This is a silly activity for teaching your child about silent E. The more silly the more fun!
You Will Need:
- Bossy E Printable
- Laminator (optional but recommended if you plan to use the activity more than one time)
- Dry Erase Marker (optional)
Instructions
- Print the Bossy E Printable
- Laminate the printable (optional)
- Cut out the letter people
- Play the Bossy E Song from the album Sounds Fun Phonics – can be found on Spotify (optional, but really helps kids remember the concept)
- Allow your child to draw faces on the people if he would like. If they are laminated, you can use dry erase marker for this. Point out Bossy E in case your child wants to draw a bossy face.
- Teach your child: Begin by reviewing the vowels (a, e, i, o, u). Bossy E likes to be the boss of vowels. Bossy E usually bosses a vowel that comes before it in a word. For example, if we have this word (spell the word pin with the people letters), all the letters are making their usual sounds (ask your child to read the word pin). But then Bossy E comes along and wants to boss the vowel that comes before it, and it tells the vowel to say its name (place Bossy E at the end of the word pin to make the word pine, and make a voice for Bossy E saying “Say your name!”). Now what word do we have? That’s right, it’s pine! (Note: Bossy E can usually only boss a letter that is separated from it by one consonant or no consonants. If there is more than one consonant in the way, Bossy E can’t boss the vowel and it keeps its short vowel sound – such as in the words letter, better, helper, summer, and drummer. You can explain this to your child now if he is ready for the information, or wait until later when he has some practice with Bossy E and is ready to learn more.
- Time to Practice! Arrange the letter people in one short vowel word at a time (see the list below) and ask your child to first read the word, then add the Bossy E. Encourage him to have fun and get theatrical as he makes a voice for Bossy E and says, “Say your name!”
- Your child might need lots of help at first – try helping with questions such as – “Which of these letters is the vowel?” “What is the name of the vowel?” and be sure to give as much assistance as is needed. If your child is getting frustrated, it’s time to stop! Come back to it another day, and don’t worry – he will get there!
Short Vowel Words for Bossy E
- cap to cape
- mop to mope
- pin to pine
- cut to cute
- hop to hope
- hat to hate
- rat to rate
- mad to made
- fad to fade
- tap to tape
- pal to pale
- rid to ride
- fin to fine
- bit to bite
- hid to hide
- rip to ripe
- dim to dime
- strip to stripe
- slim to slime
- kit to kite
- not to note
- cod to code
- tot to tote
If you would like to print the list for reference, here’s a printable for you!
