Close Reading Videos K-3

Great blog post on Close Reading with Little Learners: Click here.

Reading Closely in Kindergarten - Episode 1



Reading Closely in Kindergarten - Episode 2



Close Reading in First Grade - Vocab Focus



Bringing Close Reading and Text Dependent Questions to an Interactive Read Aloud

Bringing Close Reading and Text-Based Questions into an Interactive Read Aloud of Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! (K-2) from TC Reading and Writing Project on Vimeo.

Close Reading with a Visual Text

1st grade - RW Close Reading with Visual Text from Once Upon a Teacher on Vimeo.

Close Reading in Action

Close Reading in Action (Long Version) from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.

Show Me The Evidence!

One thing that our school is heavily focusing on this year is citing evidence to written responses. Our school has focused a lot on sentence stems to actually cite evidence which is great! But the students also have to be able to find the evidence. Here are a couple of ways for your students to locate the evidence and show the teacher where they found the evidence to their answers.

1) Writing the Question # Next to the Evidence

When the students are answering a particular question, have them write the question number directly next to where they found the answer. This shows that they found the evidence and it can help you identify students who need help locating evidence if they constantly are placing the #s in the wrong place.

2) Highlighting Evidence

Have your students use highlighters to highlight their evidence in a passage that has been copied for them.

3) Reading Trackers

Reading trackers are not only good for tracking reading, but they are also good for citing evidence. I actually got this idea from one of my creative colleagues, Deb Wirth. Students can use their tracker to to find their evidence and show the teacher.

4) Colored Overlays

One final strategy is to use colored overlays. These are really nice for when a student needs to use a text book or something that cannot be copied. The student just lays the overlay on the page and can use a dry erase marker to underline evidence. If you don't want to purchase the overlays, then you can use extra lamination.

The colored trackers and the colored overlays help the students remember things better because the brain sees and remembers color first. "Color opens up other areas of the brain and allows great and easier learning and remembering." So by using the colored overlays and trackers to cite evidence, the students are not only practicing an important skill, they are also remembering the content better. To read more on Learning Through Color, click here.



Happy Evidence Citing!

Plickers

Tonight I was attending a webinar on Active Engagement Strategies with Laura Candler and I learned about this fabulous new response system called PLICKERS! Its a free app and an alternative to clickers, activeexpressions, etc.

Why Should I Use Plickers?

• ITS FREE!
• It requires no electronic devices in your student's hands.
• Its another way to actively engage all students.

But How Does It Work?

• Each student gets a unique barcode on a piece of paper.
• Students answer questions by showing their barcodes to their teacher's smartphone.
• The teacher gets a real time graph of the data for informal assessment.

See It In Action:



Just sign up for an account, create a class, print the cards, and Go! Its that easy!!!

Happy Teaching!

Why You Should Read Children's Books As An Adult

As a teacher, it is important to practice what you preach. So if we are pushing our students to read everyday, so should we. Donalyn Miller, the author of "The Book Whisperer," suggests setting aside just 15 minutes per day to read. We all have 15 minutes somewhere that we can fit reading in. Also, as adults we suggest books to our friends and colleagues if we have read them before. Every day we are trying to suggest books for our students, but how many of them have you read? Even as adults we should still be reading children books and here are the reasons why:

1. It's fun
2. It keeps your imagination active.
3. It strengthens your relationship with the children in your life who read.
4. It sets an example for the children in your life, making them more likely to become readers.
5. It clues you in on cultural references that you may have missed (both current and classical).
6. It's fast. Children's books are usually shorter than adult books, so if you don't think you have time to read, you DO have time to read children's books.
7. It allows you to read across genres. Children's books aren't limited.
8. Its like time travel--it's an easy way to remember the child you once were, when you first read a book.
9. It's often inspirational--reading about heroes and bravery and loyalty makes you want to be a better person. And couldn't we all do with some of that?
10. Did I mention that it's fun?

Source: Jen Robinson's Book Page, 2005.

We are always trying to make our students lifelong readers and instill a love for reading in them. If we are reading more, and reading more children's books, it will become easier for us to suggest books to them. We will be able to connect to our students more because of this and form bonds over books that we might discover together.

Check out "The Book Whisperer" by Donalyn Miller for more information about "awakening the inner reader in every child."

Happy Reading!

