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Showing posts with label Literacy Centers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literacy Centers. Show all posts

Saturday, March 10, 2018

How to Teach Sight Words Tips for Parents and Teachers


Teaching sight words is different for every student. Sight words are words that students need to know without having to decode or sound out the words. Sight words are in approximately
50% to 65% of the words students will encounter in text. Sight words instruction is imperative to any student who is learning to read. In this post, we will talk about different methods to ensure your students or child learns their sight words. As parents, it's difficult to know exactly how our children's teacher is spending time on sight words. However, with these ideas, you can implement your own sight word plan at home!










Be specific and Purposeful with Teaching Sight Words


When teaching sight words, it's important to be very specific. Depending on the students age, depends on how many words students should work on each week. In Kindergarten, students should only start off practice two to three words a week. As the year progresses, students can gradually work up to 6-8 words per week. I like to do this slowly. Starting with two to three words a week gives students a chance to start the year off with confidence once they master the words.

In first grade, starting with 6-7 words in the beginning would be ideal.  For second graders, they should be able to handle 8-9 to start with. Every class and student is different, so use your judgement. If students are not mastering words, dial it back a bit. By third grade, students should be able to handle 10-12 words a week.

Look at your year long plan for teaching sight words. Every few weeks, add a week of spiral review in. Students should continuously practice words they've learned. If you are a parent, feel free to do this as well. Spiral review is one of the most effective ways to make sure students have really learned the content. 


Building Sight Words

One of the best ways to have students learn their sight words, is for students to build their sight words. Using tactile methods, students can develop a deeper connection to the words. 


I love using all kinds of different things for students to practice building words.  In PreK-1st Grade, one of my favorite tools to use this are Melissa and Doug's ABC Blocks. They are durable, colorful, inexpensive and last forever!



Another student favorite is magnetic letters.  Students love building words with them and placing them on cookie sheets or magnetic boards. The more colorful, the better! 






Students love these sight word builder cards and teachers love them too! Let me tell you why. Students get to practice building the word and then immediately apply it to text. 


Use seasonal items to practice sight words. Right now, our students are having. so much fun with these sight word building puzzles. Anything the kids can move, is a win-win!! 


Turn Learning into a Game


This looks large, it's really not. We would take this outside for recess though and place the sight words the kids have already mastered on the Lego Duplos . I even added a little math by having them keep score.



Sight Word Pyramids are also a great way to review words and maybe introduce a few more. The best part about this is. that both of these games can be done at school or home. Parents, the cup pyramids make for a GREAT rainy day activity! 



I love giving my students hands on activities for them to complete. It allows them to practice using the words in a variety of ways. 



Here are some of my favorite activities to practice mastering sight words. 

Be Consistent

Students need to consistently be practicing words. Sometimes, you will see students practicing one set of words with the teacher, and another set of words with the home. It's important to present the words differently with each encounter the children have with the words. For example, on Monday, you might write the words. On Tuesday, you might build the words using on the the methods above. On Wednesday, the students might read the words in a list or buddy read the words using flash cards. For Thursday, students might read the words in a sentence while building them. By Friday, students can read the words in a passage.  The big picture is that students need to practice words a different way each day. They need the opportunity to apply what they've been taught, so give them the chance to read the words on their own. 




*This post contains affiliate links.

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Saturday, February 20, 2016

101st Day of School

What a busy week we've had! After Valentine's Day, we started preparing for our 101st Day of School. We wanted to do something different for our first graders this year since they celebrate the 100th day in Kindergarten. We wanted to get the students excited about learning, kinda of re-ignite the fire they once had. We've had a lot of testing lately and thought these ideas would work to get them in the spirit again!! 






We decided to have three different rotations. One teacher did Reading Stations, I did Math Stations, and another teacher had writing.





In the math room, we had three stations: Fast Math Facts, Frisbee Toss, and Estimation Station! In Fast Math Facts, a parent volunteer showed the students a math problem. When the students were ready to solve, they tossed a ping pong ball into the correct bin. 







The Frisbee Toss game was SO EASY! My husband made a stand out of foam board. 
 I went through my math flash cards that I already had and pulled out addition and subtraction problems with the answers of 10, 15 and 20. I set it up in the hallway so the frisbees wouldn't be an issue for the other games :)

My kids LOVED this game! 


Last, we had Estimation Station. This was SO easy to prep and the kids LOVED it. I'm going to use it again next week with different items! 









For reading, we also had three stations. We put the kiddos into groups of three before rotating! 

At the first station, the kids played "Toss A Digraph". The ping pong balls were labeled with ch/th/wh and ph words. They had to read the word and toss into the correct bin. 
Who knew reading could be SO much fun!! *wink, wink*




Next, the kids moved over to "Toss a Sight Word". The same concept, except just sight words on the balls and one bin to toss it into. For some reason, I guess all of the excitement, I didn't get very many pictures of this game :(



Next, the kids moved to the Build a Tower Station. This idea from the fabulous Cara @ The First Grade Parade. We jut modified it a bit because every station had to have a specific SOL or standard tied to it. All I did was add sight words to the towers. We also had students who built sentence towers. The kiddos loved doing this activity. 



You can get all of the signs and game cards for the activities shown by clicking here!!


