Make Tracking Fun!

Early readers can experience great difficulty when attempting to track words through the pages of a book. I have several readers right now who are pros at reading sight words off of the card, but when all the words are strung together in a sentence the words become unrecognizable. I use a variety of interventions for students with this issue, but the first one I try is introducing the child to a fun reading tool I call the reading tracker. Students often get very bored when asked to point and follow each word with their finger. However, students are less hesitant to use this all-important early literacy skill when given a fun tool. As you can see in the picture above, the Dollar Tree is my friend! I have found magnifying glasses, rulers with a magnified strip, skeleton hands, zip ties, paint brushes, little critters, a variety of magic wands, and even crazy straws! The rocket and open book trackers I simple made by taking small bulletin board icons (again from Dollar Tree) and slicing a reading window into the center with an Exacto knife. That alone is usually sufficient, but I was overly ambitious that day and also glued a tiny zip tie to the back for added tracking appeal. Young children are motivated by the easiest (and thankfully cheapest) little doodads. Anything to bring visual appeal and interest to the learning scene, right? So, go raid your Dollar Tree today! 

Happy Wednesday!

Sensory Reading Fun!

I hope you all are enjoying your spring break as much as I am. We actually had some sunshine today and are rumored to have liberal doses of this long unheard of pleasure for the next several days! Before trotting off to enjoy the rest of my break, I thought I would quickly share a couple of fun literacy activities that also address the sensory needs of young learners.

Have you seen the large chenille stems that have become popular in the party sections of stores like Walmart and Dollar Tree? Kids of all ages (myself included) are fascinated by these large, furry bendables. In class, students each get one stem to form a letter. Then we work cooperatively to put the separate letters together to see how many words we can make. Working this way also saves a lot of time if each kid is making only one letter instead of every letter needed for a given word. 

Another activity I like to do with these stems is to have each child make two letters and then pick up the letter that stands for the sound she hears at the beginning (or middle or end) of a word. Not only addresses the sensory needs of students, but also their kinesthetic needs during a simple phoneme isolation activity.

Another item I love to use comes this time from the craft section of the store. Plastic canvas! I cut it into strips long and wide enough for students to trace their sight words across the canvas with their finger. Again, plastic canvas is also a great medium for phoneme isolation activities as well. I don't leave it accessible all the time, but bring it out for "special" times once or twice a week so it doesn't lose its allure. Plastic canvas is available in a rainbow of hues for a relatively cheap price considering you get a good 8-10 strips out of each sheet. 

Now, go enjoy the rest of your spring break and have a happy Easter! ;-)

Connecting Sounds Through Signs

Today's classroom is an intriguing mixture of abilities, learning preferences, sensory needs, and communication styles. At this time of the school year, it can be hard to get such a diversity of students continuously excited about isolating the beginning, middle and end sounds in words. How can I continue to meet all the unique needs of my students while teaching an often ho-hum (although vital) foundational skill? 

In our class, we have taken turns, chorused together, shouted, whispered, and squawked our answers to phonemic isolation questions. We have written our answers on whiteboards as well as in the air with our finger. We have even answered by sliding our fingers through piles of shaving cream on our desks. But still, questions such as, "What is the beginning sound in jet?" or "What is the middle sound in sun?" have produced decreasing amounts of enthusiasm from my learners. 

So, I was excited to discover (quite by accident) that my Kinders are once again eager to isolate phonemes when they can connect the sound with the corresponding letter from the American Sign Language alphabet. The kids think it is great fun to be able to communicate with their hands and no speech. Several of them seemed mystified by the idea that hands could convey so much in place of the spoken word. Thus, we are happily addressing various learning, sensory, and communication needs while simultaneously hitting key Kindergarten learning goals ~ including exploring the diverse populations around us. Woohoo! I am glad this learning train is picking up the speed it needs to make it to the end of this year.

Happy Monday!

P.S. When first introducing this skill, I would focus on isolating only 2 sounds at a time. For example, teach students how to make the c and d signs then sharing only words with that initial phoneme. My students have now built up such a repertoire of sign letters that I can generally present words with 4 or 5 different phonemes at a time. 

Just Bob

The Common Core strongly recommends students get daily exposure to literature that is two or three grade levels higher than their current grade. A Snowman Named Just Bob fit the bill and then some! This tale of friendship uses many vivid adjectives which dance across the pages in poetical cadence. My Kindergarten students loved the rhythmic sound of the story as well as the charming illustrations and were eager for me to read it to them again.

After reading the story, it was time to get messy with a fun sensory activity! One of my Kindergarten team members shared with me her recipe for "snow" which is simply 1 part white glue to 1 part shaving cream. Mixed together it makes a fabulous goo the kids adore. My students opted for using paint brushes, but it could be used as a finger paint material if preferred. After painting a basic snowman shape, the students then cut miniature hats out of felt and chose two pipe cleaner "twigs" with which to embellish their creation. A dusting of sparkles to finish off was a big crowd-pleaser. My colleague had a treasure trove of sequence she let her students use as eyes, nose, and buttons. The goo dries puffy making it look like un-meltable snow. The kids went crazy over this! 

To weave in some sneaky writing practice, I gave each student a small strip of lined paper to write the name of the snowman from the story. In this example above, you see green highlighter with pencil markings close about each letter. This student has great difficulty writing independently and currently receives O/T services. At the beginning of this school year, he was often unwilling to even try holding a pencil without someone there to hand-over-hand the writing with him. Now, he will typically sit down without complaint and attempt to write independently just due to the simple use of highlighter on his paper! Green is his favorite color which adds to further the success of this intervention. I love seeing my students grow and improve over the course of the school year!

Stay tuned for some new web-resource shares coming soon. Have a fabulous rest of your week!

Just found...

... a fabulous blog today. It is produced by The Whole Child organization and features discussions and topics about differentiation as well as (like its name suggests) understanding and addressing the needs of the whole child in order to maximize learning on an individual basis.

A Helpful Diagram... 

... to start you down the path to differentiation 

(courtesy of www.speedofcreativity.org).