Check it out!

It is that time of year once again. The mad dash to the school year finish line. In the midst of all the madness, I created a new Pinterest board titled Let's Teach Reading! Click here to check it out.

Have a happy Monday!

P.S. I got the above photo from the best free photo resource I have yet found online. 
It is called Morgue File.  

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. 

A Ball for Daisy

I love how this adorable, wordless Chris Raschka book lends itself so well to a classroom game of oral storytelling. I simply display the colorful illustrations of this Caldecott Medalist on the overhead projector with all the lights out for added dramatic effect. Then, I have my students come up to the HoverCam one-by-one to tell a part of the story (each student usually gets one page or a page spread). Raschka's illustrations are fun to interpret and colorful enough to keep the attention of the whole class. I found that Kindergartners never tire of playing with the HoverCam, so it is an excellent motivational tool for covering those Speaking and Listening standards. This activity coaxed a smile from even my shyest student in the class. We were all giggling by the end of our story.

Happy Saturday!

Close Reading

Adopting the Common Core this year has led me to delve into the world of Close Reading to discover what it is, what it does, and what resources I can use in my classroom right now in a nutshell. 

What it is:

an in-depth rereading and analysis of a  book, poem, or article

What it does:

challenges the reader to study author's purpose and intent in writing the passage to the point of considering language, syntax, & layout to the tiniest nuance of text

Resources:

I got a kick out of this student made video which gives
a nice overview of the topic.

By far my favorite resource has come from the St. Joseph School District website which contains PDFs and Word documents with sample lesson plans, forms and other high-quality instructional material - all for free! I am looking forward to trying the Eric Carle lesson plan with my students. 

I additionally found the information in these articles helpful:

What is Close Reading?

Close Reading of a Literary Passage

Happy Wednesday!

Free Early Literacy Apps for iPad

Sentence Magic
What I love about this app is that it has simple CVC words my Kindergartners can decode at this time of the school year. Sentence Magic has the option of using the picture hint or just focusing on the letters only, so I can easily incorporate it into a lesson about using context clues or phonemic awareness and decoding. Word hints and word blending helpers can be turned on or off. There are sentence building activities as well as sentence reading activities in which you can elect to have two or three words per sentence depending on the student's level of readiness. I additionally appreciate how the consonants and vowels are different colors. All in all, Sentence Magic is very customizable and highly user friendly.  

KinderSpell
This app features a variety of pictures with which younger students will be familiar. The goal is for students to be able to drag the blue letters onto the matching grey square in order to make the word. As students get better at letter matching, the "hint" button can be turned off so that the grey tiles no longer have letter hints. Thus, the app moves from letter recognition to the important phonemic awareness skill of hearing sounds in words. Since it is free, there are not that many words in the app, so be sure not to leave it on your students' menus for long or the benefits and excitement will soon fade. 

Letter Quiz
This app features four different activities for students. In the picture above, students are given a letter to find and the student has to then tap the correct, matching letter. There are also letter tracing activities, upper and lower case matching activities, and upper/lowercase flashcards that feature real life pictures for added letter association reinforcement. The free version only works with letters A-H, but the full version can be bought for just $1.99.

Magic Reading: Reading Skill 1
I love this app! It reinforces many of the phonemic awareness concepts young readers need to master by the end of Kindergarten. It is also a helpful app for older students in need of remediation. The picture above is from the Blending activity. Tap the separate sound boxes along the bottom of the screen to hear a word in parts (example, /c/ /u/ /p/). The student then blends the sounds to make a word. Students can check if they put together the correct word by tapping the large box at top which flips over to reveal the picture while a voice says the word for the picture they were blending. There are also reading and segmenting activities on this app as well. Each of the 3 skill builders center around CVC words, but the user can choose if she wants to focus on short a, e, i, o, or u words. There is also a "shuffle" option which will use all five consonants in random order. I use this app to make my reading groups more interactive, but also like how the self-checking features make this a great fit for students' independent use as well. 