Remind 101

With our new multi-measure evaluations in PA, one of my goals was to boost parent communication. I used to send out mass e-mails which was time consuming and not everyone checks their e-mails regularly. But do you know what most people do check regularly? TEXT MESSAGES! Now I'm sure you're thinking, "I am not giving out my cell phone # to parents." Well guess what, you don't have to! There is a new app called Remind101. Once you download it to your smart phone you can set up classes and have parents subscribe via a personalized code. Watch the video below to learn more:

Remind101 from remind101 on Vimeo.

What are some of the features?:

• Private; Teachers never seen parent #'s and parents never see teacher's #
• Easy to Use; students or parents sign up by sending a text message or e-mail.
• Sends messages; you can easily send a message to every parent in each class.
• Scheduling; you can easily schedule a message to be delivered at a later date.
• History; it keeps a history of past messages sent.
• Free; it is free to sign up for an account.

Why do I think Remind101 is so great?
3 Words: FAST, SAFE, EASY:

Want to learn more? Visit Remind101 to see more of the great features!

When teachers and parents work together, our students will be more successful!
Happy Texting!

July Currently

Better late than never! Even though its almost August, I thought I would add my July Currently from Oh' Boy 4th Grade. These "Currently" posts are a great way to link up with other blogs and find lots of great ideas! So here it goes:

Learning Objectives and Essential Questions

With our school's transition to the Common Core Standards, we have decided to start posting Essential Questions and Learning Objectives for Reading and Math. Learning Objectives are very important because the provide the students with what they need to learn or the "right stuff." Essential questions are great because they are phrased as higher order questions to really get the students thinking about what they will be learning. When higher order questions are used, students are more likely to understand and retain information.

There is a slew of posters out there made for you already on teacherspayteachers. The ones our school chose have both the essential questions and learning objectives for Reading and Math. See Below:


Kindergarten


First Grade


Second Grade


Third Grade


Fourth Grade


Fifth Grade
The next part most people are wondering is, "How do I post these in my room?" My opinion is, you do what works best for you. For the more visual learners though, I have posted some examples below.













I am very excited for this transition because my students will always know what they are supposed to be learning and where to find it. Having every teacher do this as well ensures that we are all covering our standards, even if we are teaching them in different ways.

Happy Reading!

Words of the Week

I don't know about your schools, but ours is very large. I get quite the workout when I go and pick up my primary students. When I first started teaching I felt like I was losing a lot of time transitioning in the hall to pick up my students, so I wanted to maximize our time together. This is where my "Word of the Week" comes into play!

When I was tutoring in the America Reads program, a teacher taught me that you teach your students where to stop in the hallways. This helps with managing your class (i.e. prevents those huge gaps in line, allows you to keep an eye on all of your students, and makes them wait for you when you have to stop and briefly talk to another teacher) Therefore, I placed these "Word of the Week" posters at all of my stopping points along the way to my classroom. The reasoning is two fold. One, it allows me to manage my groups better. Two it maximizes their learning time with me because of the words I place on the posters for them to practice reading. The words I use range from simple sight words to different types of syllables.

Below is an example of my posters:



I took the template and taped it to a large piece of construction paper and then laminated it. Masking tape is all you need to hang these puppies up! I laminated the word cards for durability and put velcro on the back of them so I can easily switch them out from week to week.

Click here to download my "Word of the Week" template.

Click below to download the word cards that I use:

Preprimer Words
Primer Words
First Grade Words
Second Grade Words
Closed Syllables
Open Syllables
Vowel-Consonant-e Syllables
Vowel Team Syllable
Consonant -le Syllable
R Controlled Syllable
Mixed Syllable

Some wonderful colleagues of mine made all of the Preprimer, Primer, First and Second grade word cards. They were nice enough to share them with me and gave me permission to post them on my blog. So a special thank you goes out to Connie LaCoe and Stacey Shaffer!

So next time you are walking down the hall to take your class somewhere or pick some one up for small group instruction, ask yourself how much time did it take you and how could you better utilize that time?


Happy Reading!

No Hassle Rewards

The Title I Reading classroom is a very unique setting. Its unlike many regular education classrooms because its a small group setting where the students are only there from 30-45 minutes daily. This makes behavior management different than the average elementary classroom.

So what do you do? Well like any teacher, you create and steal ideas until you've designed what works best for you! I used the "Whole Brain Teaching" method of points. When the students do something good, they get a point. When they do something they're not supposed to do, I get a point. The object is to beat the teachers in points by the end of the week to earn their reward.

