The Read to Self THINKmark: A FREEBIE for you!

Are you looking for more opportunities to encourage your students to apply what they have learned from your phonics instruction while they read?
Let me share this strategy with you!

We all know that children LOVE to read and be read to! The method described below gives them an opportunity to do both.

When your students are reading independently, have them hunt for spelling patterns that they are currently studying and prepare a THINKmark to share with the class.

This will give each child in your class an opportunity to “teach” their peers, read to the class and learn from each other!

This is especially powerful if you are managing differentiated Word Study groups such as Words Their Way. Your students will be exposed to a variety of phonics rules as they listen for spelling patterns presented by their peers!

Right here, and now, I will share with you my tried and true method of how to disguise Read to Self as a little more: Word Study! Using what kids love:

You can find The Read to Self THINKmark FREEBIE at the shop by clicking HERE!

My Word Study Goal Is…

I have found it extremely beneficial to provide my students with a Word Study goal that changes each time we study a new spelling pattern. I assign these "I can" statements as individual reading goals to hold students accountable for their reading achievement. This set of 47 Phonics and Reading Goals Posters with “I can” statements provide the students with a visual reminder as to what their Word Study focus is. It works! I promise.

My Gumball Is...

I use this Interactive Phonics Notebook as a supplement to our Read to Self, Guided Reading and Reader’s Workshop routines.

While reading, my students hunt for the spelling patterns that they are currently studying. They add each word to their collection of “gumballs”. After they have met the desired number of words on each page they earn a gumball for their gumball machine! The kids LOVE going on a word hunt!

What are “Gumballs”?

Students enjoy this color-coded strategy to help them identify the various spelling patterns in the words they read and write. 

What do you do with the Sticky Notes?

After each child shares their “gumball” we display our sticky notes on our True Interactive Word Wall. Students and teacher interact with the Word Wall houses by writing words on a post-it and display it on the word family house. The windows measure to fit a 3x3 post-it!

This interactive Word Wall includes word family houses for all phonograms appropriate for the primary grades. This method aligns with Words Their Way, any Spelling program AND differentiated spelling lists.

You will no longer worry that your Word Wall is just taking up valuable space in your classroom. I have included a 6-page guide to help you EASILY facilitate and manage your Interactive Word Wall. Simply, display these Word Wall houses and let your students do all the work.

44 Word Family Houses are included that feature graphics to reinforce each phonogram:

Short Vowel Rd.

Blends Blvd.

Long Vowel Lane

Bossy R Way

Digraphs St.

Diphthongs Dr.

To read a full description of how it is utilized in the primary classroom visit: A True Interactive Word Wall.

What is a Smart Cookie?

Our smart cookie jar is filled with "smart cookies"...yes, Cookie Crisp cereal!  It's that simple.  My students will go out of their way to earn ONE "smart cookie" during Share Time.  It is truly a tasty incentive.

You can find three options for the Smart Cookie Jar label HERE at the shop.

I do hope you find the Gumballs Phonics strategy useful in your classroom!  

It has worked wonders in mine!

Summer Reading Goals & Paper Chains

 

These last couple weeks of school are just flying by with all the hustle and bustle of our End of Year celebrations. I am so very proud of all that my firsties have accomplished this school year.

The end of the year brings such a flurry of emotions. Excitement for summer, inspiration for a new school year, relief, stress, and the anticipation of less stress. Woot!

However, with that, the last day blues may start to kick in and you begin to worry that your young readers will forget all the wonderful strategies you taught them throughout the year. The dreaded "summer slide"...

To help combat this fear, my students set reading goals for themselves to help hold them accountable. We created Summer Reading Goal Paper Chains!

I began by telling my students the truth of what happens to students over summer break….the “summer slide”. They were appalled by this news. I asked them what could they do to avoid such a phenomenon. I happily received a smart answer: READ during the summer.

At this point, my students began making statements that they were going to read EVERY day. But then others piped in, and said they may not be able to do that because of family vacations and of course some of my firsties have a summer birthday so they would be too busy to read on that day (they are too cute).

This led to discussion of how many days long our summer vacation is. So, we counted: 76! We had a serious discussion of what was an acceptable number of days to read since summer was a busy time with their families.

