Print out this lovely spelling robot and carefully cut out his "mouth" ready for posting cards through it. You could laminate the page for durability.
Encourage a small group of children to sit in a circle or facing the front so they can see you and the spelling robot. Have the picture cards ready. Sound out and blend the phonemes in the pictures. Ask each child in turn to take out a picture or an object from a bag. Hold it up and tell the group that the spelling robot is a computer and so he talks with a robot voice. Ask the children to name the object as the robot would and demonstrate it for them in a robotic voice (e.g. ‘b-a-g’). Feed the object or picture into the robot’s mouth and encourage the group first to listen to you and then join in as you say the word. Children need to hear the sounds in the word spoken in sound-talk immediately followed by the whole word. Avoid being tempted to ask any questions in between such as I wonder what that word can be? or Do you know what that word is? The purpose is to model oral blending and immediately give the whole word.
Scroll down for the spelling robot printable. You can find some picture tiles to fit the spelling robot here.
Using our spelling robot.
Blending sounds with our spelling robot
