Letter Tiles

Letter Tiles are a versatile, hands-on word building

manipulative, ideal for introducing phonics concepts and

giving children practice building every word imaginable.

Like other manipulatives, Letter Tiles help children visualize

concepts concretely and remember what they learn. In

addition to regular alphabet letter tiles, teachers can now

purchase multi-letter cluster tiles: important chunks of letters

(ch, ing, qu, etc.) that children need to recognize as a unit

when they read or spell.

Alphabet Letter Tiles, uppercase and lowercase letters on

1 1/4" x 1" plastic tiles.

Cluster Tiles, blends, digraphs, vowel pairs, rimes, and word

endings on 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" and 1 1/4" x 2" plastic tiles.

Onset and Rime Tiles, plastic tiles with common word

beginnings (onsets) and endings (rimes) that children can

use to build words.

Letter Tile Resource Books

Learning with Letter Tiles A Guide to Hands-On Phonics

Appealing activities and games that get children actively

involved in exploring letters and how they go together to

make words.

Rime Time Building Word Families with Letter Tiles

70 powerful word families are created with these

charmingly illustrated activity pages and a set of 42

letter tiles.

Time to Rhyme Building Words with Rimes That Rhyme

An exploration of words that have the same ending sounds

but are spelled in two or more different ways.

For these and other language arts resources for teachers,

consult the Primary Concepts catalog.

Primary ConceptsP.O. Box 10043

Berkeley, CA 94709

Cat. No. 7005

Primary Concepts®

Design and production: Hyru Gau Editor: Sarah Le Forge

■

©2000 Primary ConceptsP.O. Box 10043

Berkeley, CA 94709www.primaryconcepts.com

Catalog no. 7005

■

All rights reserved.

■

Primary Concepts grants teachers permission to photocopy the reproducible pages from this eBook

for classroom use only. Permission is limited to the teacher for whom the eBook was purchased. No other use of

this product is allowed without prior written consent of the publisher.

■

ISBN 978-1-60184-175-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Teaching Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Rhyme Family Activities

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Letter Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Rime Page

_ail / _ale 7

_aid / _ade 9

_ace / _ase 11

_ain / ane 13

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_e / _ea / _ee 15

_eed / ead 17

_eek / eak 19

_eal / eel 21

_eep / _eap 25

_ear / _eer / _ere 27

_eet / eat 29

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_ight / _ite 31

_ide / _ied 33

_ie / _y / _igh 35

Rime Page

_oad / _ode 37

_ow / _o 39

_ole / _oal / _oll 41

_one / _own / _oan 43

_oat / ote 45

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_ed / _ead 47

_um / _ome / _umb 49

_un / _on 51

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_ake / _eak 53

_ore/ _oar / _our 55

_air / _are / _ear 57

_ue / _oo / _ew 59

_oot / _uit / _ute 61

4 Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts

TEACHING NOTES

With Time to Rhyme: Building Words with Rimes That Rhyme, students explore families of words that have the same ending sounds but are spelled in two or more different ways. Stu-dents are involved actively in

■ building words with letter tiles,■ sorting the words by spelling pattern,■ learning about the meanings of words including homophones, and■ using words that rhyme to create silly sentences

Students build words by pairing onset tiles with rimes and blending the sounds together. Onsetsare single consonants, blends, or digraphs that begin words or syllables. Rimes are the voweland whatever follows it in a word or syllable. In the word snail, for example, sn is an onset and ailis a rime. Working with onsets and rimes helps children think of parts of words as units.

In Time to Rhyme, the focus is on rimes that rhyme; that is, rimes like –ail and –ale that soundthe same but are spelled differently. The goal is for children to learn spelling patterns for commonrimes that rhyme and be able to use those words in sentences.

GETTING STARTEDTo get started on the Time to Rhyme activities, you will need 42 letter tiles: all the single consonants except q and x, 4 digraphs (ch, sh, th, and wh), 17 blends (bl, br, st, and so on), plus kn and qu. Plastic letter tiles are available for purchase from the publisher. Tiles can also be made by reproducing page 64 and cutting out the letters on the dotted lines. Each child willneed a set of letter tiles to do the activities.

The activities can be done in any sequence. The sequence in the book starts with long vowel patterns (a, then e, then l, then o) and ends with more difficult or irregular spelling patterns.

USING THE PAGESDemonstrate how to complete a rhyme family investigation, using pages 7 and 8 as an example.

Word Building

Draw the students’ attention to the picture at the top of page 7 and notice with them that the words tail and whale have the same ending sounds, but are spelled in two different ways: –ail and –ale. One has the vowel pair ai and one has the silent e pattern. Have the children find the two word endings, called rimes, below the picture.

Tell the children that they will be creating lots of rhymingwords using these two rime endings. Have the childrenfind the letters shown in the box in their collection of letter tiles. These beginning letters are called onsets.Onsets combine with rimes to form words. Have the children place each tile, one by one, on the spaces

Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts 5

beside each rime ending and blend the sounds together to form a word. Say the word aloudwith the students and use it in a sentence or two so everyone understands its meaning.

Deciding Which Spelling is Correct

To determine which spelling is correct, have the children try the onset tile with each of the endings and think about whichlooks right. If the children have seen the word correctly spelled a number of times, they will most likely think the correct spellinglooks better than the alternative. For example, they are likely to decide that whale looks better than whail. This strategy is a good one for children to learn and use in all of the writing assignments. They may be surprised at how many times they can guess correctly at the spelling of a word merely by trying it several ways and then choosing the one thatlooks the most right.

