Word Ladders - Word Chaining activities with 780+ Words (SOR/OG Aligned)

Get 78 word lists with 780+ words, organized by specific phonics skill. Use this NO-PREP printable word ladder activity all year long when you're planning your Science of Reading / OG-aligned lessons.

This targeted word ladder activity helps kids make connections between phonemes and graphemes while applying their knowledge of phonics skills to encoding. Each word ladder has sound boxes (Elkonin Boxes) to practice phoneme-grapheme mapping.

Because it covers TONS of phonics skills, this activity can support the needs of all learners in your classroom throughout the year and makes differentiation easy.

WHAT'S INCLUDED

• Word Ladders Reproducible Worksheets - Ladder worksheets for kids to complete the activity. Each word ladder includes 10 rungs (for 10 words) with sound boxes on each rung. 3 differentiated word ladders are included for 3, 4, and 5 phoneme words.
• 78 Word Lists that cover these skills: Short A, Short E, Short I, Short O, Short U, All Short Vowels, Digraph SH, Digraph CH, Digraph TH, Digraph WH, All Digraphs, Floss, Beginning R Blends, Beginning L Blends, Beginning S Blends, Beginning W Blends, All Initial Blends, Ending Blends, -ck/-tch/-dge, A-E (Silent E), I-E (Silent E), O-E (Silent E), U-E (Silent E), All Silent E, Long Vs. Short A , Long Vs. Short E, Long Vs. Short I, Long Vs. Short O, Long Vs. Short U, All Long VS. Short, Soft C, Soft G, Suffix ED, Vowel Team EE, Vowel Team EA, Vowel Teams AI/AY, Vowel Team OA, R Controlled - AR, R Controlled - OR, R Controlled - IR, R, Controlled - UR, R Controlled - ER, All R Controlled, Diphthongs oi/oy, Diphthongs ou/ow

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Why We Love It

• This NO PREP activity is the perfect activity to use with students who have been taught a specific phonics concept. It's a great way to make phonics instruction engaging and fun!
• This activity is used for encoding with small groups or with an entire class! Then, extend the activity and have students practice decoding the words quickly! Send the word ladders home for repeated review and practice.
• Students are engaged in a meaningful learning activity that reinforces the phonics skills they've been taught.

How to Use

This activity only includes word lists and sound boxes. Pictures or word clues (like "change the /m/ to /s/") are intentionally NOT included.

The structure of this activity allows students to independently make phoneme-grapheme connections by listening to the words and determining which sound must be changed. Then, they must change that sound to represent the new word.

Teachers dictate the word, and students write it in the first rung of the word ladder. The teacher continues reading each word in the list while students chain each word until they reach the top of the ladder.

Word chaining activities are best used with small groups or whole groups with a teacher (or instructional assistant, volunteer, or advanced reader) reading the list aloud.

IDEA: This is the activity I pull out when administrators walk into my classroom to observe. My students are very familiar with the procedure (since we use it for each skill).

I always have extra ladders printed and sitting near my small group table, and then I quickly pull out my word lists and BOOM... meaningful, targeted, phonics instruction that makes me look like a teacher of the year with no prep!

Printing Info:

The word ladders are 2 to a page so it saves paper. You can either cut the pages in half with a paper cutter OR have kids fold the word ladders down the center to complete one at a time.

More Info:

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