Teachers using Logic of English in a classroom often wonder what their students should practice at home, especially if parents are not familiar with the phonograms and spelling rules. Here are ideas for homework that will reinforce the skills you are teaching in Foundations or Essentials!

Phonograms

The phonograms are the basic building blocks of written English, and frequent, short, fun practice helps students master them more quickly and lays a strong foundation for reading and spelling fluency.

1. Consider having each family purchase two decks of Phonogram Game Cards. Then assign which phonograms should be practiced and a recommended game from the Logic of English Game Book. 
2. The Logic of English Game Book gives teachers the materials needed to make learning fun, enjoyable, and unforgettable! Appendix B provides numerous templates for games that could easily be sent home for reinforcement of phonogram sounds.
3. Have students make their own phonogram flash cards in class as you introduce new phonograms. These can be taken home for practice.
4. Have families review the sounds of assigned phonograms by clicking on them in our interactive online Phonogram Chart.
5. We provide free phonogram practice assignments for Foundations and Essentials, designed for parents to do with their children at home. Here, you can find copies: Foundations Sample Take-Home Sets (for use after Lessons 40 and 50) or Essentials Sample Take-Home Sets (for use after Lessons three and six).

Reading Fluency Activities

True fluency comes from decoding words and phonograms repeatedly until the brain processes the sounds so quickly that it seems instantaneous. Students who gain skills from doing this can be applied to thousands of words rather than simply to a list of memorized words.

1. Send home the cut-out cards from the Foundations high-frequency word games (check your teacher's manual to see if they need to be saved for another lesson at school first), along with instructions for a game so that the child can play the game at home. 
2. All the pages in the Foundations and Essentials workbooks are perforated. Consider sending home pages that include reading individual words, phrases, or sentences for fluency practice. 
3. If you are able, send home copies of the Foundations Readers or the Essentials Reader after students have practiced them in class so that they can reread them. Remind parents to encourage children to sound out words and to provide help by explaining the sound a phonogram says or sounding out the whole word for the student to blend, rather than by stating the whole word if a child is stuck.

Spelling Practice

For Foundations students, memorizing spelling words should be a low priority except as a way to provide an additional challenge for strong readers. Make sure parents understand that the goal is simply to practice the skill of sounding out and writing words; if a student spells a word wrong, the parent should gently point out the phonogram that is incorrect and then have the student try again. For Essentials students, practicing the spelling words they are learning is a great way to build their skills at home. 

1. Any spelling game from Essentials could be sent home for additional practice. 
2. Tear out the grammar activities from the Essentials workbooks (part three) with the spelling words that can be completed independently (such as identifying the nouns in the spelling list and writing them as plurals.