Phonics Activities for the K-2 Classroom

Phonics and phonemic awareness are the foundations of literacy for kindergarten, first grade, and beyond! This means integrating phonics into your daily instruction, literacy centers, and independent work is crucial for emergent readers. 

Whether you’re an elementary school teacher or homeschool parent, my phonemic awareness file folders bundle is designed for you! First, the activities in each file folder are perfect for small group instruction, literacy centers, and even independent practice. Keep these ready and on hand to use as extension activities, lessons for a substitute teacher, and literacy interventions or reteaching! Each set of phonemic awareness file folders includes simple directions for easy implementation and engaging activities with fun and colorful graphics. There are 50 folders in the bundle for you to use with students. In addition, the best part is that after you initially prep them they are pretty low maintenance! File folders are easy to prep, store, and reset for other students throughout the day. Click here to read about how to prep file folders at school or from home! You can purchase each set individually, but you save more $8 with the whole bundle. The entire bundle sets you up for the whole school year!

Beginning Sounds

This is where it all begins! From pirates to baseball, students will have a blast matching beginning sounds to the correct picture in the first set of Beginning Sounds File Folders! Since beginning sounds are where most literacy instruction begins, this is also where students can build confidence in their learning! Next, once your little learners and special thinkers master this first set, you can increase the difficulty. Do this by challenging them to match two pictures with the same beginning sound. These can be found in the second set of Beginning Sounds File Folders! In the Beginning Sound Sorts set, students will receive even more instruction on how to identify beginning sounds by sorting a larger set of pictures to match a beginning sound. Each letter of the alphabet is accompanied by 2-4 pictures!

Medial Sounds

Medial sounds are middle sounds. For example, in the word sat, the medial sound is the short “a” sound. Medial sounds are the most difficult for students to master. Therefore, they may require more repetition, more practice, and more patience. This makes the Medial Sounds File Folders perfect for your special thinkers to have extra practice! In this set, students will be asked to sort silly and engaging pictures by matching them to the picture with the same medial sound.

Ending Sounds

Of course, phonics instruction would not be complete without learning about ending sounds! This bundle includes two file folder sets for ending sounds. The first ending sounds file set mirrors the beginning sounds set where little learners get to match fun and colorful pictures to their matching ending sounds. High-frequency ending sounds like “g”, “s”, “d”, and “t” make an appearance, as do many more!

Next, in the second ending sounds file folder set , your special thinkers will match pictures of rhyming words together, like “web” and “tub”. How fun!

Rhyming Words

Like medial sounds, rhyming can be challenging for young learners to grasp, and the Rhyming Words set will be a perfect addition to your instruction and reteaching to help support those students who need a little more practice. With five file folder sets of matching two pictures with the same ending sound, you can easily roll these out at any point in your day!

Sorting Syllables

Who doesn’t love popcorn and donuts? Learners will love sorting syllables with this set! Students are given pictures of words with one, two, three, and even four syllables and they can sort them into the matching popcorn bucket or donut! Early intervention is so important for emergent readers. We want to meet them where they are but also help them make growth and progress towards independent literacy. No matter how you integrate phonemic awareness file folders into your classroom, your students will be engaged, have fun, and build their literacy skills, effectively preparing them for future grades!

Want to try out a FREE beginning sounds file folder activity?

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