Digraph 'ar' - Unit 3

Having worked through the SoundWorks programme, you will be quite at home with the idea of phonological awareness. It means the ability to identify the individual sounds in words. Children should now be finding this quite easy. They can spell words simply by representing the sounds that they ‘hear’ with the relevant letters. And for reading, the reverse is so.

But successful as this process is, it is still slow and deliberate. You'll notice that children are consciously thinking about the letters as they write. They need to work things out. Before they can make any real progress, these skills have to become fluent and easy to use. We shall call this process: developing phonological fluency.

There is a simple rule at work here: the more automatic these basic skills become, the easier children will find it to manage new and more difficult words. The reason is simply that there is less they have to think about all at the same time. It’s like learning to drive: it's much harder to cope with the traffic if you still have to think about how to change gear. Once gear changing has become automatic, dealing with traffic is that much easier. It's the same with spelling and reading.

Phonological fluency, then, is the key to future progress.
In Unit 3, children are given the opportunity to spend more time on the ar pattern they have just learnt, and are encouraged to practise their letter-sound skills in several different situations. There's an important shift in teaching priorities here: it is no longer a question of: 'does my child know this', but rather: 'is he getting better at using it without having to stop and think?' This process can take a considerable time and so there is no specific goal for your child to achieve here. You are simply providing generous amounts of practice to help him along the way.

Three separate activities are suggested here, each contributing to fluency in a different way. You can spend as long as you like on each, and continue to do them in odd moments later on while you are working on quite different things. The Check List contains a row of boxes for each activity so that you can keep track of the amount of practice you are providing. Also, while you work on Unit 3, you can still do the language exercises (making up stories and sentences) described in Unit 2 if you wish. You can also mix in the suffix activities explained in Unit 4. So there's a wide choice of ways to go. With the emphasis now on practice, rather than teaching new material, you have the freedom to choose what you would like to do.

The three activities described below are all based on the new ‘ar’ sound. So before you start each one, you'll need to do some quick revision with “A R together go ‘ar’ !!” just to bring the sound to the forefront of children’s minds.

A quick revision drill
An easy way to do this is to make a pattern of ar’s on a sheet of paper. Have the orange pens and pencils ready in your hand and ask your child to build up a pattern by writing three ar’s with each one. Little blocks of three ar’s, one under the other, work well, but any pattern you find enjoyable will be fine. Working through the collection of pens and pencils, doing three ar’s with each, gives the task a structure and a definite end. Throughout the activity, have the ar letter block on the table, and use the refrain: “ A R together go ‘ar’!”. Later on, if you feel your child has a good grasp of the two letters, you can simplify the refrain to “ar”, saying this together each time he writes the ar, in true multisensory fashion.

In this activity, children are encouraged to practise their letter-sound skills by spelling a range of unfamiliar words that are a lot more difficult than the words in Unit 2. The copymasters provide a wide choice of words, enough to cater for children at different levels of ability. You will need to select from these. Before the lesson, prepare a smaller pack made up of words that are suitable for your particular child – a few easy ones to start off with, then progressing to words that will stretch him and develop his spelling skills. Keep to words that are within his spoken vocabulary.

You'll notice that the words are in bold and normal font. The words in boldface are suitable for the spelling activity.

Work through the words one at a time, starting with the easiest and continuing until you feel you have stretched your child as much as you dare. The most effective way to do this is to create another scatter-page in the way described below. It is helpful to have the ar letter-block on the table as you work.

Start off with the “ A R together go ‘ar’!” drill, described above. You might like to do the ar pattern on the A4 sheet you will be using in the lesson.

Next, the child writes several orange ar’s dotted around on the A4 sheet of paper.

Starting with a fairly easy word, put the card face down on the table and say (for example), “This is the word ‘smart’. See if you can spell it ... smart.” Draw dashes each side of the ar in the usual way, at the same time saying the word in a sentence or two to bring out the meaning.
Your child now writes in the letters he can identify. Help as much as you need to here, saying the word clearly and distinctly until he can ‘hear’ the separate sounds.
Finally, turn the card over so that he can see whether he is right. Encourage him to check his own work rather than rely on you.

Carry on through the pack, tackling more and more difficult words, pressing at the boundaries of what he is able to do. There should be a feeling of breaking new ground here, of extending and developing a skill. Do as many words as you feel you can, taking care to stop before there is any risk of failure. It won’t matter a scrap if these words are forgotten the moment you finish the lesson. It is the process here that matters, the opportunity to practise phonological skills in new and more difficult situations.

