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 I am so honored to receive the award and excited that people out there read my blog because I had originally made it to share resources with my co-workers.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!