ng, nk, and tch

Reading · 1st grade

Reading words with ng

Nell thought the baby bird was lost, but Gramps spotted two clues that said otherwise. Can you find them, and a tiny word with a tricky heart?

Today: A child reads ng words with every short vowel, like bang, king, long, and lung, and with blends, like swing and string, and learns the heart word little.

See it in teaching mode

About 20 minutes to teach

Teach the idea

Read this together:The Bird on the Sidewalk

259 words

One spring morning, Gramps walked Max and Nell to the park. Gramps was Max's grandfather. Nell was six, like Max, and she lived across the hall. Scraps, the family's small scruffy dog, trotted ahead on his leash.

Halfway down Hill Street, Nell stopped. "Look!"

On the sidewalk, next to the little patch of grass under the maple tree, sat a baby bird. Its chest was covered in brown spots. Its tail was short and stubby. It flapped its little wings, hopped twice, and sat down again.

"It fell out of its nest," said Nell. "It's lost. Can we take it home? I'll make it a bed in a shoebox."

Max held Scraps back, and Gramps crouched down to look.

"It has all its feathers," said Gramps. "And see how it hops? This is a fledgling. It's too big for the nest now, so it left on purpose. It can't fly well yet, but it's learning."

"But who will feed it?" asked Nell.

Gramps pointed. On the fence sat a grown robin with an orange chest and a fat worm in its beak. It was watching them, and it chirped, sharp and loud.

"That's its mother or father," said Gramps. "They'll keep feeding it for a couple of weeks. The best thing we can do is leave it be, and keep Scraps away."

So they crossed the street and watched from the other side. After a minute, the robin flew down, the baby opened its beak wide, and the worm was gone.

"It isn't lost," said Nell. "It's just little."

Today Nora reads words with ng. The trick is to read ng together with the vowel in front of it as one chunk: ang, ing, ong, ung. Before ng, the a and the i often sound a little different from the a in bat and the i in sit. That is normal, so don't worry about it. Just say each chunk the way it sounds in a word you already know: ang in bang, ing in king, ong in long, ung in lung. Say the chunk first, then add the starting sound.
Some words have a blend at the start, and Nora reads every sound from left to right. Swing is /s/ /w/ /i/ /ng/, four sounds from five letters. String is /s/ /t/ /r/ /i/ /ng/, five sounds from six letters. Tap one finger for each sound and you can feel how many there are.
Little is a heart word with two beats: lit and tle. The start is regular: /l/ /i/, and the two t's together say just one /t/. The heart part is le at the end. It says /ul/, and the e stays quiet. That is why we draw a small heart over le, to remind us that part has to be remembered.
Little comes right before a noun and tells how big something is: a little chick, a little wing, a little bell.
In "The Bird on the Sidewalk", Gramps notices two clues that say the baby bird is not lost. The bird has all its feathers and it hops, and a grown robin sits on the fence with a worm in its beak. Gramps also says the parent birds will keep feeding the baby for a couple of weeks while it learns to fly. So the best help is to leave the baby alone, close to its parents.

Do it together

1. Lay the four index cards in a row (ang, ing, ong, ung) and put the nine squares in a pile. Slide the h square in front of ang and let Nora read the word. Then Nora picks any square and any card and snaps them together like building a fort wall, one block at a time, reading each word out loud. Real words go in one spot on the table and silly words go in another. For each real word, ask what it means. When Nora is ready, try sw in front of ing and str in front of ing, tapping one finger for each sound and reading from left to right.
2. Write little in big letters on a sheet of paper with the marker, and draw a small heart over the le. Have Nora read it, then spell it out loud, l i t t l e, and trace it with a pencil. Next, Nora finds three little things in the room and says a sentence about each, like "This is a little spoon."

Nora reads:The Little Chick

97 words

Max, Nell, and Gramps went up the hill with Scraps. Then Nell said, "Stop! Look!" A little chick sat in the grass. It had wings, but it did not get up. "It is lost," said Nell. "I will bring it in with me." "Not yet," said Gramps. "Look up on that branch." Up on the branch sat its mom with a bug. She sang a long song. Max held Scraps back. Then the mom went hop, hop, hop to the chick, and the chick got the bug. "It is not lost," said Nell. "It is just little."

3. Have Nora read "The Little Chick" out loud. Help with any sound that gets in the way, and stop to notice the ng words and the word little when they come up. Then go back to the part of "The Bird on the Sidewalk" where Gramps points to the fence and talks about the robin, and read just that part again. Ask what might have happened if Scraps had run up to the baby bird, and why the grown robin matters to the baby. Let Nora reason it out in Nora's own words. When Nora is ready, move on to the questions.

Tip If a chunk like ang or ing feels tricky, say the chunk on its own a few times, then add the first sound in front. If Nora zooms ahead, try building longer words with str to see how many Nora can read, then ask for a real one used in a sentence.

On paper

Worksheet

Reading Words with ng

4 problems

The worksheet, as it prints

Reading · Worksheet