The simplest activities begin with building two-letter words. The students should know the short vowel sounds and the consonant sounds "d, f, m, n, p, s and t." Have the children take turns coming up to the front of the class and writing the letter you tell them on the board. Start with "a" and help the children say the short "a" sound. Another student will write a "d" to the right of the "a." Help the class say the sound of "d" and the word "ad." Continue combining the vowels with different consonants. Increase the challenge by building three-letter words beginning with a vowel followed by two consonants.
When the students know most of the consonants, teach them to build words using two-letter words and adding a single consonant for the onset. Have the children come up to the board in pairs and take turns. One child will write the two-letter word you say for example "at." The second child will write the onset you say, for example "c." Help the class pronounce the new word "cat." Continue using different two-letter words with various onsets. Increase the difficulty by adding onsets with more than one consonant and base words longer than two letters. The Dr. Suess book "Green Eggs and Ham" is fun to read with this activity.
Word family activities help children see patterns in words that help in word recognition and rhyming. Write a two-letter base word on the board. Students should take turns using the two-letter word to make new words by adding different onsets, such as "bat," "cat," "fat," "hat," "rat" and so on. Help the students say all the words in each family and point out that they rhyme. Start simple and build in complexity as the students' understanding builds by using larger base words and onsets of two letters.
Students should take turns changing the short vowel of words to make new words. Tell the first student to write a word on the board, such as "bat." The next student will change the vowel to make the word "bet," and write it under "bat." A third student should change the vowel to make "bit," and the fourth should make "but." Increase the complexity of the activity by using longer words, long vowels and onsets of two or three letters, such as "br" or "str."