These files contain games and activities for the Stage 1 Phonemes from North Lanarkshire's Active Literacy programme. I know that Primary 1s are just beginning Stage 1, so these won't help immediately, but Primary 2/Stage 2 starts by reviewing Stage 1 phonemes, so hopefully some of these activities will be useful for some of you right now (and I hope Primary 1 teachers will bookmark this page and come back later in the school year!).

As a side note - I always found the North Lanarkshire review schedule at the beginning of a Stage a bit too fast for the majority of my kids. I hope your school allows you to slow it down (if that is what your class needs).  

If you click on each of the pictures below, it will take you to a file containing the games and activities I've made for that phoneme.  I've included a page in each file that explains the games/activities that are included in that file. You will find that the main game and activities are largely the same from file to file, so once your class understands an activity, they should be able to work independently on that activity with a new phoneme.

​I hope your class enjoys using these and that they save you a little bit of preparation time.

 I have two large groups of P5 boys who are reading well, so one group has read Anthony Horowitz's 2 Groosham Grange books (Groosham Grange and Return to Groosham Grange), while the other group has gotten started on Alex Rider: 'Stormbreaker' (with plans to move on to Point Blanc once Stormbreaker is finished).

The first Groosham Grange book is a bit more challenging than the second,  I think, but they make a good pair to read back to back. To follow the story line, kids need to use all of their reading comprehension strategies (checking for understanding, visualising, making connections, predicting, asking questions when they notice something odd or that they don't understand yet, etc). It's a challenge that my boys have risen to....because who doesn't want to read about vampires and ghosts and all things creepy? 

The Alex Rider books are a step on from Groosham Grange, and require a bit more from readers. Currently, my plan is to have my Groosham Grange readers move on to the first Alex Rider book once 'Return to Groosham Grange' is finished. 

If you are interested in using some of the guided reading tasks I've already prepared, you can click on the pictures below. I've left the task mats in Powerpoint format, so you can change any of the tasks to ones that will better suit your class. I have used these in class, and have made any changes children pointed out to me (they love to catch your mistakes!) - but there might be a few remaining. It's a good idea to read the tasks over before giving them to your class anyway, so hopefully you'll catch anything I've missed. If you do, and you have time - drop me a note to let me know, so I can fix the problem in the original. 

For the 2nd Groosham Grange and the first Alex Rider book, I prepared the tasks over Spring Break, so had the time to create vocabulary cards on the computer. These are in separate links under the 3 main book links below (I've used the old Return to Groosham Grange cover and a different Stormbreaker cover for the vocabulary card links). I don't have those kind of vocabulary cards for the first Groosham Grange book, I'm afraid. We looked at tricky vocabulary using flashcards, but the flashcards were handwritten (with a note of the book page they came from, so we could read the word in context to work together to figure out its meaning).

The 'Return to Groosham Grange' and 'Stormbreaker' files also include teacher's guides for the tasks mats. It's important to read all the books, so you can guide the group discussion, but even if you have read the books, sometimes it's helpful to have a reminder of the answers you are looking for when you check written tasks. Unfortunately, I only have a teacher's guide made for the last few chapters of the original Groosham Grange book (adding teacher's guides for the rest of the book may happen next year, if I teach the book again!)

Hope these are useful to some of you, and I'll try to keep on top of this blog a bit more. Only a few more weeks to go! 

I've always used North Lanarkshire's Active Literacy for spelling, reading and writing. Generally speaking, I like their phoneme programme for spelling, and it has been successful for most of the children I've taught. 

​However, I've always had a few children who have struggled with the phonemes, and this year isn't any different. After Christmas, I re-evaluated spelling groups, as I realised that I had a few children who were struggling to make progress with the phoneme study we were doing.

​I decided to do onset and rime with them, to see if that was a better way for them to think about spelling patterns. While progress remains slow, using this different approach has allowed these kids to be more successful, and I've also seen a bit more transference of spelling skills from spelling tests to every day writing. 