At the primary level, I found it best to measure reading by days rather than by the number of books since there is a great variation in their reading levels. Some students are reading chapter books while others may still be approaching grade level standards.

They then began to set realistic reading goals for themselves and recorded them on a Summer Reading Goal Sheet (available HERE at my TpT store):

Summer Reading Goal Paper Chain

Then the crafting began. We made our paper chains to match the amount of days we planned to read.

I heard them counting by 1s, 2,s and making their chains in groups of 10. I also heard them discussing what books they would read:

“This link is for a nonfiction book about sharks, I want to learn more about killer sharks!” 

“This group of 10 links is for The Magic Tree House chapter book I am going to read because it has 10 chapters…I’ll read a chapter a night!”

This is music to a teacher’s ears!

Not only does the Summer Reading Goal Paper Chain serve its purpose to motivate your young readers to continue their love of reading over the summer, it took them a good hour to create them! It was a great end of the year craftivity! Not that I want to kill time or just throw busy work at them. They truly enjoyed making their paper chains and they were completely engaged in creating them for a great length of time! 

My firsties took these Summer Reading Goal Paper Chains home to their families.

As they read each day over the summer they plan to rip off one link. This colorful paper chain will serve as a visual reminder for them during summer break to read, read, and read some more... and avoid the "summer slide"!

This is a great visual reminder for parents as well; of the value of summer reading.

If you are looking for a Summer Reading List for your students, be sure to visit For the Love of Teacher’s article on Get Your Summer Read On- Reading List & Tips. She offers some great recommendations for favorite reads for kids of all levels, as well as tips and suggestions to provide your students and parents to help avoid the “summer brain drain”. You can read it HERE.

If you would like to read more about our End of Year celebrations, visit the blog post:

Fabulous in First Memory Books with a Growth Mindset

Happy Summer Reading!

4 Tips to Motivate Struggling Readers to DECODE, not GUESS!

As phonics teachers, we spend most of our time teaching our children to READ, and READ some more.  This is not always an easy task.  We take on this responsibility and are continuously searching for the right strategies and tools that will provide our young readers with ample opportunities to feel successful and look forward to reading.  I have a few tips and tricks to share with you!

Young readers are training their eyes to identify the many phonics rules as they read.  As we read, we are constantly on the look out for word chunks that will help us decode new words we encounter in the books we love.  To help my students locate these "word chunks" we have a color coded system that we call "gumballs".

My students use this system all day.  They color code their sight words, the articles, poems and word problems we read.  They even love to "gumball up" their own writing!  It is a wonderful sight to see how they thrive using this visual and kinesthetic approach to phonics.  And their work looks beautiful.  To learn more about our Gumball Collections click HERE.

Up until now, my students were simply using their crayons or highlighters to gumball up the word chunks during our phonics activities.  But look at what I discovered at Oriental Trading!!!!

Washable Mini Dot Markers!!!!

They work like a charm.  The dot is the perfect size for printed text for primary grades!

Before reading the passage, students do a bit of word work by hunting for the spelling pattern. One dot and their pages are color coded with the current phonics rule we are focusing on.  Then when it comes time to decode the text, their eyes are able to identify the word chunk immediately.

In the photo above, you can see how one of my students is highlighting the /ea/ phonics rule with one quick dab of the Washable Mini Dot Markers.  The kids love using them, I love them because they come in a variety of colors...to match our color coded system!  It's a win-win!  Be still my teacher heart. I'm in love with them!!!

I have also found providing my students with a Phonics Goal to encourage them to take ownership of their learning. I have created a set of 22 posters with "I can" statements to help my firsties focus on the spelling pattern we are studying in our differentiated Word Study Groups. If you would like to learn more about how we go about this click HERE.

Have you found some of your reluctant readers having trouble with one-to-one correspondence when reading from leveled texts?  This is such an important skill for emerging readers.  However, it can be frustrating when they slide their fingers across the text and just GUESS!

Look at these Arrow Finger Readers I discovered at Oriental Trading to motivate my struggling readers to slow down and decode each word:

My firsties were so excited to use these new tools.  It's amazing how your tactile learners thrive when you give them a simple tool to manipulate.  These Arrow Finger Readers were proven to motivate my young readers!

Using these simple yet effective manipulatives along with a little encouragement and reminders...

"Get your lips ready, kiddos and make that beginning sound...  

