Teaching Word Families to Infants: 'a' Words

Each week my Senior Infant class study a different word family. I teach these word families in the following ways:

1. On a Thursday I introduce the word family we will be focusing on over the next week. We then read a story which features a variety of these words on the interactive board (see end of post).

2. After we have read and reread the story, I have the children use their mini-whiteboards to draw a picture of each word which appears on the PowerPoint. We then compare their drawings with the revealed image.

3. I show them a picture of a word from the word family and they must try to write the word on their mini-whiteboards.

4. I print off the stories (print the PowerPoint slides to feature multiple slides on one sheet) and then send them home with the children the following week to read at home. Throughout the week we also practice reading the words in school.

5. One of the literacy centres they will complete the following week will include an activity based on this word family.

6. On a Friday we have an informal spelling test of words from this word family and some others we have covered previously, to check their learning.

Over the coming weeks, I will be posting the PowerPoint resources I use with my class during the year to teach these word families. Some of these links will include PowerPoints I have made for these word families which you can download and use and others will bring you to stories you can find elsewhere online. I hope you find these useful!

Word families featuring 'a' vowel;
The Cat on the Mat (Dropbox PowerPoint file that can be downloaded to your computer)
The Gingerbread Man (Dropbox PowerPoint file that can be downloaded to your computer)
Hap Can See (Link to PDF file that can be downloaded)
Shhh (Link to PDF file that can be downloaded)