Kindergarten Intervention

Recently, my reading coach (and teaching buddy) told me about four kindergarten students who had still not grasped the alphabet. In February, these students were naming, at most, 19% of the letters on the DIBELS exam. I told her I would gladly help since I had a free 30 minute block in my schedule. When I went to look through the students' materials, I was not very pleased. Scott Foresman does cover letters, however, it is in sequence. You may like that; I do not. As a college student we were taught that several three letter words could be made using s,t,a,n,i,p. Go ahead. Jot some down!

See? Why not teach students these letters first, THEN move on and add other consonants and vowels? That's what makes sense to me, but ol' Scotty F. never asked my opinion. Instead of moaning and griping about how I couldn't help these kids, I decided to use my resources...ahem, Teacher's Notebook, and create something. To your left is what I came up with.

This pack contains several activities, four traceable A's, four traceable S's, a matching sheet, writing sheet, and assessment sheet. Since I have a small group, I will just laminate each letter sheet and let them trace one A & S per day. The goal of this packet was to allow students to have something bright, colorful and fun that was also a learning tool. I hope you can use it in your classroom!

What do you do to help yours students learn the alphabet?

Ready2Read

Hello Teacher Friends!
It's been a long break since my last post. I have been busy testing students for services, taking care of sick babies, getting over the stomach flu, and making some items for my Teacher's Notebook store. Recently, I purchased Annie Moffatt's Ready2Read program for use in my Master's final project. I'll be honest, it's a lot of pages to print, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE all the colors and fun activities included in the kit. This is my third and final week for my project implementation, but I will continue with the program for two reasons: I bought it with my own moola ($) AND most importantly, it works! For real y'all, the girl I am working with read a total of 52 sight words (pre-primer/primer) pre-implementation, and now she is up to 60. I don't know if you think that's pretty quick or not, but I sure do. 

Each level of the program is divided into units, and these units focus on five sight words at a time. There are also two word families per level. When you download the program, I recommend looking through it all first, then only printing off what is necessary. For example, there might not be a reason to print the black and white version of the sight word caterpillar. It's there if you need it, but it is your call. I only printed off one unit at a time. This helped me with organization. When I had everything printed, I bought some page protectors and colored labels, then used them to help me sort all the items I had laminated/printed. (If you don't have a laminator, then you NEED to get one for this. I buy my thermal pouches off of Amazon and pay $16 for 100 pouches.) All my sorted items went into a gargantuan binder. I mean seriously, it weighs more than my child, but it's all in there!!!

The picture below shows just one of the activities included in this kit. I have literally tried everything at my disposal (Scott Foresman, Recipe for Reading, My Sidewalks, etc.) and nothing has worked as well as this. I look forward to working with M everyday and she really enjoys coming to my room for this. I think it's the first time she's felt good about her reading experience. When we come across a word on our list that was previously unfamiliar, she says "I know that one now!" If that doesn't the money/time/effort spent worth it, what does? :)