Rewards can be tricky, too. I don't always want to give the students material things, but I also don't want to take instructional time away. So I made these "No Hassle Rewards" that the students work for each week. Some of them we can do while instruction is happening. Others just take 5-10 minutes on a Friday to complete. Check out some examples below:

Click here to download my "No Hassle Rewards".

Happy Reading!

"Phantastic" Phonics Phones

What did I do on my day off today you ask? I made phonics phones! Phonics phones are essential in any primary classroom. They're great when teaching phonics and phonemic awareness.

As a reading specialist, I work with many students who have deficits in these areas and the phonics phones always help them to hear themselves better during instruction. Did you ever notice that many times students can blend together a word when you sound it out for them? In many cases its because they can't hear the sounds well enough themselves. The phonics phone helps them amplify the sound.

Test taking situations are another great use for phonics phones. It helps many of our reluctant readers slow down and listen to what they are reading. It allows them to clarify meaning while they are reading.

So here's how you can make your very own phonics phone:

Head over to Lowes, Home Depot, or your friendly neighborhood hardware store. Pick up 2, 3/4" PVC elbow joints. I just bought a whole bag. It was cheaper that way. Then pick up a 3/4" PVC pipe. These come in 5' and 10' sections so you will have to cut it down to 3 1/2" sections. The friendly people at Lowes or Home Depot can do this for you as well if you don't have access to a hack saw.

( P.S. Don't mind the leftover henna on my hand from a wedding I went to last weekend)

Next? Put them together. Attach the elbow joints on either end of the pipe and viola! I made mine a little bit prettier, too by adding some colorful duct tape that I picked up at Target.

Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy...as my students like to say. Now I have a set for my students to use! The colorful duct tape makes them more alluring to my students as well. And it is helping them to be better readers when they use them. Win, win!

Happy Reading!

My Heart is with Sandy Hook Elementary

Donors Choose

Want to help a school in need? Thinking about giving a gift that will make a huge impact this holiday season? How about helping our school?
North Salem Elementary is now on Donorschoose.org. It is a great website where people in the community can reach out and help schools in need. We are currently working on building a book room with sets of books (6 of the same book) for small group instruction. We are only asking for a little, but the impact will be huge! In addition, Build-A-Bear Workshop has given us a match offer. That means, for every $1 you give to our project, Build-A-Bear will match it!

Please Donate Today!

Happy Holidays!

Leibster Award!

So guess what? I've been nominated for the "Leibster Award" by Judy over at "It's Raining Resources." What is a Leibster Award you ask? It's a really neat award they give out to blogger newbies. I am so honored to receive the award and excited that people out there read my blog because I had originally made it to share resources with my co-workers. It definitely made my day when I read the e-mail. :)

So let's get down to the rules!

1. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.
3. Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.
4. Choose 11 other blogs with fewer than 200 followers to nominate and link them in your post.
5. You cannot “tag back” the other blog, but leave a comment on this post with the URL of your Liebster post so I can learn more about you & see whom you nominate.

11 Random Things About Me

1. My two front teeth are false when knocking them out in 4th grade.
2. I can touch my tongue to my nose.
3. I love peanut butter and could just eat it by itself with only a spoon!
4. This is my third year teaching.
5. My sister and I are both teachers so we always share ideas.
6. I can't function unless my classroom is organized.
7. 7 is my lucky number.
8.I still believe in chivalry.
9. I love seeing that "ahah!" moment on my student's faces.
10. I think our school has such a nice population of students!
11. I believe there is good in everyone.

Questions from It's Raining Resources

1. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Listening to Mike play Christmas music on the piano.
2. How do you get to school each day? I drive in my little VW jetta.
3. What is a management tip/strategy that never fails for you? Whole Brain Teaching strategies. They work well for attention grabbers, modeling skills, and cooperative learning!
4. How many countries have you been to? 5 (US, Canada, England, Scotland, and France)
5. What is the best book you've ever read? Any Chris Van Allsburg book. Love that author!
6. Why do you teach? To help children succeed!
7. Red licorice or black? Red!
8. What do you do to pass time on long car trips? Over Thanksgiving on my road trip home, my boyfriend and I had dance parties in the car while we were stuck in traffic. It definitely made it fun!
9. What are your thoughts on homework? Homework should only be sent home if it is a skill they already know and should be started in school.
10. Staying home or visiting others for the holidays? Visiting Mike's family for Christmas.
11. What is your favorite dessert? Anything with chocolate and PB!

