Understanding Activity Blocks and Content Items

Lesson Components

Overview

Learn about Spellcaster's activity blocks - the building blocks of Spellcaster's structured literacy lesson plans - and how to customize their content items to create effective literacy instruction.

In Depth

Activity Blocks

Spellcaster's lesson plans are built using our innovative activity block system. This makes it really easy to quickly generate and populate activity blocks for standard structured literacy lessons covering everything from phonemic awareness to phonics to morphology. You can then populate those blocks quickly with content aligned with the Spellcaster scope and sequence.

You can drag and drop, edit, and delete activity blocks on your lesson plan canvas. We also accompany most of our activity blocks with instructional videos about how to deliver these blocks.

See below for details about each activity block and how they align with different skills.

Phonemic Awareness Activity Blocks

Oral Blending Drill

Skill: Phonemic Awareness
Purpose: Oral blending supports phonemic awareness where a learner hears individual sounds in a word and then combines them to form the complete word.
Teaching Approach: Say a word segmented into its sounds, have the learner blend the sounds aloud.

Oral Segmenting Drill

Skill: Phonemic Awareness
Purpose: Oral segmenting practices isolating sounds within words and fosters phonemic awareness.
Teaching Approach: Say the word aloud, have the learner say each sound in the word and then say the whole word again.

Phonics Activity Blocks

Visual Drill

Skill: Letter-Sound Recognition
Purpose: The visual drill helps learners connect print to speech by saying the sound each letter or letters represent. This primes the learner for reading (decoding).
Teaching Approach: Have the learner point to the graphemes and say the sound they spell.

Auditory Drill

Skill: Letter-Sound Recognition
Purpose: The auditory drill helps learners connect speech to print by writing or identifying the letter(s) that sounds represent. This primes the learner for spelling (encoding).
Teaching Approach: Say the sound and have the learner write the letter(s) that spell it.

Continuous Blending Drill

Skill: Decoding (Reading)
Purpose: Continuous blending (connected phonation) helps learners sound out a word without pauses.
Teaching Approach: Trace your finger beneath the letters blending their sounds as you go, then sweep your finger beneath the letters and say the word quickly.

Word Reading

Skill: Decoding (Reading)
Purpose: Word reading practice builds fluency and reinforces decoding skills.
Teaching Approach: Have the learner read out the word, drawing their finger beneath the letters if needed.

Decoding Word Chain

Skill: Decoding
Purpose: Decoding word chains help reinforce decoding skills by gradually changing spellings in a sequence of related words.
Teaching Approach: Start with the first word, have the student read the word. Swap a spelling to make a new word, have the student read the new word, and continue through the chain.

Encoding (Spelling) Activity Blocks

Spelling Drill

Skill: Encoding (Spelling)
Purpose: Spelling drill develops encoding skills by connecting sounds to print.
Teaching Approach: Say the word aloud, have the learner spell it.

Spelling Word Chain

Skill: Encoding (Spelling)
Purpose: Spelling word chains support encoding by linking speech to print. This reinforces target letter-sound patterns and also supports phonemic awareness. Spelling is a powerful lever for both reading and writing.
Teaching Approach: Say the first word aloud, have the student spell the word. Swap a sound to make a new word, have the student spell the new word, and continue through the chain.

Fluency and Connected Text Activity Blocks

Sentence Reading

Skill: Fluency & Decoding
Purpose: Reading connected text helps practice decoding and promotes fluency.
Teaching Approach: Have the learner say each word in the sentence one by one, then say the whole sentence.

Sentence Dictation

Skill: Fluency & Spelling
Purpose: Sentence dictation supports encoding skills by having students spell a series of words in authentic connected text. Sentence dictation is also helpful for practising sentence construction skills such as capital letters and punctuation.
Teaching Approach: Read the sentence aloud, have the student write the sentence.

Morphology Activity Blocks

Word Sums

Skill: Morphological Awareness
Purpose: Morphological awareness helps learners understand how longer words can be formed and how prefixes and suffixes change word meanings. Word sums also support understanding the core spelling rules that govern spelling longer words.
Teaching Approach: Rewrite the morphemes, joining them up and adjusting the spelling as needed.

Word Matrix

Skill: Morphological Awareness
Purpose: Word matrices are visual graphic organizers used to support morphemic analysis by mapping out a word family — a collection of words connected by a shared base element and meaning. They enable students to visualize, rearrange, and understand how prefixes, bases, and suffixes combine to form new words, improving spelling, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Reference

Knowledge Base