kindergarten word work manipulative ideas

Accomplish kindergarten word work Common Core standards with manipulative learning. Playdough, magnets, and dry erase markers give kindergarten students the repeated practice they need to get proficient at segmenting, blending and substituting sounds at any position in a cvc word. Word work won't feel boring when you use manipulatives, it'll feel more like play.

I do the majority of word work in small groups during our guided reading group instruction so that I can differentiate for the needs of my kinders. We grow from basic phonemes to blends and digraphs to cvc and cvce words. Practice also happens during two specific literacy centers that I have structured in our classroom. Kinders love using playdough in our "word work" center and magnets and velcro letters in our "abc" center. Let me share how I use these 3 tools in my small group instruction with materials I created for the word work center so that students fully understand how to use it before it goes into independent practice.

White boards are a classic choice for me. I will often use small ones to practice sight words or practice handwriting. Using just a board and eraser looses its appeal by January for kinders so there are other options. Bringing in materials that are wipe off surfaces is perfect. There are sleeves designed to slip themed backgrounds into that help the markers keep their appeal.

When working on substituting phonemes in all places (beginning, middle and end) in cvc words, I bring out these cards. They are bound together so everyone gets to work on their own and there is appeal in flipping through like a book. It feels different.

Students can work on blending which helps improve our Dibels scores {let's be real people} and of course improve our overall reading skill set. Plus, working right in front of me shows when students are picking up on key skills we've been working on previously. This group is just on the verge of reading level 5 (D/E) books and here's an indication of that from one student. Not my highest readers but middle of the road for this time of the year.

Wait a minute. Why is she drawing? We discuss what would happen if you chose to put a vowel after a vowel in such a short word. Some choose to experiment with that. She is showing that she recognizes this vowel pattern and that when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking and says it's own name. We've modeled this during our whole group reading, writing, poetry (word work) time so it is so neat to see when the application stage kicks in.

You can see that she personifies the letters just as I've modeled for the class - one is talking (the eyes and mouth) and the second one is just listening (ears only). Totally a side note, but whenever you can connect patterns to a visual story, students are much more likely to remember it.

What other tools can students use? I highly recommend magnet letters in a variety of fonts and includes a mix of uppercase and lowercase. These make great manipulative tools for working on a multitude of ELA common core standards.

These cards will soon appear in our word work center as we are ready to practice them independently - but we'll use playdough as the manipulative of choice. We started out the year using playdough as our main manipulative in small groups too. My kinders most often call our word work center, the playdough center, but don't let that fool you. If any administrator comes through the door, they can plainly see we're building, manipulating and learning about the way words work.

More on Word Work

Playdough Word Work Center

Developing Phonemic Awareness

Oral Rhyming Hand Motions

Blending Onsets and Rime

I hope you find these manipulative ideas helpful and can try one next week! If you like this post, then be sure to subscribe today. I look forward to sharing ideas with you weekly just like this one.

What are your favorite manipulatives to use for word work? - Leslie 

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