Boardmaker Grocery Scavenger Hunt

Click here, here, & here to download Boardmaker files for a grocery store scavenger hunt. The boards are categorized by:

• personal items
• food
• household items

This activity is appropriate for children with moderate cognitive disabilities and children with autism.

You must have Boardmaker installed on your computer to open the files.

Boardmaker Petsmart Scavenger Hunt Card

Click on image to start downloading.

This card is meant to be used during community based instruction. The file can be printed out and laminated. A dry erase marker can be used to circle the animals and items that are found in the store.

This activity is appropriate for children with moderate cognitive disabilities and children with autism.

You need Boardmaker to open this file. All Boardmaker files are created by the author using Mayer-Johnson's Boardmaker.

The Importance of Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is extremely important for children in regards to their expected reading ability (Honig et al. 2002). The English language is comprised of various organizational components including sentences and words. If a child understands the concepts of spoken sentences and words he or she will be more likely to understand the concepts in a written format. Without phonological awareness, a child cannot develop phonemic awareness. The recognition that there are individual sounds in oral language helps children decode and encode unknown words.

If a child does not have phonemic awareness skills, it is difficult for that child to comprehend phonics instruction. Phonemic awareness is the bridge to understanding principles taught in phonics lessons. Many children create this bridge naturally; other children need to be explicitly taught phonetic patterns (Snider 1995). If a child is asked to spell cat and he or she does not know that there are three separate phonemes in the word, he or she will not be able to phonetically spell the word. Without phonemic awareness a child must use visual memory to recognize and spell words. No patterns are learned or recognized, making reading a laborious task for children.

Compare and Contrast Graphic Organizer

In order for readers to comprehend text and ideas, they should be able to compare and contrast information. Comparing and contrasting is often found on standardized testing as well. For learners who are cannot write or read, pictures can be used instead of words. This graphic organizer is suitable for most ability levels.

The organizer can be downloaded in pdf or Microsoft Word format. Click the image to download.

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Differences Between Phonics and Phonological Awareness

Phonics and phonological awareness have similar features. Both involve an awareness of sounds in speech, except phonological awareness does not involve print. Phonics differs from phonological awareness because it involves letters, graphemes, and individual sounds, phonemes. Phonics is the study of the relationship between these two aspects of language (Honig, Diamond, & Gulohn 2002).

Phonics instruction teaches children to become aware of the common patterns in grapheme and phoneme relationships. Using this knowledge, children are able to decode and encode unknown words independently. They do not need to visually remember the entire word, logographically. Skills taught include matching individual letters, letter combinations such as digraphs and diphthongs with their frequently corresponding sounds. The instruction involves synthesizing (blending) and analyzing (segmenting) words and word families (Honig et al. 2002).

Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that covers sound awareness in a variety of speech patterns (Honig et al. 2002). Phonological awareness occurs when a child recognizes that speech sounds can be broken into parts, which include words, syllables, and phonemes. Sentences are made of individual words, words are made up of syllables, syllables are made of onset and rimes, and onset and rimes are made of phonemes. If a child is not aware of phonology, successful instruction of phonics cannot occur.

Download poster from PINAR'S ELT LOUNGE by clicking image.

Reading Student Center Activities

This is a link that gives a great amount of reading activities for the earlier grades. The activities cover the fab five:

• Phonological awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
  
• Comprehension

Some of the activities can be modified for older learners.

FCRR Reading Activities

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. This blog will help parents and teachers educate their children with disabilities. I have posted important links and will update them as needed. If you know of any good sites that focus on special education or reading, please email me. Thank you for visiting~Cathy