PhonicsRead: Phonics and Reading with McGuffey lite
This app is meant to be used independently by students for remediation and reinforcement of reading concepts. There are slots for up to 10 different usernames. Lessons start with basic letter/sound recognition and first sound fluency. The screenshot above asked the student to touch the /n/ as in "nest." Each time a student taps a correct answer, a small animation pops up in celebration. There are many different animations to keep the students motivated to see what will happen next. The "teacher" voice on the program is very calm and clear, so my students easily understand what each activity is asking them to do. There are customizable options for individual student use. Each lesson has several different parts and covers fluency and comprehension topics as well as word attack skills. 

Word Wizard
This app is set up as a game which allows for 1 or 2 players. Students are to get their rocket ship from space back to Earth by selecting the picture that matches the correct CVC word. When a match is made, the rocket ship moves ahead one star closer to Earth. My students find this app to be especially fun. 

FirstWords Sampler
Tap the picture to hear the word then drag the sounds in the correct order to the letter boxes. I think my kiddos could play this game all day long!

FirstWords Valentine
Put out by the same company as the previous app, this game works much the same way as FirstWords Sampler, but this time features Valentine themed words. Perfect for this time of the year!

I love using technology within the learning environment and so do my students! Today, I hope I was able to introduce you to some new apps to try with your students. And the best part is, they are all free!

Happy Sunday!

Say hello to Thinkport

      Recently, I had the privilege of partaking in a peer-led professional discussion group. My district took a slightly different approach to professional development this school year by allotting some of our PD time to shared study and discussion centering around research-based teaching strategies. At the end of each nine-week grading period, students get a two-hour delay so that all teachers K-12 can have shared planning and discussion time. Before attending, all peers are given a reading assignment (this year we are focusing on the revised edition of Marzano's original study Classroom Instruction That Works). The discussion is facilitated by one peer who has exhibited an affinity for the particular strategy or topic of the quarter. The format is very casual allowing for plenty of open discussion and sharing of ideas, knowledge, and resources. 

It was during our last group time that I was introduced to the beyond fabulous Web resource of Thinkport.org. I was amazed by the wealth of free, quality lesson ideas, classroom tools, and professional development videos that I discovered. I have shared a few of my particular favorites down below.

Reading Strategies
This link connects to a menu (on the right-hand side of the page) of twelve powerful reading strategies. Clicking one of the strategies allows you to explore the strategy through a video, gives examples of when and how to implement the strategy, and offers helpful hotlinks with materials that can be used during group times in order to further support the strategy. If your curiosity was not satisfied enough, then there are also additional links at the bottom of the page for other articles highlighting the effectiveness of the strategy.  

Reading Across the Curriculum Video
The reading strategies featured in this module are the ones recommended by the National Reading Panel. I appreciated how this video series stressed the importance of being able to read informational text. Reading is truly the key to academic success. From my experience, if a student only has difficulty in math, then all other subject areas are usually on track. However, students who struggle in reading quite often struggle in all academic areas as critical thinking and reading skills are so pervasive in science, social studies, and even math now. 

Graphic Organizers Galore!
This link has pages and pages of graphic organizers for free and ready use in your classroom. Each one opens in a new window for easy printing capabilities. However, I usually prefer to project mine onto the whiteboard and use this larger-than-life version to get kids excited about interactive writing. There is just something about writing on a whiteboard that never ceases to engage my early learners. 

I hope these links are as big a blessing to your classroom and personal practice as they have been to mine.

Happy Wednesday!

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!

Today I am thinking about Snowflake Bentley

Here in Ohio, we just may get to see some of the whirling white wonders of winter this Friday. I love snow! (And not just because it could be the harbinger of a snow day). The beauty and intricacy of each snowflake has always intrigued me. One of my favorite snowy time books to share is Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. It recounts the true story of William Bentley who was one of the first people to ever take photographs of snowflakes.

After reading Bentley's biography, the video above is an intriguing segue into the science of how snowflakes are made, where they can be found, and who in our modern day world is carrying on Snowflake Bentley's same lifelong fascination. Prepares the way for some great compare/contrast discussions as well!    

Hope you and your students find this as enjoyable as we did.

Happy Wednesday!