Welcome to Reading Level D Interactive Classroom Mini‐lessons • Expanding vocabulary? Play a guessing game with the vocabulary theme words. Write each word on a separate slip of paper. Draw a slip without showing it to your students and give meaning clues to help them guess the word on it. Then your students can draw a slip and give you and the other students clues. o Writing vocabulary words? Help your students practice writing and saying the vocabulary words from the story. They can copy the words from the slips of paper you made for the guessing game. • Exploring long a spelled ai Write ail in large letters. Then write these words: fail, hail, nail, pail, sail, tail, and wail. Ask your students to read each word. • Exploring long o spelled oa Write the word moan on the board. Explain that oa makes a long o sound. Write the following words: oat, boat, goat, float, coat, throat, road, load, toad, groan. Then ask your students to sort the words into rhyming word groups while they say them aloud. • Exploring tch as in catch Help your students learn the tch ending with these two word families: catch, batch, match, scratch and itch, ditch, pitch, switch. Write each word and ask your students to sound out the words. Underline the tch. Then ask your students to sort the words into two word‐family columns. o Writing words with tch Encourage your students to write sentences using some of the words ending in tch. • Exploring long i spelled igh Write the ending ight in large letters. Then present this challenge. Say, Try to come up with as many new words as you can using these letters together. Assist your students in forming several of these words: fight, light, bright, night, sight. • Exploring o as in love Show your students that the o in love makes the same sound as the short u in cup. Say these pairs of words and ask them to identify the short u sound: love or mouth, coin or dove, glove or raise, above or batch, yard or shove. • Exploring silent k as in knight Remind your students, Some letters are silent—we don’t pronounce them. Write the word knight as an example. Explain to your students that they should sound out the letter next to the k (n) to get the beginning sound. o Writing words with kn Point to or act out each of these words: knee, knock, knife, knot. Ask your students to find the word on your list and write it out themselves. • Exploring ough as in thought Say the word thought. Explain to your students that this is one sound made by ough. Write these words and help your students sound them out: thought, bought, brought, ought, fought, sought. • Exploring oy as in toy Say the word toy and explain to your students the sound made by the oy. Take turns naming other words that include the /oy/ sound (annoy, boy, joy, destroy, cowboy, joyful, enjoyment, voyage, loyal). • Exploring dge as in edge Point out the /j/ sound in the word edge. Then say the following pairs of words for your students and ask them which word in each pair has the /j/ sound made by dge: end or edge, bridge or bring, ride or ridge, badge or bad, dog or dodge. • Exploring two‐syllable words Instruct your students to look for two‐syllable words as they read the stories in the D level. Say each word and help your students listen for the units of sound in the word. Ask them to clap their hands once per syllable. Then make a list of two‐syllable words that you find.