Blogs I've nominated for the Leibster Award

Tales from a Third Grade Splashroom
The Hip Teacher
Sweet Life of Second Grade
I Live to Learn, I Love to Grow
Kindergarten and Mooneyisms
Free on TPT 2nd Grade
T is for Teaching
4th Grade Haps and Hacks
Permanently Primary
Mrs. Kelly's Klass
Orange Polka Dots
Questions for you!

1. In what part of the country do you teach?
2. Why do you blog?
3. Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas?
4. What strategies do you employ for difficult students?
5. Favorite blogger to follow?
6. Best blogging tip?
7. Best Read Aloud?
8. Does your school have a book room? If so, how often do you use it?
9. Where do you go online to find additional resources?
10. Do you give presents to you class for Christmas? If so, what?
11. How is your classroom library organized? Genres or levels?


Again, I am so grateful for this award and happy to have more followers!


Happy Reading!

Guess the Reader

One awesome thing about our school is all of the bulletin board space in the hallways to display student work. This month, our Intervention Specialist and myself worked on an interactive bulletin board for the entire school. We took pictures of most of our teachers with their favorite book, but we took the picture with the book over their face. That way students would have to guess what book belongs to which teacher!

There was a huge buzz outside my room the morning that we put the BB up. The students were so engaged in the BB and couldn't wait to submit their guesses. Even better is that it got them talking about their teachers and books in a positive way. I would even see students get their friends to come down and make guesses. All the teachers were so great about getting involved, too! Every time they walked by with their classes I would hear, "I wonder which one is me?"

Check out the pictures below:

What can you do to get your students talking about books in a positive and fun way?

Happy Reading!

Sight Word Games

Sight words are very important to teach beginning readers. Often times sight words do not follow phonics rules so they can be daunting to readers at first. We need to teach our students that there are exceptions to the phonics rules so that they don't become frustrated if they can't decode the word.

Sight words are also important to learn because when students can recognize them instantly and effortlessly, they are able to read with a better fluency rate. Therefore, they will have more cognitive capacity to comprehend the text.

Below are sight word card cames for Preprimer, Primer, First Grade, and Second Grade. Normally, Dolch words are broken up into Preprimer, Primer, First Grade, Second Grade, and Third grade, however; our school condensed them into four lists so we would align more with the curriculum.

Click below to download the games:

Preprimer Angry Birds

Primer Uno

First Grade Popcorn

Second Grade Buzzz


Happy Reading!

7 Keys to Comprehension Livebinder

"Sounding out or decoding words is part of the reading puzzle but falls short of real reading. If children don't understand what they read, they're not really reading. If they don't unlock meaning as they read, the words are boring babble and they will never read well or enjoy reading." ~ Susan Zimmerman & Chryse Hutchins

Research has shown us how to teach our students how to read and get it through the "7 Keys to Comprehension."

What are the 7 Keys you ask?

1) Visualizing
2) Making Connections
3) Asking Questions
4) Inferring
5) Determining What's Important
6) Synthesizing
7) Fix Up Strategies

Need More Information?

Powerpoint of the 7 Keys to Comprehension
7 Keys to Comprehension Posters
Parent Handout
Want to help your students learn the 7 keys but need resources? This is where the wonderful world of livebinders comes into play. Below you will find a livebinder that I made dedicated to the 7 Keys to Comprehension. Browse through the resources and print or save whatever you'd like!

7 Keys to Comprehension

Happy Reading!

My New Favorite Tool: Livebinders!

Does this look familiar?

Don't you just love those big, heavy binders full of resources? No? Didn't think so...The resources are great, but storing them can be a chore as well as sharing them with others. In this age where everything has gone digital there has to be another way! And there is!

Let me introduce you to my new favorite tool: Livebinders! This site lets you organize all those great resources you have in an online binder.

What can you upload?

• PDFS
• Videos
• Images
• URLs

How can this help me?

• Save time and access your Livebinder from anywhere
• Share your Livebinder with others
• Make as many Livebinders as you want!
• Update information easily and avoid layout issues

How can I sign up for a Livebinder?

