The Way I Teach: Short i

This unit has a lot of NO Prep Short I activities but honestly as much as I want to do everything NO Prep I know one of the first steps in independence and self regulating is peer or partner work. I did research for two years on self-regulating students and I know partner work is important. I try to create a balance in my units to give you options to suit your student and teaching needs and style.

I was thrilled when my struggling readers were sounding out and listening to the words. I would hear kids saying d-i--g d -i-g -ig when they completed the activities. I didn't realize how much the activities would force my kiddos to sound out and listen to the sounds. Model how to sound out and hear the sounds. They won't instantly know how to do that. The way the activities are created also force the kids to say the words and think about the sounds.

Medial short vowel i Word families Rhyming

I use the curriculum decodables with short i and reading a-z for the reading component when teaching the short vowel sounds. This unit helps introduce circle maps and tree maps if you use those in your class. You can see, this unit has just about everything you will need for teaching rime, word families, and medial vowel short i. The unit includes short i word searches, word boxes, sorts, graphing and a lot more!

Short i word search cut and paste circle maps tree maps

There are 3 easy games for students to play or for you to use in small groups or RTI. I racked my brain for a way to come up with a solution to pieces EVERY where because I know my weakness is keeping track of pieces to games! I also know some students will spend the entire time setting up a game and then they never get a chance to play. Kinders and Independent Game play were just 2 words that didn't go together at least for me this year (my 1st year in kinder). I have been brave lately and with more skills under their belt I have been teaching them to work with partners and play games. My disinterested students were interested and my lowest off-task learners were engaged so as much as I dislike noise and games I know I need them. The games in these units are simple enough and all the activities except the worksheets, students complete in pairs.

I'm limited on copies this year so printables that are not cut and paste are put into clear plastic sleeves in a binder and kids can choose to work on those in word-work. They tend to like working on them that way. I also pull the binders for kids to work on when I am working with kids in small group so they can work on the activities while each student reads to me.
I use the image below as a divider in the binders. Right now I have the short a and short i vowels ~~and will add the other vowels as we go~~ and the others are now added. Just click on any picture or HERE if you want to see the contents of the unit of close.

If you are looking for more challenging phonics and your kiddos have passed this level you can find the long i units spelled CVCe HERE and Long i spelled i, i_e, ie, igh, y, HERE.

I will be adding pictures of the binders and the games made with binding this week so bookmark me or sign up to receive updates through bloglovin.

Thanks for looking!