Routine · Phonics and decoding
Sound card review
Show the sound cards taught so far, quickly, so every known spelling stays automatic.
- Time
- 2 to 4 minutes
- Skill
- Phonics and decoding
- In a session plan
- Review
When to use it
At the start of most lessons, and when a student slows down on a spelling they know.
Materials
- Cards for every spelling taught so far, with the newest and the shakiest on top
Steps
Shown with example words: spelling sh; sound /sh/; word ship.
Get ready
Pull ten to fifteen cards: a few new ones, a few that were missed last time, and a mix of older ones.
We do
Show the first card and say its sound with the student to set a brisk rhythm.
You do
Show each card. The student says the sound. For a spelling with two sounds, ask for both.
Student: Says the sound, or both sounds, for each card.
Tuck missed cards back into the pile a few cards later.
Check
Show the missed cards once more at the end. Keep any still missed on top for next time.
If the student...
Gives the wrong sound for sh.
Say the sound, have the student say it, and give a keyword if there is one. Show the card again a few cards later.
Say: sh says /sh/, like in ship. Say it.
Gives only one sound for a spelling that has two.
Ask what else it can say. If they do not know, tell them, have them say both, and show it again soon.
Tips
- Ten to fifteen cards is plenty. Keep the whole drill under four minutes.
- In a group, cards with two sounds work well for turn-taking: one student gives the first sound, another the second.
Example words
- Spelling
- sh
- Sound
- /sh/
- Word
- ship
Original routines written by Literacy Trail. In the app, every routine is filled with your student's lesson.
Related routines
- Quick letter-sound drillFlash known letters for their sounds at a brisk pace, with fast fixes.2 to 3 minutes · Review
- Word sort by patternSort word cards into groups by their spelling pattern and tell what each group shares.4 to 7 minutes · Review
- Heart word review deckFlash the student's heart word cards, old and new, until each one is read on sight.2 to 3 minutes · Review, Heart words
- Introduce a new sound-spellingTeach a new spelling for a sound: hear it, see it, say it, write it, then read words with it.6 to 10 minutes · New lesson
Have this routine filled in for every lesson
In Literacy Trail, the session plan picks a routine for each block and fills it with the words, sounds and sentence from your student's lesson. Every plan starts with a 15-day free trial.