Mystery Words and Word Ladders are fun, interactive lessons that give students an opportunity to play with sounds by segmenting, blending, adding, substituting, and deleting sounds as they study words and discover spelling patterns. These two lessons are aligned to the Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy: Grades K to 3, specifically practices 4, 5, & 6.  In the course, you will learn how to replicate these lessons in your classroom as one way to support phonological awareness development (particularly phonemic awareness) and phonics development through explicit explanation of letter-sound relationships and patterns.

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