Video: The Name Game and Whole Group Phonics

This video shows how I continue to make The Name Game more challenging for the students. As we finish up our third round of student first names, I am asking the students to tell me the sounds in the name out of order. My reasoning for doing this is based on Glass Analysis, a technique that teaches students how to approach words (in this case, names) in a way that will promote faster and more permanent orthographic mapping.

I first read about Glass Analysis in David Kilpatrick’s Equipped for Reading Success. With Glass Analysis, the teacher asks students to tell the sounds they hear in words, but to tell them out-of-order. Also, the teacher asks the students, “How do you want to spell that sound?” of “What letter(s) should we use to spell that sound?” Talking about words in this manner helps students learn how to better approach words. You can’t teach all the words in the world, so you’ve got to teach students how to analyze and think about words on their own.

Also in the video, you’ll see me take a phonics spelling pattern from the Busy Bee’s name and move right into whole group phonics. This is not my typical phonics lesson. Usually, we review all the letter names and sounds and all the advanced phonics we’ve learned. And I usually introduce a new phoneme/grapheme. But it’s December and I’m holding back for now until we start long vowel sounds in January. So we’re doing this activity instead, something the students will then do by themselves later in the spring. This is the “we do” of an activity that will become a “they do” in a few months.

If you are using The Name Game in your classroom, this video will show you how to extend it. Soon—probably in February—we will move on to using last names and learning all the new spelling patterns that are presented. If you are not using The Name Game, you’ll get a good idea of why this daily morning meeting activity is so powerful. It incorporates so many phonemic awareness and phonics skills and the students are extremely attentive when it comes to their names and the names of their peers.