Young scholars investigate the origin of words in the English language.  In this language history lesson, students examine words by breaking them down and finding their roots.  Young scholars analyze words from a poem and...

Play letter sound detective with your class, and snoop out sounds, onsets, blends, and rhyme. In pairs, children take turns choosing a card from the pile; as they sound out part of the word, their partner attempts to figure out which...

As part of a phonemic awareness exercise, kids identify and highlight the /er/ sound in a list of 59 words and then read these words to an adult. The activity is the sixth in a series of 16 resources designed to develop the...

Thirty-nine words featuring the /ee/ sound are included on a worksheet designed to develop the awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in words and to develop the conscious awareness of the sound structure of words. Kids...

Son, sum, sun.The /u/ sound is featured in this phonemic awareness activity that asks learners to identify and highlight the /u/ sound in a list of 39 words. The purpose here is to help readers develop the awareness skills needed to...

Phonemic awareness is the focus of an activity that asks kids to identify and highlight the /ou/ sound in a list of 32 words. The exercise is designed to not only develop the awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in...

Would you put a hood on a good pudding cookie if you stood in the crook of a bush with a notebook? Yes, its the /oul/ sound and it's featured in this phonemic awareness activity that asks kids to identify and highlight the /oul/ sounds...

Home, though, smoke. Help readers develop phonemic awareness, the conscious awareness of the sound structure of words, with an exercise that asks them to identify and highlight the /oe/ sound in a list of 39 words. The exercise...

This activity, the second in a series of 16 resources designed to develop the awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in words, asks readers to identify and highlight the /ie/ sound in a list of 39 words....

Six silly chicks sit and fish with big strings and sticks. Help young readers develop the phonemic awareness skills needed to detect the sound structure of words and the vowel sounds in words with an exercise that asks them to...

Caught, off, robin. The /o/ sound if the focus of an activity that asks readers to identify and highlight the /a/ sound in a list of words. The exercise is designed to develop the awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in...

The tart dart left a hard scar on the large shark. Here's an exercise designed to help readers develop the phonemic awareness skills needed to detect the vowel sounds in words. The exercise, the third in the series of 16 and...

As part of a program to develop phonemic awareness, beginning readers are asked to identify and highlight the /ae/ sound in a list of 54 words. The exercise is the second in a series of 16 resources designed to develop the awareness...

Play games with your young word learners. They participate in games to develop word skills,  working with a partner on a word hunt. As they work, they keep a tally of how many times they find their word in three minutes. They use...

A straightforward slideshow presentation explains the meaning and use of context clues when defining new words. Each slide presents an example of what context clues are, how to identify them, and how it helps reading comprehension....

Third graders spell words and define homophone.  In this making words lesson, 3rd graders decipher words from letter strips in an effort to identify the "secret word". Students use a set of letters to spell different words. 

Ask your pupils to become amateur detectives and use clues to determine the meaning of words. Once they have analyzed the clues, they write the meaning on a provided blank line. If they internalize this process, they can use context...

Take your young word detectives on a hunt for the /i/ sound. Use the tongue twister about Iggy the penguin to help learners identify the target sound. Then learners are given several words, and they have to use their detective skills to...

Students alphabetize words according to the first letter while pretending to be detectives with magnifying glasses. They also work on their social skills and character development when working with their teams and partners.

Students recognize the short vowel e in written and spoken language. Through matching activities, students discriminate the short vowel e from the long vowel o. They associate the phoneme with its letter representation and identify the...

Students study word problems and learn to identify key words to solve the problems. In this word problems lesson, students role play as detectives to find key words in addition and subtraction word problems. Students then create a poster...

Students practice identifying the meanings of unknown words using context clues. In this vocabulary lesson, students read sentences which contain an unknown words. They will use the context of the sentence to determine the meaning. 

Who doesn't love playing detective? Get out those magnifying glasses because your class has to snoop to determine which vowels have gone missing. They are presented with a beginning and ending consonant, it's up to them to determine...

Eighth graders in a remedial reading class are introduced to detective fiction by Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After reading about their lives and work, they define new vocabulary and practice using a guided reading...