice X urpX

easeX

ick X ouchX

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id X ipX

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ide X odX

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ing X uffX

aceX

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Consonants B-1bl pl sl

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sl

sl

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sl slsl

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pl pl

plpl

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