2 letter Words File Folder

You would think that two-letter words would be easier to learn than three-letter words, but that’s not always the case. Many two-letter words in the English language are not pronounced how they are written and this can be confusing for small children who are just beginning to read.

So I was rather fortunate to come across this colourful set of two-letter words that I was able to make into a file folder. I found the templates on the File Folder Fun website.

Now I can sit and practise daily with Amina (and Basma) or even a couple of times a day to help her learn and remember the words. These words are usually learned based on sight-recognition as opposed to pronounciation (sounding out) and once these words are learned and memorised it helps to speed up sentence reading in future insha’Allah.

I also took the time to check an up to date English dictionary and I can confirm that these are all the most commonly used two-letter words in the English language.

For additional practise and reinforcement I also get Amina to write out and read back as many of the two-letter words as she can.

Amina’s Phonics Lapbook

My daughter Amina is following in her older sister’s footsteps and is now starting the Progressive Phonics Program. She is starting to make a set of mini lapbooks based on the sets of reading books and worksheets available from Progressive Phonics.

My daughter Samira also made similar lapbooks when she first started with this program which you can view here.

Amina has been eager for a while to actually start reading and I wasn’t planning to start this program until she had left nursery but I recently took both Amina and Basma out of nursery in order to give them an early start and to establish a routine before our new baby daughter is born in March insha’Allah and I certainly don’t regret my decision because both girls are really enjoying learning alongside their older brother and sister, masha’Allah.

So after reviewing the sounds d-o-d and d-o-g and blending them to form the words, we started with reading book one. Amina would follow along on the computer screen reading out the words highlighted in red. Then she would complete the activity sheets over 2-3 days (all at once may be too much for some young children and you don’t want to overwhelm them because it will put them off).

I printed off the two new words that she had learned and she went over them with her pen. We also practised writing them out on a white board a few times so she became familiar with the shape of the letters and how to draw them correctly. Both reading and writing together help children to remember words more easily.

She coloured and pasted down a colouring page from the story and then completed the handwriting sheets to practise the individual letters.

This is then reinforced by completing sound association activities. Amina would colour in all the pictures of things that started with “d”, “o” or “g”.

I also included some additional worksheets that I created myself to help with sound association.

If you would like the additional worksheets you can find them available to download in my File Share Widget under Phonics Lapbook.

First Phonics File Folder Game

I made this First Phonics game for my youngest two daughters Amina (3 years) and Basma (2 years). They are both very keen to learn alongside their older siblings and quite often come to me demanding to “do school stuff”.

Amina has been working through the alphabet and is working on letter recognition and first phonics. Basma is quite bright, masha’Allah tabarak’Allah and I think she would easily benefit from joining in with her older sister to start learning letters and sounds. She loved the Numbers and Counting File Folder game I made for them and quickly mastered counting and number recognition.

The idea of this game is to put the correct cards into the corresponding letter pocket.

I have made the files for this activity free to download from my BOX file share widget which you will find on the right side of the menu screen as you scroll down.

When the folder is opened out it reveals 26 small pockets. On the front of each pocket is a letter from the alphabet in both upper case and lower case.

Each of the pockets contains approximately 6 cards with pictures of objects that begin with the letter on the front of the pocket.

The less common letters such as X, Y and Z have fewer cards.

This is a close up of  the letter K pocket showing the upper and lower case on the front. I chose to use the MS Word Comic Sans font because they are the closest font in which most children are taught to handwrite. So I encourage my children to draw over the letters with their fingers to help them learn how that letter is formed.

There are a set of 6 cards for this pocket.

*Kangaroo  *King  *Kettle  *Kitten  *Kite  *Ka’bah

Being a Muslim family, I included a few cards with Islamic elements such as K for Ka’bah.

Here is another example of a set of cards from the letter M pocket:

*Moon  *Monkey  *Money  *Mouse  *Mushrooms  *Masjid (Mosque)

At present we are using this activity on a daily basis, so I’m strongly considering getting the cards laminated so they last longer insha’Allah.

We are having lots of fun learning our first phonics and we hope you will too insha’Allah.

Early Phonics Worksheets

I taught my eldest two children (and I’m starting now with my 3 year) to read by creating a series of worksheets and activities that helped them to learn the combination blends of sounds.

I have made all my worksheets available to download for free from my BOX.net file share which you will find as you scroll down on the right of the screen.

