Want to help your beginning reader learn how to read a-e words? Try this simple activity!
So my Five is doing what his older brother and sister did. I was teaching him phonics at a slow-ish pace (he wasn’t in kindergarten yet), and he had finally grasped CVC words (cat, rip, etc.). He was doing pretty well with beginning blends, too.
Then all of a sudden he started reading. Fluently. Not perfectly, mind you, but enough that during last night’s Bible story he was able to read the word “desperately.”
Huh?
Here’s the thing. He figures out those hard words (and the easy ones too) with context clues. So, yeah, he can read quite a bit. But he often stumbles on very simple words, and he can’t read harder words in isolation.
His phonics skills are lagging behind. (Because he got ahead of me!) So even though I love to hear him read easy reader books and even our Bible story book, I know it’s important to back him up a bit when we do our learning sessions.
I’ve got some printable a-e games in the works, but I wanted to start with something simpler.
So I came up with these. I call them “fold and read” cards. When you cut out the strips, you can fold in from the right side to change a short a word to an a-e one.
But first, I had him read through all the short a words.
As I suspected, he stumbled on quite a few. “Shack” was “shake.” (Even though he’d get this right if he was reading it in a book.)
“Grad” was “gab,” then “gad,” and finally “grad.” It’s hard for him to slow down sometimes!
When we’d gotten through the stack of sixteen words, I showed him that the letter “e” can change these words like magic. “See here? We have the word can. It has the short a sound. /a/.”
“But look! We can fold in the end and add that magic ‘e.’ Now the sound of the letter a changes into its name. What word do we have now?”
Fat to fate.
“This is a special one. When a word ends with ck, we’re going to take away the c when we add the magic e.“
“What word do you have now?”
As you might recall, my Five is my reluctant learner. He doesn’t like being interrupted from his Legos or other projects to do learning activities with me. But he was eager to do this one.
When we finished I said, “We’ll have to try this again sometime,” and he actually said, “Yeah, that was fun.” (!!)
When I suggested he read them to Daddy a few hours later, he was happy to do it. And I’m pleased to report that he did much better on those short a words. He only stumbled a couple of times when adding silent e.
This one was a winner!
We’ll have more a-e activities coming soon. After that, keep an eye out for i-e, o-e, and u-e printables as well.
To prepare the activity:
- Print pages 2-9 front to back on regular paper.
- Cut apart on the solid black lines.
- Fold and read!
More fold-and-read printables:
Get your free fold and read activity!
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Karen Hickmott
I really appreciate the great ideas and resources. Thank you.
Anna Geiger
You’re very welcome, Karen!
Inga
Thank you a lot for your wonderful help!
Anna Geiger
You’re welcome, Inga!
Patricia
I just printed off the fold over vowels today and I had a question. Do you do just one vowel till they learn it or do you do them all at once. I home school my learning disabled granddaughter and I think this will be very helpful but I want to do it the right way. Any suggestions?
Anna Geiger
Hi, Patricia! Sorry for the delay in answering your question. There’s no right answer to your question – it just depends on the student. I would start with one vowel and work on until she masters it – but if it’s easy for her, feel free to do others as well. After she has mastered each individual vowel you’ll definitely want to do mixed practice with them.
Linda Strong
Thank you for your willingness to share your wonderful resources. The silent e fold and read pages were wonderful for my kindergarten students.
Anna Geiger
I’m really glad to hear that your students could use the fold and read pages, Linda!
Marlynn
I just wanted to say thank you for all of the free resources that you make. I use so many of them in my classroom. My district has very few resources for teaching phonics and early reading skills. These are so helpful and save me money. I have told many of my teacher friends about your great resources. I also, appreciate your helpful hints on how you teach these skills. Even though I’ve been teaching 33 years, I’m always looking for something new.
Thank you!
Marlynn
Anna G
Thank you for your comment, Marlynn! I am SO happy to hear that my resources are useful for you – and extra happy to hear that they save you some money. I hope you keep finding useful resources here!
Tracee
I am like a kid in a candy store when I am on your site! You truly do such an incredible job and offer the best resources. Thank you so kindly.
Anna G
You’re very welcome, Tracee! Thank you so much for the kind words!
Charlotte T Grace
Thank you for all the resources. Such great ideas and presented in fun ways!!
Anna G
You’re very welcome, Charlotte!
Jess
Thank you so much for the free resources! I work in a bilingual school in Colombia and this is my first year. I’ve been making a lot of my own materials which takes tons of time, but these are exactly what I need for the next few weeks. You saved me and I really appreciate the work that you put into these resources!
Anna G
Thank you so much for introducing yourself, Jess! Thank you for the kind words!
Nilu
Thanks for the printables. Will be very useful
Anna G
You’re welcome, Nilu!
Grace
Thanks it’s well explained and am sure it will yield a positive result.
Agnes
My 1st grader is struggling with a_e, -ay, and-ai spelling. Any suggestions?
Anna G
I like to use word sorts. Check out this post: https://www.themeasuredmom.com/spelling-long-a-words-complete-5-day-lesson-plan-printables/
catherine
I could download any of the ‘books’, constantly took me to another page.
Kate Dowling
Hi Catherine!
This is Kate, Anna’s assistant. The green download box on this page opens directly to the file. You should be able to simply click the box and download the file. If that doesn’t work, please be sure your ad blocker is turned off, and then refresh your page. For some other files, the document comes to your inbox. Please be sure you check your email right after you enter your email address to receive a file. If you still have trouble, send us a link to the page you’re having trouble with so we can check the link. Thanks!
Jeri Ramsey
Thank you for being so generous with your free materials. I’m helping some neighborhood first graders with phonic skills. I love your silent e folding cards. I would like to make a few cards with the e_e pattern (here, Pete, theme). Do you have a blank template where I can make these?
Kate Dowling
Hi Jeri!
This is Kate, Anna’s assistant. For copyright reasons, Anna does not share her templates. Enjoy working with your first graders!