Growing Littles: Print.Cut.Trace. Flashcards

How do you get your students to learn high-frequency words?

I imagine you use repetition in reading and writing. I do the same!

In addition to the repetition of reading the words, my students use flashcards that they make to help learn and remember those sometimes tricky words that just don't follow the rules of phonics.

Have you ever tried to explain to a five year old why a certain phonics rule does not actually apply to a word? Bless their heart! SO difficult to understand. I usually just explain that the people who created our language made some words trickier to make our brains smarter and to make a us think harder...

If you have a better explanation, which I am sure you do, seriously let me know!

To include repetition in our high-frequency word learning process, we make these flashcards:

My littles LOVE making these flashcards because they are so simple to complete.

Easy task = boosted ego

So, here is what we do...

Step 1: I print off enough of our cover pages on white cardstock for our entire class.

Step 2: I cut apart each flashcard on the smaller dotted line.

Step 3: This is where the students get to work! They use their scissors and get to work exercising their fine motor skills while cutting out the dotted rectangular flashcard.

Step 4: Student writes his/her name on the flashcard and personalizes it using crayons.

Step 5: I hole punch the flashcard and now the cover is complete!

Step 6: When I introduce the high-frequency word for the week, I complete step 1-2 above and print off the words we are learning that week.

Step 7: Students cut out their flashcard on the dotted line, and then they trace the word.

Step 8: Attach the flash cards to the word ring.

Step 9: Practice, practice, practice! I send these home with my Baggy Books each week.

What I love about these super simple flashcards is that the kids are working their fine-motor skills by cutting out the flashcards and they are tracing the word to practice making the correct formation of each letter within the high-frequency word.

If you are interested in getting your own set,
I have a two kindergarten versions, and one first grade and second grade version (in the making).

We use Reading Street for our reading curriculum, and that is the version I use in my classroom.
You can get that here!