As a language warm-up some days, I present the students with a "chunk," a frequently used cluster of letters (also known as a phoneme or rime.) They work to think up words that end in that chunk, and we make a list of them. We add each list to a growing "Chunk Wall" above the chalkboard. I often draw the chunk from the list of phonograms in the appendices of Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas. They helpfully identify the 37 most frequently used phonograms by putting asterisks by them.
