Early Literacy part of the Education Reform Network

Phonics & Spelling

• Free Reading.Net
  Free-Reading.Net, sponsored by the Florida Department of Education, contains specific activities and featured resources for teaching early literacy. Specific activities include letter sound activities, letter writing activities, phonological awareness activities, reading connected text activities, and vocabulary activities.
• Picture Match
  This interactive activity gives students practice with both initial consonant letters and sounds and short vowel letters and sounds. For use with individuals or small groups, this activity features a print out of pictures and letters at its conclusion.
• Take Me To Your Readers
  This website was developed as part of Vanderbilt University�s �Young Children's Literacy Project.� The project is in its tenth year of research on the development of children's reading and writing skills - funded under a 1999-2003 grant from the IERI consortium of the National Science Foundation; the Department of Education; and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The project developed and tested new print and technology-supported tools to improve the reading skills of children in grades K - 2, targeting word-recognition skills and the development of literacy habits.
• Games
  This site of interactive activities includes making words, vocabulary, concept of word, phonics, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, and others.
• Things to Print
  This site includes practice with short vowel sounds, word blending, alphabet skills, listening skills, word finding, and other activities to support early literacy development.
• Octopus Arms
  For this final class project, a student in the Nevada Reading Excellence Act Master�s Cohort developed an activity for classroom use. �This activity was developed to help review and reinforce short vowels and word families.� In addition to step-by-step procedures and variations, this link includes downloadable images for the activity.
• IRA Position Statement on Phonics
  Summary of a position statement of the International Reading Association on the role of phonics in reading instruction (April 1997) with a link to the full text of the position statement (in PDF format). The Role of Phonics in Reading Instruction (April 1997) .
• Cuyahoga Valley Online Alphabet Book
  The Cuyahoga Valley Online Alphabet Book website provides a nature photo and caption for each letter of the alphabet. (National Park Service) This website may serve as a model for teachers who wish to develop alphabet books with their students.
• Go to Paivi�s Library
  This site features stories that focus on different sounds. Categories include broad o, consonant blends, consonant digraphs, long and short vowels, silent letters and tricky endings, and others.