I am so excited to introduce my latest creation! Phonics strips!! I created these out of necessity from the beginning reading trends I have seen with my incoming first graders. I have students entering first grade at many reading levels each year. A few are slightly below where they should be, a good number are right where they should be when entering first grade, and a fair number are far beyond a typical first grade beginning reading level. This is basically the norm for the student population at my school, which is known in our area for an abundance of parent participation. So… with the array of learners to teach, I needed a way to stick with an appropriate first grade phonics pace, by providing my strugglers with continued support and intervention, while challenging the students reading beyond a first grade level. I created phonics strips that students can use in a number of ways. They can be used for independent practice, at home review, as a guided reading tool, a buddy reading option, fluency check, and also as an assessment. There are 87 strips with a vast array of first grade phonics skills. All strips are labeled with the skill and I have a challenge strip for each skill (multisyllabic words, inflected endings etc.). I print the strips out on card stock, cut, laminate, and hole punch the top left corners. I then put them on binder rings for easy flipping and organization. As I teach a phonics skill, I have the students add the strip to their binder ring. During the week we read the words working on our decoding skills. When I see the students are ready (for some this may not be until the end of the year), we add a challenge strip. You can have one ring for each student, or an at home ring and an at school ring for each student. Short a Challenge Strip Example Short a Blends and Digraphs Short a Example Strip I have also included assessment strips as an easy and quick tool to check for understanding. I love using these laminated. They can be written on with white board marker and vowel teams and blends can be circled. These strips can also be used for fluency practice. Although the words are found in isolation, a cold and hot read can be timed to see how automatically the students are reading words with specific phonics skills. Grab the Phonics Strips here! Update!!! I have created a new resource that pairs nicely with these phonics strips. Check out a new post about my Sentence Fluency Phonics Strips here! Happy Teaching!!