The goal of our Phonics Cafe section is to improve the literacy of young English language learners. This week’s Spotlight lesson, Silent ‘e’ Words 2, focuses on words that end in the unpronounced final ‘e.’ This little letter affects the pronunciation of a word in a big way!  (more…)

minimal pair: a pair of words that differ in sound by one phoneme (EX: cat/bat, sit/sip, hit/hat)

Are your students reviewing Three-Letter Words with Sprout English’s featured phonics pack? Have you introduced the concept of minimal pairs? Here is a fun holiday-themed craft that you can do to practice three-letter minimal pairs in December. Adjust the difficulty based on your students.

You will need
* lots of red, green, and white strips of paper about 5″ long by 1″ wide  (or use wrapping paper)
* felt markers (black or something that shows up well on colored paper)
* staplers or tape (a few shared around the classroom)

Minimal Pairs Activity
1. Review the concept of three-letter minimal pairs. Show lots of examples on the board, and get students to give you examples. Use Sprout English’s phonics pages for ideas. (more…)

Sprout English’s lesson of the week is Three-Letter Words Review in Book 3 of the Phonics Cafe.

There are 18 pages in this comprehensive phonics and spelling lesson. With so many pages to choose from, teachers have the option doing them all in one lesson or dividing them up over a few days. If you choose to divide up the lesson, try doing a fun activity such as the Word Search Puzzle on page 3 as a warm-up, and assign a writing exercise such as page 17 for homework. You can also use page 18 as a quiz. (more…)