From Sound to Letter - a Noisy Class Activity

One of the challenges 1st grade teachers are facing is the non-homogeneous level of their young students: while most children have some knowledge of the ABC (some may even read simple texts), there may be also children who are not there yet.  An excellent way to overcome these gaps is to encourage individual or small group work. The major advantage of this “personalization” of the learning process is the better adjustment of the challenges to the child’s level. The teacher can then be much more attentive to each child’s needs – no one is left behind and no one is held back.

 

Nonetheless, teachers have also to consider the class as a whole. They often invest thoughts and efforts in turning a group of children into a class, thus enhancing their students’ social skills.

 

There are many ways to play the Say&See ABC game with the entire class. The educational goals and the children’s enjoyment are not affected by possible differences in their prior knowledge. Therefore, it can be an interesting way to introduce the alphabet and practice letter-sound recognition, as well as to encourage social interaction among young students.

 

To start with, you will need the Say&See ABC puzzles + storage bag. Take out the hard C and G as well as the short U puzzles in the kit box.

To ease letter sound recognition, put aside the hard C, hard G and short U puzzles.

Listed below, are a few ideas for such class activities. At the beginning of each game, read the game rhymes and verify that the children understand the matching sound principle (best is to demonstrate it with one of the puzzles).

* Walking Puzzles: Turn the children into walking puzzle pieces – each child gets a single piece of a puzzle and needs to find 3 more children with pieces of matching initial sounds, in order to complete the puzzle.

* Class Poster: Divide the children into groups and give each group a few of the puzzles (we recommend following the ColorKey, as explained in the Kit’s FunBook). After the children complete their puzzles, take a photo of each letter (or better, with the parent’s permission, take photos of the children with each letter they found). Later use these photos to create your unique Alphabet poster. Hang it on the class wall and make your young students proud of themselves.

* Quartets: Play quartets: Use the puzzle pieces as cards. Give each group of children a few puzzles, and follow the rules of the known quartets’ game. 

* Sound-Bingo: Play Sound-bingo with the entire class: Keep a single piece of each puzzle to yourself (i.e., you should have one puzzle piece for each letter of the alphabet). Put the rest of the pieces inside the storage bag and shake it well. 

Divide them equally (and randomly) among the children (better work in groups of 3-6 children). At each round, you show your class one of the puzzle pieces in your hand. Groups that have matching pieces, send them with their representor to you, and they match the puzzle together on your desk, and if correct, a new round starts (if not, all 3 return with the pieces back to their group, and your piece will be drowned for another try later. The group that is the first to remain with no pieces at all is the winner of the game.

Do not rush these activities, let the children argue among themselves, explain, and convince each other. Yes, it may get noisy, but this is the sound of active learning. We love it. Try it, and you may love it too!