Sorting by Spelling Pattern

After students have decided on the correct spelling, have them write the word in the column below its spelling pattern so that the words that are spelled alike are together. Sorting the words by spelling pattern helps cement the different ways the rime ending is commonly spelled. As the columns fill with words, notice with the students which rimeending has more words and is probably the more common spelling pattern.

Homophones

Sometimes more than one rime makes a word. These are called homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently. In the –ail / –alerhyme family, the words tail and tale, sail and sale, pail and pale, mail and male are all homophones. As you build each of these special words, make sure to discuss their meanings.

Rhyme Family Words

Continue until you have tried each of the letter tiles (all should make at least one word). Then hand ou page 8 or display it on the overhead and explain to the children that they can check their word list against the word list on page 8 to make sure they have all the words and that they are all spelled correctly. They can also check the homophone section to find out the meanings of words that are homophones.

Making Silly Sentences

Finally, have the class as a group come up with a sentence or two that uses lots of the rhyme family words. These can be silly sentences, but any rhyme family words should

be spelled correctly. Students can use the rhyme family list and the homophone sentences to make sure their words are spelled

correctly, Here is an example for the –ail / –ale family:

6 Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts

After you have walked the children through a rhyme family exploration, they should be able towork on their own on the remaining pages. You might want to hand out the odd-numberedpages first and have the children complete the word building to the best of their abilities, thenhand out the even page for them to check their work and do the writing task.

HOMEWORKTime to Rhyme pages are a convenient at-home activity. After introducing theactivities in the classroom, you may wish to set up a routine of sending a rhymefamily exploration home with students to do as homework each week. A supplyof onset tiles could be kept in a bag or envelope to be used for the activities.

EXTENDING THE ACTIVITIESHere are a few ways to extend the activities in the book.

Word Hunt

Once the students have completed a page, they could go on a Word Hunt to findmore words for each spelling pattern. Names of people or places could be added.For example, the word Spain could be added to the –ain rime list.

A Rhyming Dictionary

You may want to have children save their activity pages in a special folder, which theycan staple together to form a book. The book can serve as a mini-dictionary of rhymingwords and homophones that students can refer to in their free writing.

Rhymes in Books

Extend the children’s exploration of rhymes by reading aloud any of the many rhymebooks available. If the book contains many words in a single rhyme family, have the children find the words and sort them by spelling pattern. For example, the author of the book Sheep in a Jeep used many words in the –eep/ –eap family. These words canbe sorted in the following way:

_eep sheep, jeep, beep, steep, deep, weep, sweep_eap leap, heap, cheap

Examples of some of the many available books with rhymes are listed in the bibliographyon page 63.

Riddles and Rhymes

Children enjoy making riddles for rhyme pairs. Have them search in arhyme family for a pair of words such as jail sale that could be the answerto a riddle. You might want to specify that the rhyme pair should have twospelling patterns. Then the children make up a riddle to go with theirrhyme pair, for example, What is happening at the prison store? Riddlesare fun to share with the whole class.

f l mp r w

bl br grsh tr

Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts 9

__aid __ade

Name

Word Building Build words using the beginning letters in the box.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Time to Rhyme pp.07-36: Time to Rhyme pp.07-36 11/12/08 12:11 PM Page 9

b f hm n sch gr shstr sw trwh

Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts 29

__eet __eat

Name

Word Building Build words using the beginning letters in the box.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Time to Rhyme pp.07-36: Time to Rhyme pp.07-36 11/12/08 12:11 PM Page 29

b d mn t zbl ch clfl gr knsh tr

Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts 59

__ew

Name

Word Building Build words using the beginning letters in the box.

1.

2.

3.

4.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

__ue__oo

Time to Rhyme pp.37-62: Time to Rhyme pp.37-62 11/12/08 11:50 AM Page 59

Time to Rhyme © Primary Concepts page 64

LETTER TILES

b c d f g h jk l mt kn qu ch sh th

wh bl br cl crdr fl fr gr plsk sl sn sp ststr sw tr

vw

n p

yz

r s

Letter Tiles

Letter Tiles are a versatile, hands-on word building

manipulative, ideal for introducing phonics concepts and

giving children practice building every word imaginable.

Like other manipulatives, Letter Tiles help children visualize

concepts concretely and remember what they learn. In

addition to regular alphabet letter tiles, teachers can now

purchase multi-letter cluster tiles: important chunks of letters

(ch, ing, qu, etc.) that children need to recognize as a unit

when they read or spell.

Alphabet Letter Tiles, uppercase and lowercase letters on

1 1/4" x 1" plastic tiles.

Cluster Tiles, blends, digraphs, vowel pairs, rimes, and word

endings on 1 1/4" x 1 1/4" and 1 1/4" x 2" plastic tiles.

Onset and Rime Tiles, plastic tiles with common word

beginnings (onsets) and endings (rimes) that children can

use to build words.

Letter Tile Resource Books

Learning with Letter Tiles A Guide to Hands-On Phonics

Appealing activities and games that get children actively

involved in exploring letters and how they go together to

make words.

Rime Time Building Word Families with Letter Tiles

70 powerful word families are created with these

charmingly illustrated activity pages and a set of 42

letter tiles.

Time to Rhyme Building Words with Rimes That Rhyme

An exploration of words that have the same ending sounds

but are spelled in two or more different ways.

For these and other language arts resources for teachers,

consult the Primary Concepts catalog.

Primary ConceptsP.O. Box 10043

Berkeley, CA 94709

Cat. No. 7005

Primary Concepts®