Making The Connection

Wow, let me share with you an exciting event that happened in my reading class today! 

 

I have a group of first grade students who are struggling with making the phoneme-grapheme, letter to sound, connection. Since the beginning of the year we have worked so very hard on learning sounds and listening to how the sounds connect to create words. I was worried about this one particular student who just could not seem to understand that the sounds came together to form a word.   He would sound the letters w-a-v, but when attempting to connect them, he would change the middle or ending sound.  But today was different!  As we stretched our sounds long to meet the next sound, he would look at me with an amazed look on his face and say the connected word.  It was all I could do not to make a spectacle of myself!  We cheered and did our high fives between each correct word.  What an awesome feeling to see the fruits of his hard work! 

As we walk toward our Great Big Goal of reading on level, let us not forget to stop and celebrate the small steps it takes to reach that goal!

Enjoy the Journey!

Peace, Love, and Happy Reading

February is here! 

As we settle into our new year, I am looking over recent test data and devising a plan to increase our reading scores.  Easier said than done, right!  How do you motivate a child who has been told they are not smart?  How do you convince them that they CAN when they walk in saying I CAN'T?  The challenge the reading teacher faces daily is real!

One thing that I KNOW...the more you read, the better reader you become...the better reader you are, the more you WANT to read!  SO, we will read...and read, and read, and read!

Here are a few of the books that will hopefully inspire our sweeties this February:

Happy Reading!

SCOOT

 

Many times I had heard of the fun "Scoot" games, but had no idea what that meant.  After visiting a friend's classroom and watching the activity first hand, I was hooked.  This game provides a fun way for students to practice a skill in a non-traditional way AND a quick assessment for the teacher. It can also be easily differentiated and rigor can be added.  Here is how the game is played.

• Print and cut apart activity strips or cards.
• Place one item on each student’s desk.
• Students sit at their desk, observe the words, and then write their answer on the answer sheet beside the number on the page that matches the number on the desk.
• When you say "Scoot", the students scoot to the next person’s desk and answer. ( I choose to use a timer to measure how long students take to solve a problem.  This can be as short as 20 sec. for a math fact, or 1 min. to solve a word task.  Just remember this is a quick assessment.)
• Continue until the student returns to their starting place.

Note: You may number your desks with sticky notes or use the number on the strips.

This is an example of game played with two identical sets.

This is an example of one set used for the whole class.





I know that it looks intimidating, but I promise you, once the students learn the method, this game will be a favorite assessment tool for you.

Go ahead, give it a try!

Good luck and ENJOY THE JOURNEY!

Linking Verbs

 

Recently I had some friends come to me and ask about small group activities that would help their students with practicing grammar skills.  We are currently using the Wonders reading series so I created a few activities to share.
Here is one activity:


Available at TpT



Here is another activity:

Available at TpT

These projects are set up to be used with either small groups in centers or whole group as a SCOOT game. If you are unsure of what SCOOT is, be sure to check out that post.

I hope that you find these activities useful and beneficial in your classroom.

Enjoy the Journey!

April