Hi Friends!
Check out the resources that I use with my students – now developed and created so that you can try them too – through CeeMK and Word Play Letter Love.
Shop Print & Go Materials
Materials are now available for download here! I will keep adding to this library as it develops and grows all the time in tandem with my work with students.
Why & How These Materials Came to Be…
During my 25+ years working with students who struggle to read and write, and who often use a lot of effort to try to motivate and pay attention – I have had to find ways to innovate on key concepts from direct instruction so that they land and stick with the learner.
It is essential for my learners to have tools that are playful, use narrative and visual memory in addition to auditory, plus interactive tasks for rehearsal and practice.
Reading word lists and staring at letter cards just wasn’t enough for them… so I designed my own characters, frameworks, and stories. Then I noticed immediately it was easier to engage them and that recall was stronger with less time on the tasks.
We all became attached to the Vowel Pals™ and Letter Families™ – so I wanted to share them with others to try too!
Who are these materials for…?
Parents, teachers, instructors, educational therapists, practitioners, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, homeschoolers:
Materials are now available for download – here on my site at a discount and at my store at Teachers Pay Teachers.
Videos to Match
Word Play & Letter Love YouTube channel
Want to hear how I say it and sing it? Want to learn some of the rules alongside your learners that you may not have been taught in the same same way? Check out the video collection with tools and strategies I use in instruction. On YouTube @wordplayletterloveliteracy.
The thinking behind them…
Multisensory learning is an essential component.
“MiM: Make it Multisensory!”™
As a way to guide practice – “MiM” reminds us to always look for ways to activate multiple sensory systems at the same time during learning. This is a proven effective method for increasing automaticity. When a strategy, practice, or information is retrieved automatically, it reduces the load on the cognitive systems to make room for more learning that builds on it, and greater fluency or speed. It’s important that practice is accurate – and often one system will correct another. See, say, and do at the same time for MiM!
Frameworks
Learning in frameworks means that learners have a template that provides a routine for learning. Taught in the form of visuals, mnemonics, and graphic organizers, often accompanied by verbalizations and movements, these frameworks provide a system to lean into and utilize lifelong. Organized and familiar learning is essential for both storage and retrieval in the brain’s memory systems.
The Handy Hand
Anyone who has worked with me will recognize the Handy Hand! It is one of the first things I introduce to all my learners and use through years of instruction. It’s a multisensory graphic organizer strategy to support speaking, reading, and writing while building executive function skills. And bonus – it can help for spelling recall of those tricky WH words too.
FREEBIE: Handy Hand Graphic Organizer
FULL PACKET: Handy Hand Organizer with tips, activities, and a set of visual pages for usage.
SPELL WELL Materials – Songs + Practice
These spelling rules are common and dependable – worth learning by heart to develop automaticity when writing. The songs and instruction videos are available at @wordplayletterloveliteracy!
FLoSZ Spelling Rule Song & Materials
F, L, S, Z double to protect the short vowel pattern. The learning packet is available on the shop page or can be accessed directly here for your review.
FREEBIE: FloSZ Poster Freebie
FULL PACKET: Practice using visual fill-ins, games, and other activities to fully learn this useful rule.
Short Vowel Pattern Protectors
These patterns protect the short vowel sound: -CK -TCH -DGE. Know when to choose them with the learning packet.
FREEBIE: To preview the song or use with the video, here is a freebie of the lyrics page on its own.
FULL PACKET: This provides worksheets, activities, games, and practice to practice and reinforce this spelling pattern.
C & G Spelling Rule Song & Materials
Most consonants make one sound, but C and G make 2 sounds. How to know? Learn this song and you will know! Use this C & G Spelling Rule Anchor Charts and watch the YouTube video to learn and remember. Combine the song and video practice @wordplayletterloveliteracy with written practice as well as games.
FREEBIE: C&G Spelling Rule Anchor Charts for the Song and Sounds
FULL PACKET: Master the C & G spelling choice with this complete packet.
111 Double Rule
Use this song and the materials to learn, practice, and remember this common multi-step spelling rule for adding a vowel suffix to a root word.
FREEBIE: 111 Double Spelling Rule Song
FULL PACKET: These print & go PDFs will give a range of activities for practicing the rule so that is becomes automatic.
Word Family -ALL
The word family for -ALL is a common spelling, but doesn’t follow the rule to make a short sound. Use these materials to study when to choose it with fun learning practice. This packet extends beyond phonics to include reading comprehension and the creation of mini-books.
FREEBIE: Word Family -ALL Mini Book Freebie
FULL PACKET: Word Family -ALL practice packet with word sorts, fill ins, mini books, comprehension exercises and more.
Teachers Pay Teachers
Materials are also available on the Teachers Pay Teachers marketplace if you enjoy shopping there.
Click here to visit the Word Play Letter Love Teachers Pay Teachers store!
The Letter Families™
Learning manuscript handwriting is much easier when students learn them in families.
It reduces the challenge to group the letters by their initial movement and builds automaticity (doing without thinking) to do them the same each time. When letters are in families, they take on personality and characteristics that make them more memorable. Creating this system and the stories around the letter movements made a huge difference for my learners! And it’s fun! Whether they are just starting on lowercase letters, have dysgraphia, or have been struggling to write fluently and legibly for some time – the Letter Families™ will ease the learning. It also helps students tackle the letter shapes independently, while gradually layering in learning the sounds. Love the letters with the Letter Families™!
Vowel Pattern Lane™ with the Vowel Pattern Pals™
Much like the Letter Families™ eased writing the squiggly assortment of symbols we call letters in English, the Vowel Pals™ have eased learning how to read the symbols to understand how they map sounds.
The key to decoding is the vowel patterns – “Vowel Unlocked, Reading Unblocked”!
Meet the Vowel Pals™ and see where they live on Vowel Pattern Lane™ to build fun into phonics.
Each detail on the map has meaning and a message related to the learning. The design is informed by the Science of Reading and Structured Literacy practices. The tools can be used in multiple ways over time and adapted to your instruction goals and style.
Enjoy visiting the Vowel Pals™ on Vowel Pattern Lane™, using their Anchor Sentence to retain keywords for sounds, and reading their mini books, which are designed for differentiation.
Want to support this Literacy work?
Cee MK is just me, a self-employed educational therapist with a solo practice, trying to also learn how to be a materials creator to be able to share tools from my longtime experience. Want to help a developing creator out? Feel free to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, FOLLOW, SHARE, purchase materials, support at Patreon, or Buy me a Coffee!
This work has taken untold hours of development, years of training, and lots of love – so thank you for your care and support! I believe these strategies can help English learners everywhere. And I hope to have the time and support to share more of what I have found works and helps our struggling readers and writers.
Thank you to all who have trusted me to help their learners and worked with me through the years!
Love, Cee MK
This is Nymph. Her name is the key word for the short sound of “y” in the Closed Vowel Pattern.