A Round-Up of FREE Resources for SOR Independent Work

Awhile back I wrote about how to bring the fun back into the classroom in a world of curriculums. If you didn’t catch that post, you can read it here. Anyway at the end I wrote that I would be back with some independent work ideas.

You may be asking yourself, “Why is she giving us ideas now?”

To answer that question, this is the time of the school year when things start to get a little stale for students and teachers. There aren’t usually any days off until Spring Break and you know testing is right around the corner. You may start feel like you are going through the motions, and classroom misbehavior may be starting to sprout up again. To help combat this, it may be time to change up the activities completed during independent work time.

Independent work time usually occurs while you are working with a small group of students. During that time, the rest of the class needs something intentional to work on. It could be stations/centers that small groups of students rotate to or set tasks to be completed on their own.

With the huge push towards science of reading (SOR), now is a great time to analyze the activities you have been using to see if they support SOR, are intentional, and if students are still enjoying them. If not, this post is for YOU. Sometimes you just need to switch up a material used in an activity to make it fresh, but other times you need to do a bit more.

That’s why I’ve compiled this list of FREE resources for grades K-2 that support SOR! That way you don’t have to take hours scouring the internet to find activities to enrich your students’ learning.

1. With Easter right around the corner here are Jelly Bean Sort activities from Just Ask Judy.

2. Here’s a cut-and-paste digraph review sheet from A Teeny Tiny Teacher that I like because it uses pictures for sorting, instead of words. When students sort printed words by their sound, they are not usually hearing the sound in the word. Instead, they are looking for the letters that make that sound.

3. If you have letter stamps, this is a fun actvity for students from Homeschool Giveaways and Freebies.

4. This post from Susan Jones Teaching includes a list of phonics games she has created and from there you can print a free sample. I like that these are games to play with a partner.

5. This is a long/short cut-and-paste vowel sorting pack from Mrs. Ritz and Kidz on Teachers Pay Teachers.

6. In this one students are writing magic e words that rhyme, which I like because many of my students still struggle with rhyming. This particular sheet hits two skills in one. It comes from this Reading mama. Check out the rest of her site because she has many other fantastic freebies.

7. Here’s another one from Susan Jones Teaching. If you have some blank blocks or small magnet letters, this is a great hands-on activity to practice blending. If you don’t have the materials to create it, you could always type up the letters, print, and laminate them for student manipulation.

8. This one is an on-your-own digraph game from The Measured Mom. This is another website containing many other free games for students.

9. Word Chaining is an excellent SOR activity that, also, is talked about in LETRS. Here is a pack of 9 cvc word ladders for students to complete from Teacher Jeanell on Teachers Pay Teachers.

10. Here is a game for students that are ready for vowel teams from Teacher Features called “Muddy Pigs.”

I selected these particular activites not just because they align with SOR practices and are free, but because they are low-prep, have simple instructions for students to follow, and most students will enjoy them. I hope these activities will keep your students from getting Spring Fever too soon and keep them on the learning train as we head into end-of-year testing season. Let me know which ones you try in the comments below!