Teaching Tips

Teaching Tip for April 2010

This is a great time of the year to bring out the games for drill and practice. One of my favorites is 'Throw-a-Word'. Purchase a set of soft foam cubes (available in most teachers' stores/catalogs). These can be purchased with letters on them, but I prefer the blank ones as some of the pre-printed letters don't blend well. Print 6 initial consonants on one cube, 6 final consonants on the 2nd cube, and the vowels on the 3rd (I usually do an extra 'e' on the 6th side). Children take turns throwing the cubes and building/reading words (if you want to practice one particular vowel, just throw the consonants). Once they have read the word, have them switch theconsonants and read the new word.They gets lots of practice with both real and nonsense words - and they have FUN!