2 Scholars

We are getting ready for our district’s new book adoption, so they are clearing out the district’s book room and have given us tons of decodable books. Decodable books offer children an opportunity to practice the phonics knowledge and skills they have learned within a controlled text. Children need to practice what they have been taught, in order to internalize the new learning and to develop reading fluency. 
I have 3 uses for these books.
Classroom Library
Every classroom needs to have an abundance of books to provide a print-rich environment for their students. Students must have access to a variety of books to grow as a reader and as a writer. Here are some ways to organize the books in your classroom.

Keep Reading Accountable A good way to keep students and parents accountable is to have students keep a reading log of books they read. There are several examples of reading logs. Free printable reading logs to add to take home book bags or browsing boxes.

The infamous Rabbit Rule! At this point in teaching all the phonics reading and spelling rules, you will see kids enjoying learning because reading and spelling is now making sense. There are rules that govern our English reading and spelling and kids are now getting better at discovering, making connections, and applying these rules.

The Rabbit Spelling Rule tells us that in a 2 syllable base word, if you hear 1 medial consonant sound immediately after a short vowel sound, then double the medial consonant, as in rabbit.

Here is a video of me modeling the Rabbit Spelling Rule.

After teaching the students the Rabbit Rule, you can use this game to practice the Rabbit Rule.
The Rabbit Rule for Spelling Game
I have also drawn the rabbit onto bulletin board paper and laminated it, so that I could place it on the floor. Once on the floor, the students would hop like a rabbit onto the pieces. For example, if the word they were trying to spell was a two-syllable word they would hop with 2 feet, o…

We know how important being able to spell correctly is for a student to express himself through writing and get his ideas across to the reader. Teaching students spelling rules is critical to writing fluency. My goal is to make teaching spelling rules easy and understandable to students so that they can apply it to their own writing.

The FLoSS Spelling Rule basically states that in any one syllable base word that has a short vowel sound before final (f) is spelled ff as in sniff, final (l) is spelled ll as in hill, or final (s) is spelled ss as in pass.

Even though, there are a few exceptions to this rule, it is extremely important to teach it because it is about 85% correct. It is easier to apply this rule and memorize the 15% that is the exception rather than memorize the spelling for each word.

To help you teach the FLoSS Spelling Rule, I have made a video. You can access it here:


After teaching the FLoSS Spelling Rule, I have made a FLoSS Spelling Rule Game that you can play with …

The alphabet is so important. We use the letters to read about the world around us and to write about our ideas. Knowing the names of the letters of the alphabet is the first step to becoming a literate individual.

There are so many ways to engage students in learning about the alphabet.


It is important to review the alphabet daily and make learning the alphabet fun! One way to do this is to use alphabet mat activities.


Click here to download 22 page Alphabet Mat Activity Book for $4.95.

In the last post we learned how use the Napkin Rule to teach syllable division of vccv words to make the first vowel short. The Napkin Rule works great for most words, but we also have many words that follow the Secret Rule. The Secret Rule is a syllable division rule that is used to make vccv words have a first vowel that is long.

Click here to get free phonics mini-lesson The Secret Rule: Syllable Division of vccv Words to Make First Vowel Long

Students who have difficulty reading longer words need a decoding strategy to help them break words into smaller parts. Usually we break words into syllables to read. Today we will learn a strategy to help students read 2 syllable words.


This strategy is called theNapkin Rule. The Napkin Rule states that in a vowel, consonant, consonant, vowel pattern we most often divide between the consonants and accent the first syllable. The Napkin Rule makes the first vowel short.
Click here to download free phonics mini-lesson about the Napkin Syllable Division Rule.


vc  cv       năp’ kĭn


vc cv năp’ kĭn