​These children were also struggling with the concept of split phonemes, or 'magic E' words. To help with this, I made some flashcards that were based on the North Lanarkshire 'word wall' cards that you can find on my blog, but which emphasised how words change when you add the 'E' to the end of them: 

These have also seemed to help the kids grasp the idea that the Magic e makes real changes to the word in question - and that if you don't add the Magic e, you aren't spelling the word you think you are spelling! 

​In addition to the word wall/flash cards for these words, I've also made playing cards for the onset and rime patterns. These cards have the picture associated with a word on one side, and the word itself on the other side.

​My kids use these cards to play the 'hula hoop' game, which is a fun way to practise the spelling patterns, as well as to check which words we know and where we are going wrong. 

In this game, the playing cards are placed, picture up, inside a hula hoop. The kids then take turns throwing a bean bag onto a card. Whichever card their bean bag lands on, they have to spell the word associated with the picture correctly. If they spell it right, they 'win' the card. If they are wrong, the card goes back into the hula hoop and the next person takes their turn. 

​At the bottom of this post, I've linked to the various files I've created for the children in my class. I hope some of these resources will help some of your own struggling spellers, and save you some time in the process! 

The blog has been very quiet for the past few months, as I've gotten to grips with teaching KS2 rather than Early (foundation) level or KS1. Moving stages (especially to a stage where you don't have experience) is time-consuming.

​One of the things I've been working on this year, however, has been making some Word Study resources for my Primary 5s who are good spellers. These resources have looked at things like suffixes, prefixes and root words. While North Lanarkshire's Active Literacy programme has spelling lists for kids at Stages 6/7, it relies on teachers developing their own material for any further word study.

​Moving to a new stage can be time consuming. For me, one of the most time consuming parts is finding and/or creating the new resources you need to teach at a different level. I suspect that is the case for many teachers, so....

​I'm posting the different files I've already made and used as part of our 'word study' programme this year, and I'll come back to this post and add others as I make them. If you are using North Lanarkshire's programme, these should hopefully be useful. But they can also be used with any kind of grammar or word study programme.

​In each file, there are basic word study lists - which give 12-14 examples of words that begin with a given prefix, or end with a certain suffix, etc. Then there is an additional page for most of the files - this page varies a bit, but is most often a list of root words and/or definitions of the words the children will be working with (you can see an example above and below).​

​The lists themselves (right)  can be used as straightforward spelling lists. The additional page allows you to easily expand the types of tasks the children are doing with the words. You can have the children use the words in sentences, write short paragraphs, etc. Used this way, the lists can help build vocabulary - there isn't any point knowing how to spell words if you are not going to be able to use them in your writing.

​In the example at the top of this post, the original word list focuses on words with the prefixes 'pre' and 're'. In the file, you'll find both of the lists on the same page. I cut them out and folded the sheet in half - this gave me an A5 size document with the 'pre' words on one side and the 're' words on the other. The cards are laminated, so they can be re-used.

​As a side note - the picture above says ABLE and IBLE Homophones - I made this mistake on my list, but the 'homophones' has been taken out of the file I've posted (I was originally going to focus on homophones that week, but decided against it).

​-PRE and -RE prefixes

-ABLE and -IBLE suffixes

​CO- COL- CON- and COM- prefixes

​-LY and -ILY suffixes

​FRACT FRAG and DICT word root list

​-OUS and -IOUS suffixes

 Here are the task mats I've done for the Turquoise band books we have at my school. The first page of the Task mat gives your groups a variety of different tasks to do. The second page gives success criteria for each of the tasks. I print the 2 pages off back to back, then laminate. Your kids then have their set tasks ready to go. When they finish a task, they can check the back to see if they have met their success criteria. And because the task mats are laminated, they last all week AND they are ready to go the next time you have a group ready to read that particular book!

