As teachers, we are always on the lookout for effective tools and resources that will help support children with their literacy learning. Having great literacy resources will not only motivate pupils, but also enables them to become actively engaged in their learning through practising, using and applying their skills in lots of different practical ways.
Here is a selection of favourite literacy resources that will help to enrich literacy learning in every classroom.
1. Mini Phonics Mats
These bright and colourful silicone phonics mats are the perfect resource to be used in all aspects of provision. Children could sound hunt or word build on the floor, outside, in water or in sand. The small hole at the top of each mat also makes them perfect for hanging.
Activity Idea – Phonic Fishing
- Put a selection of phonic mats in your water tray. Why not add some sea creatures too?
- Using a net, children then go fishing for a mat.
- When they have caught one, the child must say the sound out loud.
- You could increase the challenge by asking children to fish for multiple mats and then build a word with the ones they catch. Is it a real word or not?
For more activity ideas, download our FREE activity guide.
2. Outdoor Sound Stars
These outdoor sound stars are a great way to get children active with their phonics learning. They could be used for many aspects such as reinforcing sound pronunciation and recognition, learning alternative graphemes, word building, and many more. Being able to use this resource in other areas of the curriculum such as PE or Geography helps to create a practical way to use and apply phonics learning in different ways. As well as being used for activities, they are also ideal for hanging or attaching to walls or fences to create an engaging outdoor phonics display.
Activity Idea – Solar System Stars
- Lay out the Sound Stars to create different galactical pathways. These will be the stars that help children to navigate their way through the solar system.
- The aim is to move from one star to another calling out the sounds as they pass them. Be careful not to say the wrong sound, or they might have to go back to the start and find a new route!
For more activity ideas, download our FREE activity guide.
3. Super Sentence Tubs
Get to grips with grammar and sentence structure using the foam pieces from the different Super Sentence Tub Sets. Children can have fun exploring sentence construction by creating simple and complex sentences. They can experiment with word order whilst building their writing skills and vocabulary. The foam pieces are all colour coded according to word type, helping children to learn about different word classes too.
Activity Idea – Sort the Sentence
This activity will help children to practise their reading and grammar skills.
- Before the lesson, create a range of sentences using the foam pieces and then rearrange the words in each sentence, e.g. red – was – big – hammer – . – The
- Explain to the children that something has happened and your sentences have become jumbled, maybe a class puppet has been up to mischief! You need their help to sort it.
- Children have to read the words in the sentence and then rearrange the pieces so that the sentence make sense.
For more activity ideas, download our FREE activity guide.
4. 44 Sound and Spelling Tubs
Each one of the 44 sound and spelling tubs contains different objects that represent that sound and show the different graphemes for each phoneme. They can be used for activities from simple sound recognition and oral blending and segmenting, through to more complex activities with alternative graphemes and applying phonics skills to writing.
Activity Idea – Odd One Out
Perfect for practice and reinforcement of sounds already learnt.
- Place all of the sound items from one tub onto a tray, include an item from another tub that doesn’t fit. Ask children to identify the odd one out and explain why.
For more activity ideas, download our FREE activity guide.
5. Reading Comprehension Bookmarks
Make every time a child reads an opportunity to develop comprehension.
Whether children are reading at school or at home, these Reading Comprehension Question Bookmarks ensure that any adult can ask meaningful questions to develop this essential reading skill.
These bookmarks can be easily kept inside children’s books and offer ready to use prompts to help when talking about reading.
6. Clever Tiles
The recordable Clever Tiles can be used to record, sequence and playback your own sounds, words or sentences. Record up to 10 seconds on each tile and then click them together and press play on the first tile to hear all recordings played back in sequence. They can also be played individually.
There are so many activity possibilities with these tiles across the whole curriculum. They could be used to record individual sounds for word building and oral blending and segmenting. Alternatively, record words for sentence building and learning about sentence structure (changing the order of the tiles and playing back to hear the change). Or why not use them for parts of a story to look at sequencing and chronological order.
Ideal for phonics …
- Record a phoneme on each tile and write the grapheme on the top with a dry wipe pen. Children choose a selection of tiles and click them together to build a word. Before pressing play, children must try to sound out the word themselves and then hit play to check.
Ideal for exploring sentence structure …
- Choose a sentence you want to explore. Record each word on a separate tile and write the word on top. Children can then move the tiles to experiment with different word order and then hit play to listen to the effect it has on the sentence.
7. Creative Writing Tubs
The creative writing tubs are a collection of 20 tubs each containing different objects and characters linked to a theme. From pirates and space, to under the sea and jobs, the wide range of topics covered means the tubs can be used for activities linked to both fiction and non-fiction writing. They can support so many different skills and aspects including idea generation, oral storytelling, vocabulary and language development, sentence construction and story planning.
Activity Idea – Story Circle
A perfect small group activity to stimulate creative talk before writing.
- Sit in a circle with one of the writing tubs.
- Start your story with one person choosing an object from the tub and saying aloud a sentence, e.g. ‘A shiny spaceship zoomed through the sky into space’.
- Pass the box to the next person to continue the story by choosing another object and creating a sentence, e.g. ‘A huge alien saw the spaceship whizzing past’.
- Continue round the group developing your story as you go.
8. Free Flow Phonics Kits
Each of the 4 different Free Flow Phonics Kits contains essential literacy resources for different aspects of phonics teaching and learning. These resources all increase the opportunities for children to use and apply their phonic skills in lots of different ways and contexts, helping to embed their learning.
- Kit 1 contains the essentials of magnetic letters and phoneme frames
- Kit 2 contains a collection of colourful mats and phonics pieces to create engaging phonics activities to use and apply skills of sound recognition and word building.
- Kit 3 contains essentials for taking phonics outdoors
- Kit 4 contains a variety of flashcards to support phonics learning.
9. Chatterboard Pro
The Chatterboard Pro has so many uses within the Literacy classroom. It could be used to support phonics learning, sequencing, storyboarding, reading, speaking and listening and so much more.
It has 44 blank dry-wipe tiles each with a 10 second record time. You can create your own board by changing the symbols on each tile or creating your own grids. You then record the speech for each tile (as many times as you like) so the image/icon matches the recorded word/sound. Children can then press each tile, as needed, and listen back.
This new version of the popular resource also has two headphone sockets which will help to reduce noise levels and encourage children to concentrate and hear the recorded words more clearly.
Activity Ideas
- Reading: Record key words and phrases from a book for children to revisit and support with responding to comprehension questions.
- Phonics – Use the tiles to record sounds and blend words for reading. You could record common exception words on the grid too!
- Writing: Aid writing by recording key words or story language onto the board to support with expanded sentences or idea generation.
For more ideas download our FREE ideas guide or read more ideas from the STAEDTLER Teachers’ Club.
