As many of you, I also teach phonics regularly.  There are things that always trip up the students.

The first is QU.  So I tell them a little story.  Q is very scared (mine if they don’t know the word scared).  He always needs his friend U to help him (again, mine if needed).  Another fun way is once students get the idea is print out a giant Q and a U (enough so that every is a q or a u).  But them in teams.  Play a game where they have to move around the room, but Q and U always have to stay together.  Likewise if Q wants water or to go to the bathroom, U has to go.  But not the other way around.

The next is silent E.  Again tell a story that E gets very angry when he has to stand at the end of the word.  And E yells at the other vowel “Say your name” (since long vowels sound like the name of the letter).  Make a list of words that use silent E (by this point students should have learned the short vowels).  It doesn’t really matter if you use nonsense words.  The point is to get the kids involved too.  So you bring three student up to the front and give them each a letter (here are where those big letters come in handy).  For example, you would have a S, an I and a T.  Have students read the word.  Then give a fourth student the E.  Have him/her act angry for having to be last.  Have E go up to I and say “Say your name!” and then go back to his/her space.  Then get the class to read the new word, site.  In my opinion, nonsense words work better for this.

Finally, the dreaded PH.  I’ll admit, I just came up with this one because in one of my 1st grade classes (but high level for their age) was learning the work trophy.  Of course, they kept saying tropy.  So finally I told them this.  P and H don’t like each other.  So they f-f-f-fight.  It really clicked with the students.  And now they correct themselves when they say tropy instead of trophy.

Feel free to try these out in your class, and leave a comment letting me know how it goes.