There are some support materials that teachers find helpful to use during PAWS instruction. The PAWS project provides the teachers with letter cards, sight word cards, CVC word cards, vowel cards, and student cards. Posters are provided for PAWS Rules, Teacher Writing Lines, and Combining Sentences Steps. Blackline masters for additional support materials are located in the Support Materials section of the PAWS Manual.
Contents
Letter cards
Letter cards are two sided, as shown here. One side shows the upper and lower case letters and the written cue word. The other side is a picture of the cue word, which begins with the sound of the letter.
Sight Word Cards
The sight word cards are used during the Sight Word lessons. Once the word is taught, we encourage teachers to post these cards in the room so that students may refer to them during their own writing. Many exposures to these words will facilitate their learning.
Vowel Cards
The vowel cards show a picture and a CVC word using the vowel to be taught during Missing Letter lessons. Students hear and see the vowel in the medial position. Teachers can use these to teach the CVC rule of one vowel in the middle of the word and followed by a consonant, the vowel makes the short sound.
Letter Formation Guide
The letter formation guide provides models of the letters, along with the arrows for printing, and the words used by the teacher during instruction. This would be an excellent resource to share with parents early in the year. Parents can refer to this page when helping their child. This allows parents to use the same language and directions used in the classroom.
Teacher Writing Lines
The teacher writing lines page is used in teaching letter formation. It allows for students at their seats to see a large model rather than the smaller ones at the top of the Letter Learning lessons. This model should be used during instruction on the formation of the letters.
