Useful for teaching Reading and Spelling Made Simple Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3.
Creating Your Own Junk Box
Creating a 'Junk Box' to keep a variety of interesting things in is a great resource. These items can help teach lots of different elements of language, including colours, first letters, introducing items, and rhyming words.
Below is a list of useful items that you can include in your 'Junk Box'. The items in this list can be real, e.g. an egg cup, or they can be toys, plastic versions, or miniatures etc. (Good luck finding a real alien!)
Activity 1: First Letters (for Book 1 & Book 2 learners)
Create a box for storing lots of interesting items in it.
Get your learner to pull out anything in the box that begins with the letter that you are focusing on.
Remember that some items in the box may be able to be called by different names depending on the letter being studied, e.g. fruit, apple, red apple.
Activity2 : Introducing Items (for Book 3 learners)
Ask your learner to take things out of the Junk Box and to use the correct introducing word for each item: either ‘a’ or ‘an’.
For words beginning with vowels, we say ‘an’, e.g. This is an apple.
For words beginning with consonants, we use the word ‘a’ e.g. This is a banana.
Use different adjectives to make mix it up. For example, the adjective ‘red’ begins with a consonant and the adjective ‘orange’ begins with a vowel. The correct introduction would now be ‘a red apple, an orange pencil’.