For writing, my next door neighbor used Deanna Jump's 100th Day writing project.
This was so.much.fun. The kids were so excited about WRITING which is so hard to do with firsts. 







All and all, it was such a great day! Our students were engaged and learning at the same time!! 


Here's a few goofy pictures of some of my team members and I!! Love them! 









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Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Fall Book Activities Blog Hop


Hey Friends! I got together with some of my sweet blogging friends to host a little Fall
Blog Hop!

We wanted to bring you suggestions for read alouds and activities to do for fall!!!


One of my favorite books for fall is "Paddlefoot Pumpernickel's Pumpkin" by Lucainne DeLong. 




This book is such a great story for firsties! The story is about a boy who is trying to find the biggest, best, most amazing pumpkin ever....and all he really needs is something that's a little different. I love this book because it reminds me of life sometimes! I think even as *adults* we get that mentality that we need the "biggest, best and most amazing things ever"...but do we really? Can't we just be our amazing, unique selves and have that be okay? That's the moral of this story and I LOVE expressing that to kids! It's okay to be different and be your own person.


I will  admit, I'm a tad bit sad! I had a TON of pictures of a craft I did with this story and I can't find them at all! Basically, I made a pumpkin template, and gave the kids all sorts of different supplies. The kids were allowed to decorate and make the pumpkin however they wanted..it didn't have to be any certain color. So to make up for my lack of pictures, I made this little printable for you!







A few of my favorite fall read alouds:
*There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves!
*Halloween Mice!
*The Berenstein Bears and the Prize Pumpkin
*Clifford's First Halloween
*Flat Stanley and The Haunted House
*Leaf Man


Hop on over to my friend's blog to check out all the other great posts! 







Speaking of Fall, I just posted my Fall-Literacy-Centers-for-Big-Kids-8-Centers

It's geared towards the intermediate grades, since that's the area I am currently working in!! 

Till next time :) 















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Friday, September 20, 2013

Guided Reading Tips for Struggling Readers




Hey Friends!!

I am linking up with my sweet friend Jen from The Teacher's Cauldron!!!
Jen talks a lot about the tools she uses during guided reading. Since all of my experience is in Title One schools and working with struggling readers, I wanted to share a few tips!!







Student Grouping

Each and EVERY Child learns differently. So we have to teach each child the way they learn. The best  way I have found to do this is ability grouping. Our students are grouped by instructional reading levels. We have five groups and follow a Daily 5 routine. We are very fortunate to have two teachers and one aide in our room during this time. I know this is not the case for most of you! This is my first time EVER having this much support! Here is our schedule:



The Gen. Ed teacher does the guided reading program. She individually picks each book for each group each week. We do not follow a basal program. Each book is picked by level and skills that we are teaching. We use informal running records to discover each students instructional reading level. Then, we plan out our before, during and after reading plans and questions. 
The SPED Teacher (Me) does a hands on and engaging activity practicing the skill that we are working on each week. This is working out SO Well. We are able to supplement each other so well.  
We have carefully prepared our students and taught them our routine. We practiced each station each and every day. For our Work Work, our students use their "Word Study" words. We use a specifically  designed plan for word study, it's district wide. It is similar to some spelling routines. Basically, we have choice board set up in the classroom. This choice board contains nine different choices the students can use to work with their words. We use choices like rainbow writing, create a comic strip, 


Use Hands on Manipulatives to Teach Reading

Students need to be engaged in the reading process. Make it fun for them! Add scrabble tiles to your work work center! Let them "build" their words! Add sight words to your board games and on Fridays (Or any day in my classroom) let them play them! My students love playing sight word Jenga! Learning and having fun at the SAME Time! That is a WIN! That should be your goal! Teach with CENTERS, let students have a choice about what to do. Students can then take charge of their learning!! 




The picture above shows our students working with digraphs.

Here's another look at our word work  centers



I use both theme and skill based centers in my classroom. These two pictures show centers that are themed based with skills embedded. 




Discover Their Interests!

Most students do not want to read about the price of tea in China..I know I do not! Reluctant readers will do so much better with topics that interest them! Use Reading A-Z to find books that are topics that your students will like.

I have found that struggling readers often enjoy reading nonfiction books and mystery books. The "
This series has been a huge hit for my son! He is certainly a  reluctant reader but this series has changed the way he looks at reading! He's interested in it so he looks forward to reading them!
Use your scholastic book points to find topics for  your hard to reach boys! 

Topics, Series and Titles for Boys:

Lego Chima
Super Heros
Airplanes 
Trucks and Cars


Topics, Series and Titles for Girls:

Judy Blume
Junie B. Jones
Ivy and Bean
Mallory on the Move
Lemonade War
Because of Winn Dixie





Go Back To the Basics & Differentiate your Instruction

Sometimes you just need to go back to the basics. Discover where your students are, and go back to the skill that will help them the most. Even if that means you are a 4th grade teacher, with a student on a 1st grade reading level!  Typically, we instruct our students one their highest instructional reading level. However, if you have a student who is really struggling, do not be afraid to drop their level down. This will help the student develop more confidence in their ability! If a student has confidence issues, be sure to build them up using positive reinforcement ANY chance you get!!!
If all else fails, begin to implement an intervention program


Professional Development Resources

Some of my favorite resources for guided reading are listed below. Just click on the pictures to check them out! You will not be disappointed! 



Till Next Time :)







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