Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping
Working with the -ar spelling pattern
The phoneme /ar/ was introduced in early February—after all the consonants and short vowels, digraphs, long vowels, and some of the diphthongs—and students had several opportunities to practice reading and writing with this new spelling pattern.
I introduced it during our daily whole group phonics time by showing the sound card and hanging it with the other “advanced” sounds we have learned to date. We then went through our phonemic awareness routine that we do with all new sounds: 1) saying words that have the sound and emphasizing the sound in each word, in the first, middle, and ending position, 2) blending words that contain the sound, and 3) segmenting words with the sound.
Later that day, at my aide’s center, the students practiced reading and writing words with the /ar/ sound, using this prepared list. I don’t agree that war should be on the list, but since my students are used to reading nonsense words right along with real words, it doesn’t phase them when they pronounce /g/-/ar/, /m/-/ar/, /p/-/ar/, or /w/-/ar/ and none of them sound like words they know. If these words were important for five-year-olds to know, we would do some vocabulary development; but kindergartners shouldn’t put energy into knowing what words like gar, mar, and par mean so we focus on the reading and spelling.
A couple of days later, we used drawings to practice spelling and reading words with the /ar/ spelling pattern. We do a lot of step-by-step copy the teacher drawing during the first six weeks of school and the students love drawing thereafter. It is always highly motivating. By this time of the year, the students can quickly copy my drawings and the majority of the lesson time goes to segmenting and counting the phonemes in each word, drawing the correct number of lines, and spelling the word. I let the students try to spell the words on their own, then I say the letter formation cues and model how to write the word so they can check their work and do a fix-up if necessary. Handwriting is always a focus during activities like this.
On another day, the students listened to and counted the phonemes in /ar/ words and tried to spell the words by themselves. Again, I modeled how I would think through it and what letter formation cues I would say when writing. I always encourage the kids to do fix-ups and I circulate around the room often, making sure that they do.
This sequence of activities gets the students familiar enough with /ar/ to hopefully recognize it when they see it in print and at least think about it. I do not expect the students to use it correctly right away—as we know, students need many exposures—but this was plenty for my high readers and now they have another “advanced” phoneme added to their repertoire.
If there is time, I try to add drawing in with any phoneme-grapheme mapping we do. After drawing the above pictures right before dismissal one day, one student said, “I don’t want to go home. At home, it’s no fun.” I knew it was because he wanted to stay and draw more and feel the success that comes with spelling just right words.