My AMAZON Recommendations

Phonemic Awareness Workbook

This essential resource for teachers—and easy for parents to use—offers dozens of fun activities that develop listening and sound-play skills, key for phonics readiness. Includes activity cards, reproducibles, and 128 pages of content.  Approx. $18

Phonemic Awareness Manual for Teachers

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children boosts preliteracy skills in just 10-15 minutes a day, complementing any prereading program. Through listening games, rhyming, alliteration, and sound segmentation, it helps children recognize the individual sounds that make up words—an essential step in early reading development.  Approx. $33

Montessori Sandpaper Letters

Engage young minds and build their literary skills through this set of wooden alphabet letters. The vibrant colors and sandpaper lettering distinguish vowels and consonants to foster auditory, visual, and tactile lowercase alphabet learning.

Lowercase  Approx. $20

Uppercase  Approx. $20

Lined Whiteboard

This is a lined whiteboard typically used in school. Students can practice letter formation and write words and sentences. It is marked with the Fundations sky, plane, grass, and worm line. Approx. $9 

Letter Names and Sounds

I like these because the uppercase and lowercase letters are on separate cards, they are large and sturdy, and the “a” is made the way your child will learn to form it. Have your child match the uppercase letters to the lowercase letters. Show your child a card and have him/her state the sound.  Approx. $20.

Letter Formation

Correct letter formation is essential! The above simple, basic workbook is perfect to use. Students should form all letters from top to bottom. Not only are improperly formed letters visually unappealing, but they also hinder children’s writing speed, which can impact their performance in test-taking, creative writing, and note-taking. It will also affect their ability to learn cursive. Approx. $8.

Kindergarten Phonics

Here is an excellent kindergarten phonics workbook to purchase! It teaches parents how to teach their child through short daily lessons. It is colorful with activities your child can do, right there with you, and it is based on the science of reading. Approx. $7.

Decodable Texts

Orton Gillingham 13-book series! You can buy them as you need them. I can’t rave about these enough.  They gradually progress in phonics skills, starting with short-vowel CVC stories and progressing to compounds and multisyllabic words. These inexpensive readers are perfect for parents and teachers. Approx. $20 for each book.

Sight Word Flashcards

These sight words are great because they are divided by grade level. Approx. $15.

Sight Word Flashcards

Grade K-4 sight words in one set. The words are from the Fry and Dolch word lists. Approx. $27.

Sight Word Flashcards

This great set includes 520 words from K-3. Approx. $20.

Sight Word Game

This was on Shark Tank. Kids love this game, and it also has sight words by grade. “With colorful popping mats, dice, and flashcards, children engage sight, sound, and touch. This multisensory approach boosts focus, retention, and fluency while making reading a game.” Approx. $30.

Sight Word Storybook

This 158-page paperback colored book teaches 50 sight words within 25 stories. It also has tracing activities. The best way to learn sight words is in context, so this book is fun and helpful! Approx. $8.

Foam Phonics Board

Students segment words and then use the tiles to spell them. Great for 1:1 work. Approx. $23.

Tile Board

This is similar to the foam phonics board. Have your child create words using the various graphemes! Great for 1:1 work. Approx. $29.

Elkonin Boxes for Small Groups

You get 12 of these double-sided boards.  We count the phonemes in a word by touching each dot to represent each sound. Then we add the graphemes. We do syllables on the reverse. Approx. $15.

Individual Elkonin Board for Homeschool

One side is for segmenting and spelling words, and the other side is for syllables. Approx. $8.

Magnetic Elkonin Paddles

How I use these paddles in my reading groups:  I give the students a word. They place a circle in each box representing each sound. We slide each circle magnet up to the drawn circle as we say each sound. In the boxes, we write each sound. Approx. $35.

Plastic Sleeves

These plastic sleeves are an inexpensive way to get every student in your class to have Elkonin boxes. This is what I put in my sleeves:  Elkonin boxes.

Wilson Fundations Letter Tiles

These are the best, sturdiest tiles I know. I use these on two magnetic cookie sheets for each student, with the work mats located on p. 3 and 4 (word work mat) glued on. You can find magnetic cookie sheets at the Dollar Tree. Our district provides these tiles. This set that Amazon sells does not include complex vowels such as igh, eigh, but you could make them. Approx. $65.

Wilson Fundations Grapheme Cards – Level 3

If you buy Level 3, it takes you from kindergarten through grade 3 sounds. There are keywords behind each sound. Sound drills are a must in the science of reading! Using these cards is a visual or sound drill; next, give the auditory drill: you state a sound, and the student has to write all the combinations that make that sound. Approx. $60.

Orton-Gillingham Sound Drill Cards

This is just like the Fundations Level 3 grapheme cards, and at the same price!. Sound drills are a must in the science of reading! Using these cards is a visual or sound drill; next, give the auditory drill: you state a sound, and the student has to write all the combinations that make that sound. Approx. $60. 

Fun, Quick Phonics Card Game

There are 3 levels of difficulty – CVC, digraphs/floss words, and vowel teams. My students love to play this for the last few minutes of class. It is similar to Uno. I give them each 5 cards.  In a circle, they have to match part of the word shown in the deck. I have them state the sounds in the word and read it before they place it down. If they don’t have a match, they must draw another card. Approx. $23. 

200 Short Vowel Flashcards

I love these simple short vowel flashcards. They are sturdy and include CVC, CVCC, CCVC words, including the ng and nk families. It shows the letters on the dotted lines; you can also use the font on the reverse side. Approx. $27. You must click “see buying options.“

Syllables Factory

Children create real or imaginary animals by assembling syllable types. It is a lot of fun, and it allows for reinforcing syllable types! Approx. $16.

Mystery Alphabet Box

Children learning the alphabet sounds LOVE this! They reach in and pull out an object. They must state the beginning letter sound and place it on the board. It also promotes vocabulary development for English language learners.

• 26 sound pieces   Approx. $25.
• 52 sound pieces   Approx. $37.

Reading Group Stopwatches – Set of 6

Intervention groups should have a maximum of 4 students, so this set is perfect. I have partners engage in 1-minute rapid automatic naming of word lists and timed oral reading fluency.  These count up or down and are magnetic. I store them on the outside of my file cabinet! Approx. $10.

Articulation Cards

Articulation cards are helpful when teaching blending because they connect how a sound is made (articulation) with how sounds combine to form words (phonemic awareness and phonics). Approx. $26.

Sound Wall

I highly recommend this sound wall. It’s all prepared, so you don’t need to spend even more money on color copies! This comes with the mouth articulation cards. Approx. $20.

Onsets and Rimes

Rime flashcards. 96 cards of the most-common word families. Approx. $11.

Onsets and Rimes

Expand spelling and vocabulary skills in domino fashion using onsets, rimes, blends, and digraphs. Approx. $12.

Onsets and Rimes

This activity reinforces onsets and rimes. Children learn to read and write consonant blend & digraph words and improve phonemic awareness, reading fluency, and handwriting skills.  Approx. $20.

48 Magnetic Erasers

A classroom teacher can never have too many, and you can’t beat the price! Plus, students can choose a color, or they come in all black, blue, or green. Approx. $14. 

360 Golf Pencils – No Erasers

Students don’t erase during my reading intervention groups, and research shows tiny golf pencils (#2) are the best for small hands. We don’t do any pencil sharpening; as the pencils dull, I toss them. This box lasts me 2 years! Approx. $17.

24 Pack Dry Erase Markers

I use basic black. These are easy to clean. I find the colored markers stain my whiteboards. Approx. $8.