• Homework

    Dear Parents,

    Homework holds different experiences for different people.  

    For some students, homework is an exciting extension of the school day that they look forward to.  

    For other students, homework is a time of struggle.  They’ve worked all day at school and have trouble mustering up the focus, attention and energy it takes to do hard things. 

    For some families, it is hard to fit homework into their schedule.  Working hours, sports and activities can make it difficult to find time on a weeknight to complete homework tasks. 

    For other families, homework is a part of their evening routine and a chance to find out what their child is learning in school.

    For most children and families, their experience falls somewhere between these examples.  

    In an effort to honor differences, our homework routine has some flexibility to meet each student and family’s needs.  

    For Reading Homework, you’ll receive sheets that contain Blending Lines and a Decodable Story.  Blending Lines are lists of words that your child is learning to read in Phonics.  In Phonics, we teach students to read words by saying each sound and sliding them together (you may know this as “sounding it out”).  The Decodable Story has words that your child can practice reading this way as well.  

                                                                       

    Listed on the next page are activities to use these Blending Lines and Decodable Stories to help your child sharpen their phonics skills, as they become proficient readers.    

    Each activity is designed to take less than 10 minutes.   You can do this practice with your child when it works for you and your family.

    There is no need to return the papers to me that you are working on at home. You can keep them at home for continued practice!

     

    Activities Using Blending Lines

    In each activity below, the parent or caregiver acts as a partner to the student.  

    Partner Read

    Partners take turns reading, word by word.

    Partners support one another by checking to be sure their partner reads words correctly. 

    Partner Quiz

    Partner A has a blending line.

    Partner B has a dry erase board, marker and eraser or a piece of paper and a pencil. 

    Partner A reads a word from the blending lines.  “Write the word flat.”

    Partner B spells the word on their dry erase board, without looking at the blending lines.  

    Partner A checks spelling and gives feedback. 

    • “You got it!”  

    • “Try again.”  

    • “Check the (beginning, middle, end).”  

    • “The word flat is spelled  f  l  a  t.  Fix it up.”

    Partners swap roles and materials.  

    Clue Game

    Partner A gives a clue about one word on the blending lines.  Clues could be:

    • Say the word you’re thinking of. “Find the word cube.”

    • Find a word that is a shape. (cube)

    • Find a word that has u_e.  (When there are multiple words with this phonics feature, kids can keep reading words until they find the one that their partner picked.  Bonus- they read more words!)

    Roll & Read

    To play this game you’ll need:

    • Blending Lines

    • Dice

    • Small items to cover up words that are read correctly, one for each partner (ie. cheerios and goldfish crackers, pennies and nickels, colored bingo chips or cubes)

    Partner A rolls the dice. 

    Then they choose one  row and count across the number of spaces they rolled.  

    Partner A reads the word.  If they read it correctly, they cover it.  If they read it incorrectly, they do not cover the word. 

    Partner B takes a turn to roll, chooses a row, counts across, reads and covers.

    Partners continue until:

    • one row is completely covered- the partner who has the most words covered in that row wins!

    • the board is covered- the partner who has the most words covered on the board wins!

    Board Game


    Sample

    Each partner colors a path through their blending lines. 

    Partners use a unifix cube (different colors for each player!) as a game piece. 

    Partner A rolls the dice and moves the game piece that many spaces.  Partner A reads the word on the space.  If they read it accurately, they stay on the space.  If they read it incorrectly, they return to their previous space. 

     Partner B takes a turn and does the same thing.

    Activities Using Decodable Stories

    In each activity below, the parent or caregiver acts as a partner to the student.  

    Partner Read

    Partners take turns reading, sentence by sentence. 

    Partners support one another by checking to be sure their partner reads words correctly. 

    Phonics Hunt

    The teacher identifies a phonics feature for students to find in words. 

    Both partners “hunt” for words with the chosen phonics feature and highlight them.  Partners support each other by checking to see if the words are correct.  The partner with the most correct words highlighted wins.

    Illustrate decodable text

    Partners read the passage, taking turns, sentence by sentence.  Then, they draw to show what they understand about the story. 

    Partners check to see if the illustrations match the decodable text.