transitionpackets

42 TRANSITION PACKETS

These packets present a variety of spelling patterns in a way that combines the packets approach with the Color Code. For tutors and home-schooling parents, color-coded packets help a young beginner with the transition between three-letter words and a natural story-telling vocabulary.

Packets do an end run around the difficult business of blending and sequencing and retrieval--skills that don't always emerge in the first stages of learning to read.

The Color Code demystifies the various vowel spellings. For example, the ER in HER is blue to match the blue key word (BIRD) in the Color Code, while the E in HERE is orange (for long vowels) with a hollow (silent) E.

Before young readers can fly, they need to master a varied vocabulary--words

like MOON and SOON and DOWN and TOWN. A child can make these words

with the cards above.

Sounding out three-letter words is a good way to start, but now that your pupil

can decode three-letter words, what comes next? And how do we get a pupil into

books with a natural story-telling vocabulary?

The Transition Packets are for learning how to sound out phonetic words that

are more complicated than three-letter words. These words are essential for

everything we read, but they contain a variety of vowel spellings, which can be

difficult for first graders. The color-coded vowels in these packets can translate

these vowel spellings by having them match colored key-word pictures.

For more about colored vowels and the way they help with words that have

"crazy" spellings, see the link below for the Color Code.

These packets, like the Three-Letter Picture Packets, let young readers use

the auditory-to-visual route to learning their words--easier for many children

than the visual-to-speech route. Moving cards around can ease young

beginners into the words they need for reading books.

For more about the packets approach, See the link below for the Picture Packets.

In these 42 packets, each spelling pattern is represented by a small number of words. This way, children get a chance to master a controlled number of words before moving on to new packets.

1 - Six packets, with three-letter words, serve as a review and a test to see

if you need to spend more time with three-letter words before moving on.

2 - Three packets contain two-letter words like IS and UP.

3 - Two packets contain "blend words" like STOP and SKIN.

4 - Four packets contain "blend words" like LAND and WEST and JUMP.

5 - Two packets contain words like CAR and TOY.

6 - Two packets contain words like DOWN and COOK.

7 - Six packets contain words like NEED and NIGHT and SOAP.

8 - Three packets contain words like RIDE and GAVE.

A child doesn't have to snowplow through large numbers of look-alike

words to master these high-priority words. Later--not yet!--the Spelling

With Clues exercises can provide numerous examples of all these spelling

patterns, but having a smaller number of examples is easier at this stage.

The words are on one side, and the clues are on the other.

The cards have the same beginning-middle-end format as the packets,

but the child names the letters instead of moving cards around to spell each word.

These cards are harder than the packets but not as advanced as the Spelling With Clues pages for vowel and consonant combinations.

As with the packets, the clues circumvent difficulties with blending and sequencing and retrieval.

42 Transition Packets and Spelling Cards............................................................$10

25 Transition Spelling Cards.....................................................................................5

The manual and shipping are included with all orders

Check or money order

Ann Turner, 211 Mountainside Road, Mendham, NJ 07945

harann52@yahoo.com