• Go to www.livebinders.com
• Go ahead and sign up; accounts are free!
• Now sit back and enjoy your eco-friendly binder

Still have questions?

• Watch this video

Still Skeptical?

• Check out examples of great Livebinders

Happy Organizing!

What is Inferring Anyway?

"Read between the lines."
Like the authors of the book "The 7 Keys to Comprehension", I have often heard this phrase throughout my education but never fully understand what it meant. Imagine your students vigorously searching between the lines of the text. Imagine how frustrated they become when they realize there's nothing actually written between the actual lines of the text! A better way to explain it is to say "inferring involves forming a best guess about what the "evidence" (words, sentences, and paragraphs) means; speculating about what's to come; then drawing conlusions." (Hutchins & Zimmerman, 2003)

Learn more about what Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins say about Inferencing
from their book "The 7 Keys to Comprehension":

Chapter 5 Weaving Sense into Words
Key 4: Drawing Inferences Fast Facts


Let's get down to the RESOURCES:

Comic Strips are a great way to introduce the concept of Inferring because you must use the clues from the pictures in addition to your background knowledge to understand the punch line.
Far Side comics are a great tool!

Click for Google Search of Far Side Comics




A great way to practice Inferring is through the use of videos. Pixar is famous for making short films. Lucky for us, they are all available on Youtube. Check out this short flick about the Stork:



Have the students watch the entire film first. Then watch it again, but stopping to ask inferencing questions the second time around. There are lots of these videos on youtube that you can search for. Just type in "Pixar Short Films" in the search bar. Below is a link to the flicks I found on Pinterest:

Pinterest Board of Inferencing Videos

Finally here is a great web resource to help with
direct instruction and independent practice with Inferencing:

Into the Book is a great website for all comprehension strategies and it has a page dedicated just to Inferencing. They have lessons, videos, graphic organizers, research, suggested books for teaching, additional links, and the suggested language for explaining Inferencing to students.

Happy Inferencing!


C. Hutchins & S. Zimmerman (2003). 7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read it and Get it! Portsmouth, NY: Three Rivers Press.

The Levels are Changing! The Levels are Changing!

Now that I've gained your attention, the news is that Fountas & Pinnell are changing their Guided Reading levels to align with new trends in literacy achievement based on the following:

• Technology use among preschoolers and school-aged children have increased. Kids are using devices such as smart phones, tables, and computers.
• There is been a substantial increase in preschool enrollment since the 80’s; a 52% increase in 2009.
• An increase of full day kindergarten programs have increased our student’s literacy achievement, thereby increasing their exposure to literacy rich opportunities.

Their current Text Level Gradient is as follows:

Their NEW Text Level Gradient shows new grade level
expectations in regards to entry and exit levels:

So what exactly did they change and why? Well, you have two options:

Read the entire article: click here.

Read my fast facts: click here.

We as educators want to create proficient readers. ~Readers may take different paths to proficiency, but we ultimately want the same outcome. (Marie Clay 1991) The revision of the new F&P Text Level Gradients can help serve as a guide as we lead our students along the path to proficiency.

Happy Reading!

Ready & Looking ;) ... for Books!

One of our goals as educators is to create independent and lifelong readers.

We work hard to introduce our students to a variety of genres.

Our libraries are well organized with a plethora of books to engage all readers.

We spark their interests with new topics and exciting plots.

We do book previews to try and hook students into reading instead of
watching yet another TV show or movie.

But with everything going on in our classrooms these days, its hard to
drill down on each student's favorite type of book or find the time
to make a good suggestion for another alluring read.

However, there are options and tools to help us with this:
The first option is a website called bookseer.com. Basically, the student goes to the website, types in what they've just finished reading, and then the site generates a list of books similar to the one the student just read. For a student who finally found a book they love to read, this site is great because it helps them find similar books so they can continue to grow in that love of reading.

Book Seer

Another site that also generates book recommendations is whatshouldireadnext.com. Yet another great tool to help students find that next great read!

What Should I Read Next?

Have you ever heard of Pandora? That great music site where you can type in a artist or song and it plays songs similar for you to listen to? Welcome to the book version of that site. Booklamp.org is an online database where you can type in an author or book and it generates similar ones. The goal is to connect readers to a larger world of books.

Book Lamp

When children read, their minds are able to travel to places they never thought possible. Let's keep their imaginations soaring and put the tools at their fingertips.

Happy Reading!