Phonics & Spelling

CVC Interactive Notebook Templates

04/27/2024 by admin

Everything you need for emergent readers! CVC Interactive Notebook Templates are a step-by-step program that includes writing, reading, and spelling exercises, as well as review, puzzles, game boards, and folding activities. Interactive Notebooks offer flexibility in curriculum design and an excellent way to shape students’ notebook habits and student accountability.

Based on Phonics & Spelling, Book 2, by Kinney Brothers Publishing, the CVC Templates are built on a 45-word vocabulary base with nine words for each a-e-i-o-u vowel set. Each vowel set is restricted to three word families. With the goal of moving emergent readers toward reading fluency, the differentiated exercises take students step by step with reading, writing, and spelling exercises, as well as an introduction to primary sight words. Teachers can purchase each vowel unit or all five units bundled together!

You can check out the full bundle and individual units here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/CVC-Word-Interactive-Notebook-Template-Bundle-ESL-ELL-Newcomer-4622892

Be sure to check out my blog post Teaching CVC Words – What, When, & How

Planning ahead 2

02/25/2018 by admin

In my last post, I talked about Stories For Young Readers from Kinney Brothers Publishing and how to purchase the series for your classes. In this post, I’ll focus on our Phonics & Spelling series. I’ll provide links for purchasing and recommended support materials for each text to help you plan for new classes in the spring.

The Phonics & Spelling series, published by Independent Publishers International (I.P.I.), is available with a special discount through David Paul’s ETJ Book Service. The five-book series is designed to teach kids the fundamental sounds and spelling of English in a multi-year, step-by-step ESL program. For many teachers, a solid phonics program is the cornerstone of their pre-K thru elementary classes. Focused phonics lessons and phonemic awareness improve pronunciation, listening comprehension, and give students the confidence to read and understand English.

You’ll find an abundance of support materials for this series in our online store, Donald’s English Classroom. Visit for downloadable flash cards, charts, games, and activities.

A to Z is the first step to introducing very young ESL students to the ABCs and phonics. If your kids are just learning to hold a pencil, this is the perfect primer. Children love coloring the large images and build dexterity writing the upper and lower-case letters. Included are easy dot-to-dot coloring pages, mazes, and matching exercises. Check out the preview to learn more.

Flash Card Set – ABC Flash Card Set – Phonics Bingo – ABC & Phonics I Have/Who Has – ABC Bingo Animals – Sea Fishing

ABC & Phonics, Book 1 lays the groundwork for phonetic based learning and focuses on writing and identifying upper and lower case ABCs. With basic writing, matching, and ordering exercises, teachers can readily assess student progress. The alphabet is broken down into four sections, a-f, g-l, m-r and s-z with review for each section. Click here for support materials that include flashcards, charts, games, and activities that make learning the ABCs fun! You can download a preview for this textbook here.

Flash Card Set – ABC Flash Card Set – ABC Bingo – ABC Fishing – Alphabet Charts – Exit Tickets

Phonics & Spelling, Book 2 begins with a review of the ABCs and sets students on their first exercises in sounding out, reading, and writing three-letter (CVC) words. Learned vocabulary is then set into easy sentences to teach students fundamental sentence constructs and meaning. Step by step, students also learn how to read and write a simple self-introduction. The exercises progress in an easy-to-teach, easy-to-comprehend approach adaptable to any program. Included are review pages, puzzles, games, and reading exercises that students find challenging and fun! Be sure to check out the preview here!

Flash Card Set – CVC Word Charts – CVC Word Puzzles – CVC I Have/Who Has – Swimming with Sharks – CVC Write Around the Room

Phonics & Spelling, Book 3 takes students further in building English reading and writing skills. Book 3 begins with a review of CVC words and then takes students to the next challenge of reading, writing, and spelling silent ‘e’ (CVCe) words, words with ea-ee-ey spelling, as well as th, sh, and ch digraphs. Exercise pages also include practice with numbers, plurals, more extended reading practice, and basic question forms using do and can. Check out the preview here!

Flash Card Set – CVCe Word Charts – CVCe I Have/Who Has – Silent e Bingo – Phonics Activity Set – ESL Pronunciation Practice

Phonics & Spelling, Book 4 completes the phonics series with almost two hundred packed pages of phonics lessons, reading and writing practice, puzzles, spelling tests, and Q&A drills. Exercises include consonant blends, digraphs, dipthongs and practice with silent k, g, and ion. The phonics lessons in this textbook create a solid foundation that supports students in their future English language learning. Download a preview here.

Flash Card Set – Dipthong & Digraph Charts – Task Cards – 320 Word Flash Card Set – Clock Bingo – Community Places

If you’d like to learn more about all Kinney Brothers Publishing has to offer, please download our catalogues! Peruse the complete lineup of our Global Edition ESL Textbooks or check out our ESL Store right from your desktop! Sign up for our newsletter and download a free CVC I Have/Who Has Activity Set!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at info@kinneybrothers.com.

As always, best of luck in your classes!

Donald Kinney

Kinney Brothers Publishing

kinneybrothers.com

Swimming With Sharks

05/08/2017 by admin

On the lookout for games…

In my kids classes I am always looking for ways to anchor the question and answer dialogues they are learning with ‘real world’ application. Of course, there’s only so much that the ‘real world’ actually enters the classroom to allow repeated practice of such basic dialogues as What’s your name?, How old are you?, Where do you live?, Do you like…?. Do you have…?, What’s this?, and What’s that? So I’m always on the lookout for games that can serve this purpose. Swimming with Sharks is one that I regularly use, and that the students really love to play.

Swimming With Sharks is a game that is introduced in Phonics & Spelling, Book 2, and is designed to get the students to practice reading and speaking the three-letter words they are learning. The game is very simple. Students place a game piece (an erasure, or some other small personal object) on Start. Then, each student takes turns rolling a die and moving their game piece that many places on the board. They have to then say the word they land on out loud. If they land on “net”, they can climb over the net to the next space, thereby getting further along on the board to the goal of reaching the safe space of the ship. If they land on “red”, they must go back to the previous “red”, or back to start. And if they land on the “shark’s nose”, they must go back to start.

To use the same game to practice dialogues, I use a separate Swimming With Sharks game board that has blank spaces along the board instead of words. When students land on a blank space, they must ask another player a question. If the student cannot think of a question to ask, he or she must go back the same number rolled on the die. Likewise, if the student who is asked cannot answer the question, he or she must move their game piece back that many spots on the board. The same rules apply for landing on “net”, the color “red,” and “shark’s nose” as in the game in Phonics & Spelling, Book 2.

This “blank” version of Swimming With Sharks can be used with any set of questions-and-answer dialogues you want your students to practice. Download it! It’s on us. Let us know what games you use to get your students talking!

What games do you use to get your kids talking?

If you like to play board games in your classes, take a look at this Blank Game Boards Bundle from Donald’s English Classroom. These blank boards offer teachers the flexibility of creating their own game boards. It includes Swimming With Sharks and a whole lot more!

Best of luck in your classes!

Michael Kinney
Kinney Brothers Publishing