As we move along, learning a new sound each day, I thought today would be the perfect day for students to begin playing with the concept of blending two sounds together. I put together a magnetic white board and six of the letters we have learned, including a vowel, for each student. We first talked about how every word has to have a vowel, because vowels give words a voice. Vowels also make more than one sound. There are five standard vowels in our alphabet, a, e, i, o, and u.

Next, I made the sound that each letter makes and had the students move that magnetic letter up to the middle of their individual white board. Then I asked students to make the word /a/ /m/. We practiced touching each letter as we made the sounds and then we dragged our finger under the letters as we blended the sounds together to say the word am. Ding!  This is reading! We continued to play with the sounds and make new words. It is excited to see the beginning stages of reading come to life in Kindergarten!