If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of picture and word sort activities. These activities are super helpful in the beginning stages of teaching a phonics concept. When using word sorts, students begin to see patterns of where certain letter combinations for sounds most often occur. For example, when using a word sort for the or/ore/oar spelling pattern for the /or/ sound, students will realize that the “ore” most often occurs at the end of the word. This is also true for the au/aw spelling of the /aw/ sound as the “aw” spelling occurs most often at the end of the word. Not only is recognizing patterns such as this important while reading, it

The popcorn activity for sorting words containing the final /k/ spelling pattern was such a hit I decided to create an ice cream cone version to add a little variety.  Sorting activities are a perfect way to introduce many of our spelling rules as students can see right away how the rule applies.  Just as a reminder, the spelling rule for the final /k/ sounds is as follows: When the /k/ sound is at the end of a word it can be spelled with either the letter “k”  or the letters “ck”. When the final /k/ sound is preceded by a vowel team or a diphthong (e.g. ou) it is spelled with a “k”. For example, the words “break”, “beak”, “seek”

It’s important for our young readers to understand that phonemes (sounds) can be represented by multiple spelling patterns.  Teaching students the spelling patterns for different sounds is critical for accurate decoding and encoding. When the /k/ sound is at the end of a word it can be spelled with either the letter “k”  or the letters “ck”. When the final /k/ sound is preceded by a vowel team or a diphthong (e.g. ou) it is spelled with a “k”. For example, the words “break”, “beak”, “seek” and “soak” all have a long vowel sound before the final /k/ sound and therefore is /k/ is spelled “k”.  When the final /k/ sound is preceded by a short vowel, the sound is