Phonics Rules Can Be Tricky: Learning the 3 Sounds of -ED

Since the English language is so irregular, students should be explicitly taught phonics rules, in hopes to make reading and comprehending a text easier for them.  As you know, there are often multiple sounds for the same letter combinations, which can be confusing and tricky for little ones.  Additional time and practice to master the rules of phonics is always helpful, but this is especially the case for English language learners (ELLs).  

Many of the students I service in my RtI groups are ELLs.  I make sure to teach them phonics rules explicitly.  I then engage them in a variety of hands-on activities to reinforce what they've learned. Some activity examples are below to show you ways the students worked on learning the three sounds of -ed.  In addition, I located some awesome, FREE posters from Teaching with Love & Laughter's TPT store last year and have been using them ever since to introduce the rule.  

After using the posters to support the teaching of -ed, I asked my adorable little learners to become "word detectives" on the hunt for words ending in -ed.  Just telling the students they get to be word detectives seems to be motivation enough to practice the rule.  

They were also able to practice reading words while playing the (made up) game "Swat-a-Word".  It's similar to a word splash, but the students were given fly swatters for fun.  Fly swatters are cheap novelty items that make a huge difference on a student's motivation to practice phonics rules.  I called out one of the three sounds ("/t/", "/d/" or "/ed/"), while the students raced to locate and swat a word ending in -ed with the same sound.  They had a blast! 

In addition, I recently created "Reading Words with the Sounds of  -ed" for my students to further practice the rule.  They can either sort colorful word cards onto sorting mats based on the sounds they hear at the end of -ed words, or use task cards to locate words according to a particular sound.  Both activities have been successful at engaging my students and helping them practice and understand the three sounds of -ed!  If you're interested in other products I've created to support literacy, you can check out my TpT store HERE.  

I want to say thank you to Teaching Super Power, Kimberly Geswein and Kevin & Amanda for the clip art and fonts used to create my picture collages. 

Have a great weekend!