The notes on ‘Difficult Words’ on page 182 in the Handbook are useful here. Take care to divide words into syllables and to exaggerate any vowel sounds that are unclear. For example, you would treat the word carpet as two separate syllables, altering the pronunciation of pet so that it sounds like the word ‘pet’ - car pet. All this is explained on page 182.

We now turn to a quite different aspect of fluency, an awareness of onset-and-rime. This is explained on page 232 in the Handbook. So far, children have used a letter-by-letter approach to spelling, the word yard was treated as y-ar-d, for example. But equally useful is the letter-string ard which can be heard in: y-ard c-ard h-ard. Both these approaches are used in the analysis of words and children should be familiar with both.

To understand onset-and-rime, children need to be sensitive to the rhymes they hear in words. The Ring-of-Rhymes activity described below is designed to encourage an awareness of rhyme, in a similar way to the Rhyming Jigsaws you used in Unit 3 of SoundWorks. Children need to spot the link between the rhymes that they hear and the similarity in the letter-strings that they see. By highlighting the rhyming pairs as they say the words, children will make this connection themselves in their own good time, without anything needing to be explained at all.

Cut out the Ring-of-Rhymes and stick it on a left-hand page in your child’s exercise book. On the right-hand page, stick the rows of dotted lines. Have the ar letter-block on the table as you work, and start the lesson with the “ A R together go ‘ar’!” revision exercise in the same way as before.

Share out the highlighters so that you each have a set of the same colours.

Then work around the ring, highlighting each rhyming pair in turn:

You say:
Child says:

“card” (highlighting the word card in yellow as you do so).
“yard” ( highlighting the word yard in yellow to match).

Treat each pair in the same way, colouring each one with a different highlighter. You should take the lead in this, with your child finding the rhyming word. Try not to stop and chat as you work. It’s much better if the activity runs smoothly without a break - then the rhymes have more impact.

Next, run through the exercise again, just pointing to the words instead of colouring them as you go. Your child could start this time; and dot around varying the order if you like. Do this for as long as you feel you dare. It is the saying, listening and looking that is valuable here. To maintain interest, you might try saying the words faster and faster.

You could also try writing the words in sentences if this is something you would like to do. Perhaps making up sentences with a rhyming pair in each, or even a simple poem. None of this is essential but if it’s something you would enjoy doing, it will add to the children’s appreciation of the rhymes.

In the third activity, children practise their letter-sound skills in reading. It is best not to do this too soon after the work on spelling in case children remember some of the words. To ensure that there's a reasonable gap, you could look at one or two of the suffixes in Unit 4 after completing the Ring-of-Rhymes exercise above.

In this activity, you work with a pack of cards for reading. Prepare the pack in the same way as before, including some easy words to begin with, then progressing to a range of words that will stretch your child’s ability. This time, you should also include some of the words in the Suffix Pack, as many as you feel you can. The words with ed and ing should be included, as well as any of the other suffixes you have taught. When you prepare the pack, keep to words that your child already knows, but also extend his vocabulary just a bit by including one or two words that you feel you could teach him. Remember, we’re aiming to develop children's language here in addition to teaching the digraph ar.

Note
Any of the words can be used for reading, both boldface and normal type.

Have the ar letter-block on the table, just as before. Do the quick “ A R together go ‘ar’!” revision exercise to bring the ‘ar’ sound back into focus. Now tackle the new and more difficult words for reading, introducing them one at a time, starting with the easiest. You are wanting children to practise their letter-sound decoding skills here, so guessing is not allowed! Encourage them to look at the letters and work out the words from the sounds. The large format allows you to cover up parts of the word with a card, forcing children to decode it bit by bit.

The suffix cards are designed to help children view words in terms of root word + suffix. The use of bold and normal type will make this clear, and so there's no need to explain anything. This is excellent training for reading - so include as many of the words as you can.

While your child is working, it's helpful to quietly say the words in sentences every now and again to bring out the meaning. This just forms a background to the activity, something your child may or may not be listening to. You won’t know - but they’re there just in case. Don’t ask your child to make up the sentences, however, as this will distract him from the main task.

Encourage children to tackle as many difficult and unfamiliar words as you can, taking care to stop before there is any risk of failure. Again, it won’t matter if the words are forgotten right after the lesson. It is the process that matters here, the opportunity to practise letter-sound decoding skills in new and more difficult words.

You will probably have been working on Unit 4 at the same time as Unit 3.
If so, move straight to the end of Unit 4.