Developmental Sequence of Phonological Awareness Skills

admin April 27, 2014 No Comments

Click the following link to download this free handout Developmental Stages of Phonemic Awareness My good friend, Heidi, who is a Reading Specialist at one of our local elementary buildings, asked if I’d be interested in co-presenting with her at our next year’s district-wide professional development day.  I love working with Heidi so, of course, I jumped at the chance.  Next year Heidi and I will be presenting on the topic of phonological and phonemic awareness.  Our target audience will be preschool and Pre-K teachers.  I developed this handout for the presentation and thought others may find it helpful.  Feel free to download it if you’d like!  Enjoy!  

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Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives!

admin April 12, 2014 No Comments

Many of my second and third grade friends are now learning the parts of speech.  I thought I’d create a few posters that they can use for reference.  Here’s a little sampling of the 8 posters that you can download for free.  Just click the link below. Click HERE to download the FREE Parts of Speech Posters from my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I always find sorting activities helpful when teaching a concept.  The Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives! Picture Sorting activity is an ideal introductory activity for teaching the parts of speech.  When you download this activity you’ll receive 66 colorful nouns, verbs and adjective pictures and 2 differentiated templates.  The self-checking feature makes this activity ideal for independent literacy

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Rhyming Ice Cream Cones

admin April 9, 2014 No Comments

These rhyming ice cream cones have certainly been a hit with our little preschoolers and kindergarteners!  The activity is easily differentiated as you can choose how many rhyming cones and scoops to use.  For those kiddos just learning the concept of rhyme, you’ll likely want to start with just 2 cones and gradually add more cones as they become proficient with the skill.  For those students who just need added practice, you can use more cones and just place them in an independent work center.  When you download this activity, you’ll receive 18 rhyming cones with 60 rhyming scoops! The Build An Ice Cream Cone activity is available through the Make, Take & Teach website or through my online Teachers

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Fostering Thoughtful Literacy

admin April 6, 2014 No Comments

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile now, you may know that I actually enjoy reading professional articles and books.  Last year I came across Richard Allington’s article “What Really Matters When Working With Struggling Readers” in the April 2013 of  The Reading Teacher.  I immediatley made copies of the article for all my colleagues.  I think we all read that article over 50 times as each person’s copy was tattered, had rows of text marked with highlights, and notes scribbled in the margins. We talked about the content of that article for months. I will admit, it kind of shook our world.  Several of his issues with current practices of instruction and intervention for struggling students we were actually

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Spring Themed Sight Word Game Boards

admin March 10, 2014 No Comments

 Oh my…. spring is just around the corner.  It certainly has been a long, hard winter.  Creating these spring-themed activities really lightens the mood.  I asked my fabulous artist, Kyle, to create 4 different spring/summer themed game boards and she really out-did herself.  I absolutely LOVE the designs she created.  There are 4 different game board styles- butterflies, bumblebees, ladybugs and umbrellas.  I love each one!  There are 9 game boards containing words from the Dolch 220 sight word lists.  Be sure to download my free Dolch Sight Word assessment so that you know which board is most appropriate for the students. I’ve included black and white copies of each game board.  Many of my teacher friends like to send

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Vision and Reading Difficulties

admin March 1, 2014 No Comments

  It happened again.  I’m reviewing a file of a student having difficulty learning to read and there it is!  A recording of three failed school vision screenings.  I would love to say that this is an isolated incident, but unfortunately, all too often we seem to overlook the obvious.  With all of our literacy screenings, progress monitoring, digging deeper assessments, we have all seemed to neglect the possibilty that the child may not even be able to see the text clearly.  We assume that the parents, after receiving the letter from the health department, followed through on the recommendation for further vision testing.  Ugg…. what valuable instructional time has been lost. Another frustration is that many children who actually

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Multiple Meaning Words- Ice Cream Scoops

admin February 10, 2014 No Comments

When I was a Speech/Language Pathologist I used to love to teach multiple word meanings.  When students understand that a word can have a different meaning depending upon it’s use in oral or written language, their comprehension improves.  There are a lot ways to help students learn multiple meaning words.  The Ice Cream Scoops activity is a fun activity for expanding vocabulary by teaching multiple word meanings.  When you download this activity you’ll receive 16 ice cream cones containing words with two or more definitions.  Students match the definitions to the words.  You’ll want to be sure to have the students use the words in sentence so that they can clearly demonstrate that they understand the word meaning. Storing activities

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Parent Handouts- Phonemic Awareness, Sight Words, Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension

admin February 5, 2014 No Comments

So it’s almost mid-year conference time.  Parents often ask for ideas for helping their child at home.  Here are few handouts that can come in handy.  I’ve developed handouts for each area of literacy.  Each handout briefly explains the area of literacy and then ideas helping their child develop those skills are provided.  Hope you find them helpful! Click the following link to download the Parent Handout for Phonemic Awareness Kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Parent Handout- Kindergarten Click the following link to download the Parent Handout for Phonemic Awareness First Grade Phonemic Awareness Parent Handout- First Grade-1 Just click the following link to download the Parent Handout for Learning Sight Words Learning Sight Words-1 Just click the following link to download the Parent Handout

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Flipping Pancakes!

admin December 31, 2013 No Comments

It’s important to add a little variety into our small group instruction and into our literacy center activities.  Sometimes just adding a little twist to a drill and practice activity can do the trick.  The Flipping Pancakes activity is super easy to make and guaranteed to keep our students engaged.  Simply print the pancakes (laminate if desired) and then cut them out.  Have your students read the words and then flip the pancake with a spatula.  This activity is super simple, but the kids just absolutely love it! Storing your activities can sometimes be a bit challenging.  I typically store mine in baggies, but plastic storage containers will work great too! The Make, Take & Teach Flipping Pancakes activity is

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Motivating Struggling Readers

admin December 26, 2013 No Comments

This is a post about helping children to become better readers- I promise.  Before we talk about reading, however, I’d like to share with you a story about the love-hate relationship that I have with my guitar.  Yep, that’s right- my guitar. Fifteen years ago I was a stay-at-home mom.  My children were just old enough to entertain themselves for brief periods of time so I thought I’d do something new.  That “something” would be learning to play the guitar.  At the time was I attending our contemporary mass at church and a new friend was one of two guitar players.  I asked Lori if she wouldn’t mind teaching me to play. She agreed, so off I went to purchase

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