An active and innovative approach to making words that teachers and their students have grown to love is finally here! Based on its highly successful parent text, Phonics They Use, this new grade-level series Making Words offers teachers a fresh multi-level activity and lesson series written for the kindergarten through fifth grade classroom. Pat Cunningham and Dottie Hall present classroom teachers with effective tools for strengthening phonics and spelling skills that encourage students to move beyond learning and into a world of word discovery. Each research-based volume includes a wealth of friendly, hands-on, manipulative activities that guide teachers in teaching the development of words--from phonemic awareness to spelling. In Making Words Kindergarten, Pat and Dottie introduce kindergarten teachers, teachers of emergent second language learners, and teachers of students with special needs to Making Words lessons with step-by-step instructions for developing letter-sound relationships. Each Making Words activity in the book guides teachers in teaching young students how to blend letter sounds together to make a word; then segment or take off a letter and change the beginning letter(s) to make new words with the same spelling pattern or word family. Making Words Kindergarten is the best resource you can have on hand for motivating your students to learn words! * Features 50 fun and interactive lessons for building phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling skills.* Presents a concise method for involving students in the process of identifying phonological units and patterns within words.* Promotes student awareness of similarities in words that helps develop writing skills.* Includes photocopiable letter tiles to copy, cut, and laminate for use in the classroom.* Highlights a list of useful children's books to extend the Making Words lesson.