I made worksheets for the following blends:

sh, ch, th, ee, ea, oo, ai, ay, ou, ow, igh, qu, ph, kn, ng, ll, ck, oa

When introducing a new sound I would give my kids a ‘sound’ worksheet

This consists of 5 or 6 words containing the new sound. There is a picture of the object (some of which can be coloured in as an additional activity) and next to the picture is a box with the name of the object for the child to sound out and  re-write the word 3 times.

After becoming familiar with the words, I would have my kids complete a word search activity, where they would have to find all the words beginning with ‘ee’ for example. I made this activity, simply by drawing around a dinner plate onto some A3 coloured paper and writing out the words into the circle.

The kids circled the words as they found them and then when they had found them all I would have them read them back to me.

After this activity, we would move onto the ‘Read & Draw’ worksheets. On two pages are boxes with 6 words containing the new sound. They would have to read the word, re-write it underneath and then draw a picture to represent what the word said. To test them I would have them do this activity without any help, to check that they were reading the word correctly. You can tell by what they’ve drawn if they have read the word correctly.

To reinforce the new sounds I also created some other drawing activities.

After learning several new sounds, I would give my kids a ‘Missing sound’ worksheet. They used the picture to help them identify the missing sound.

For a couple of days we’d review and practise the sounds and spellings and finally I would give them a ‘Spellings’ worksheet based on combinations of sounds.

It is important for children to write the words as they learn them because this helps reinforce the sounds and the correct spelling and helps with quicker recognition of words in the future insha’Allah.

Below are more examples of worksheets:

Sound Worksheet

Sound Worksheets

Word Search Activity

Missing Sound Worksheet

Spellings Worksheet

Phonics Lapbook

I created a series of Phonics Lapbooks with my daughter when she first started learning to read and write. These lapbooks are based on the Progressive Phonics program. All the materials are available online for free.

The Progressive Phonics website provides a range of activities  with each series of books including a ‘Read with Me’ story book, colouring pages, handwriting pages and activities to help with letter recognition.  I would print off the worksheets and use them to help create this lapbook for my daughter.

Here you can see an example of the shapes to help with letter formation and reconition. I printed the shapes worksheet onto coloured card and cut them out for my daughter to practise making the shapes of the letters. Then we glued them down onto a flap, and using MS Word Art I printed off the words in bold font for her to colour and glue under the flaps.

There are about 10 short story books for each of the series. And each series covers a number of letters and vowels and progresses onto combining sounds to form longer words. Each of the story books introduce one or two new letters and words and these words are printed in red throughout the story. The adult reads the story to the child and the child should try to read the red words.

I printed out the story book pages and cut them up to make individual pages. I stuck them back to back on card to form little story books for my daughter to stick down in her lapbook.

The website provides handwriting worksheets to practise individual letters and new words. When my daughter completed the handwriting sheet I would cut them down to size and stack and staple them into her lapbook. I also created a cover flap for her to colour the different letters that she had learned in that handwriting session.

Some of the handwriting worksheets covering the letters ‘d’, ‘o’, and ‘g’.

I also created some circle flap books to help her to recognise other words that start with the same letter.

I would get my daughter to colour in the objects that all start with the letter in the middle. These worksheets are available on the website but unfortunately they are not available for every new letter that is introduced, so I had to put together some of my own.

Handwriting and letter recognition

Another story book

In order to review what my daughter was learning, after every 3 or 4 books, I would stop and give her little spelling tests. I would give her a word and ask her to sound it out to herself and write it down.

I also created this little reading review sheet. I gave it to her as blank boxes with a word (name of a character) above each box and I asked her to read the word to herself and draw a picture to match with what she thought the word read. Masha’Allah, I was pleased to see that she got them all right.

More letter recognition.

Handwriting sheets

Another story book

More circle flaps for individual letters

A layout of what we would cover in one session including a story book, handwriting sheets, letter formation and recognition and a colouring page showing a scene from the latest book.

Another lapbook from the series 2 introducing a new set of letters with a new set of story characters.

Same layout with flaps for letter recognition, story books and colouring pages.

More handwriting sheets

In the second series more words are introduced earlier on. By Book 2 we had already learned 6 new words.

A close-up of a book from the second series.

I highly recommend the Progressive Phonics program for anyone wanting to help their kids learn to read and write. Its simple, quick and easy insha’Allah.