What is it?

Making Words is an activity that promotes good phonics and spelling skills. Readers make words using a particular set of letters (consonants and vowels). At the end of these activities, you will be asked to figure out the "mystery word" which uses all of the letters for the lesson. 

What is its purpose?

Making Words is an activity that encourages you to "listen" for the sounds in a word, and to make the connection between a sound and a letter. You will see the connection between sounds, letters, and spelling patterns. Finally, you will be asked to use all the letters to create the "mystery word".

How will these skill activities help?

For McFeeglebee's Pond, we have two Making Words Activities. Each activity uses a different "mystery word" that is related to the story. A second part of the Making Word Activity is a word sort. This is where you will take the words you made during the first part of the activity and put them in a chart according to a pattern (i.e. all words from their word list that end in "s" go together). You and your partner can then discuss the various patterns you see in the word sort chart.

Here is a link to learn more about Making Words:

This is Pat Cunningham's site. She is one of the creators of the Making Words activity. 

• http://www.wfu.edu/~cunningh/fourblocks/block4.html