Karen Griffin's Story
Helping Phonics Flower in the Elementary Classroom

As a student teacher in a first-grade classroom, I struggled with ways to make phonics fun. I was thrilled to find the lesson Phonic Generalizations in Chrysanthemum. This lesson uses -ow words from the book Chrysanthemum to point out the two sounds this letter combination can make. The lesson plan includes hands-on activities that allow students to use a whole-brain approach to learning. I created a sheet that the students used to write their words on after they created them with the letter tiles. Students were able to create words using letter tiles, read the words, write the words, and then read them again. This allowed them to notice that while spelling patterns in words might look the same, they do not always sound the same. Students were then asked to write one or two sentences using two -ow words. Volunteers were asked to read their sentences aloud. This lesson not only provided me with a way to make phonics fun for my students, but it also allowed me to enjoy teaching phonics!