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We want students to retain what we are teaching them. A great way to do this is by using videos! And what’s better than that, is a video with music! Typically, I play a video at the beginning or the end of the lesson. I will play it either as an introduction to what we are going to learn or as a wrap-up to the lesson. I want these videos to be short and memorable. Here are 10 of the best ones I have found to use when teaching phonics rules!
Music Videos
1. Phonics Rule: Bossy R- Veronica Jackson “Bossy R” Music Video from The Electric Company
2. Phonics Rule: Bossy R- “R Controlled Vowel Syllables” (Check out ALL of Mrs. Siravo’s Syllable/Decoding Songs!)
3. Phonics Rule: C or K- “The Cat/Kite Rule” another from Mrs. Siravo
4. Phonics Rule: Oi/Oy – “Spelling Rule Rap ‘oi’ & ‘oy'” from Mr. Spelling
5. Phonics Rule: Ou/Ow- “Phonics Chant ou.ow” from Spotlight on One Phonics
6. Phonics Rule: Aw- “Awesome ‘aw'” Music Man from The Electric Company
7. Phonics Rule: Silent Letters- “Mr. Steve, The Music Man: Those Sneaky, Silent Letters”
8. Phonics Rule: OO and OO- “Digraphs /OO and oo/” from English4abc (note: These are not digraphs, just the video title)
Engaging Videos
9. Phonics Rule: OO- “oo” from Kids vs Phonics
10. Phonics Rule: Long e vowel teams- “Long E word families” from Learn Easy English
Teaching phonics rules to your students will help them to identify these rules when they see them in words, which will help them to decode the word faster. This, then, will help your students to become more fluent readers. In fact check out last week’s post The Most Important Thing for Increasing Reading Fluency for more tips on that.
Phonics rules, also, help students when writing. Students will have an easier time spelling words correctly when they know phonics rules.
Furthermore, setting phonics rules to music will help students to remember them. For instance, have you ever heard a song on the radio that you haven’t heard in years, but you find yourself singing along? You wonder “How do I still remember the lyrics to this song?”
Dr. Finney, a behaviorial neurologist at Geisinger, says this is because by singing something, it becomes part of our motor memory. Motor memory is easily accessed by the brain, making it easier for us to sing along when a song comes on that we’ve heard many times before (Geisinger.org, 2022).
That’s why I include songs or rhythm into my lessons whenever I can. As a reading interventionist my curriculums are very specific as to what I must teach and how I must teach it, but I find a way to sneak it in there. Read more about the effects of music with this post Setting the Tone: Music in the Classroom.
I hope you and your students enjoy this week’s post! Let me know in the comments which song was your class’s favorite or add one of your own!