​All of the files are Powerpoints, so you can edit them. This means you're able to change any or all of the tasks so that they are appropriate for your own reading groups. You can also use any Mat as a template and create your own tasks for books you have at your school.

​I've used all of these in my own class, but please do proof read them before printing out and using them - I've been known to make the odd mistake here and there. And if you do find a mistake, it would be very much appreciated it you could let me know, so I can edit. Thanks so much and I hope you find some of these resources helpful!

If you have a look on my blog, there are a couple of different posts about using Task Mats in your classroom. I started using them last term, after attending a Twilight course.

I've found that the Task Mats allow my reading groups to be more independent as they work through their book and the different tasks. They also allow me to assign a larger variety of tasks for each book, so the children are able to practise/review past reading comprehension strategies, even when we are focusing on developing our ability to use a different strategy.

And - very importantly! - they solve the problem of keeping reading groups busy, which gives me more time, either to work with a specific group OR to move around the room to support individuals.

​In our school, we have a variety of reading books, including Big Cats (Collins), Julia Donaldson's Song Birds and Oxford Reading Tree. At the book band levels I'm using this year, I prefer the Big Cats books. I also like the Song Birds books, but we only have them up to Orange Band level, so I don't have many task mats for them. Additionally, I tend to find that the Song Bird books are significantly easier than the Big Cat books at the same level, so it can be tricky to dip in and out of the different book types. All of that to say - most of the Task Mats I have done are based on Big Cats books. Below, you'll find links to the Orange band books I've done task mats for.

When I'm using the Task Mats, I link the tasks to animal-themed reading comprehension strategies from a Teachable Teacher (if you are interested, you can find them here). However, in these files I've taken out the animal icon, and left the files as Powerpoints (rather than turning them into PDFs). That way, you can either use them as they are, or alter them to create your own tasks for your students. Even if you only use these mats as a template, they give you a bit of a head start that will hopefully save you some time. You are welcome, of course, to use the task mats 'as is' as well.

The orange reading band is the first level I use Task Mats with. I do have groups working at other levels, though (Turquoise through White currently). As I have time, I'll try to post Task Mats for other levels as well. Again, most of the Mats I have are for books from the Big Cats series.

​If you find any typos or mistakes in any of the mats, I'd appreciate it very much if you could let me know, so I can edit them. Please do proof read before you print out and use any mats as they are. I have used all of these in my own class, and have proof-read them myself, but I'm only human and sometimes I miss things!

I finally found the time to put all of the Stage 2 phoneme flashcards in one place. All of the pictures should be clickable, and they'll take you to the file you need. If there are any broken links or any files that won't print, please let me know!

Over the October holidays, I finished all of the Stage 3 (North Lanarkshire) flashcards. I'm putting them up all together in this post - just click on the picture below for the phoneme you want, and it will take you to the file you need.

This post has all of the Stage 3 phonemes that are unique to Stage 3. When I find a bit more time, I'm hoping to consolidate all of the Stage 2 phonemes into a post similar to this one (with clickable pictures of all of the phoneme packets together in a single post). 

Hopefully, organising these resources in this way will make it easier for people to find what they are looking for - particularly if you are working with a scheme other than the North Lanarkshire one, but you still want to find and use flashcards for different phonemes.

I've double checked that all files are set to allow printing, but if you find that you have any problems with any of them, please let me know, and I'll see what I can do. :-) ​Enjoy!​

A few Stage 2 phonemes weren't covered with my class at the end of last year, so we are slightly behind with our work on Stage 3 phonemes. Just in case your class is right on time, though, I've finished the first two new phonemes that are taught in Stage 3 (all of the previous phonemes have been reviewed from Stage 2).

Pictures above are both clickable to get to the TCH and WR files. ​

Hope you find these useful!

I thought about putting Writing Prompt files in with the Active Literacy flashcards, but decided that it made more sense to put them in a separate post.

oa (goat) Descriptive Writing Prompt
mb (lamb) Descriptive Writing Prompt