Look for the word chunks...

Stretch out the word until it makes sense..."

young readers begin to utilize the strategies you have taught them. They know them by name!  In fact we have "Reading Buddies" in our classroom that remind us of what to do when we come across a tricky word:

You can find this set of 8 Reading Strategies Posters with "I can" Statements at my TpT store:Reading Strategy Goals with "I can" Statements Poster Set

And there you have it.  4 Tips to Motivate Emergent Readers to
DECODE and not GUESS!

If you are interested in BOTH the Reading and Phonics Goal Posters Sets you can download both HERE as a bundled set:

Disclosure: The K Files & Oriental Trading partnered for the purpose of this post. I received free samples of Oriental Trading products, but all opinions are my own and 100% honest.

Words Their Way, OUR way Part 4: Motivation & Goal Setting

Now that you have prepped your resources, you are ready to forge ahead with your differentiated Word Study groups. But before you do, I have some tips to help you motivate your students to achieve with goal setting!

Motivate Your Students with a Theme and Goal Setting

Our Word Work differentiated groups are organized by “rock bands” because we are “Rockin’ Readers & Super Star Spellers” (students will be able to transfer the spelling patterns they learn in their Word Work to their Writing and Reading)!

Each Word Study group’s goal is displayed under their rock band’s name. Each student’s name is clipped to the phonics goal beneath. The students truly love being part of a rock band and celebrate when each band meets their goal with a cheer: “Rock on!” because EVERYONE is a star.

If you would like to download a copy of the bulletin board graphics, planning bin labels and related resources to help make planning your differentiated Words Their Way groups a breeze, visit my TpT store: Differentiating Words Their Way: Organization & Routines BUNDLE

The Phonics Goals Poster Set with “I can” statements provide the students with a visual reminder as to what their Word Study focus is. All the goals are displayed in the classroom on a clothesline. When the students are ready for a new goal we take the goal poster down and display it under their rock band’s name on our Word Study bulletin board. Their previous goal is then returned to the clothesline as a visual reminder as to what they have already accomplished. The students refer to them as they are reading and writing. The goal posters encourage students to take accountability for their learning!

 

If you would like to download a copy of The Phonics Goal Poster Set please click HERE.

Now that you have motivated your students and set goals, you are ready to introduce your Word Study routines. I have some tips to help you introduce these routines whole group so that later on, your students will have clear expectations as to what they are to accomplish as they work independently in the Word Study center.  To learn more, read on:

Words Their Way, OUR way Part 5: Routine & Differentiated Mini-lessons

If you would like to download a copy of the planning bin labels and related resources to help make planning your differentiated Words Their Way groups a breeze, visit my TpT store:

Differentiating Words Their Way: Organization & Routines BUNDLE

This is what is included:

This is a seven-part blog series.

Click below to jump right to what you need to know:

Words Their Way-- OUR Way PART 1: Getting Started

Words Their Way-- OUR Way PART 2: Getting Organized

Words Their Way-- OUR Way Part 3: Planning and Prep

Words Their Way-- OUR Way Part 4: Motivation & Goal Setting

Words Their Way-- OUR Way Part 5: Routine & Mini-lessons
Words Their Way-- OUR Way Part 6: Word Study Assessment
Words Their Way-- OUR Way Part 7: Read to Self as Word Study

Reading Strategy Goals with Beanie Baby Friends

My students absolutely adore our (beanie baby) Reading Friends and poster set!
As I introduce the many reading strategies at the beginning of the year I always have a little help from our "Reading Friends".  Here you can see how Stretchy Snake helps us remember to stretch out the letter sounds we hear in the new words we encounter in our reading:

Stretchy Snake is not our only Reading Strategy friend in our classroom! 

Our reading buddies help the students focus on becoming good readers.  Each of my students is assigned a beanie buddy as a reading goal to start off the year.  Once they have learned the reading strategy their "beanie buddy" they are ready to become best buddies with a new goal. Notice how I post their name next to the poster to remind them of their reading goal.

I can not begin to express how effective this is in my classroom of firsties. They are eager to become friends with the whole clan of Reading Buddies.  They sure do motivate my students to pick up on their helpful tips!  

Try it in your classroom, you'll love it!

You can purchase the 8 poster set at my TPT store:

Reading Strategy Goals with "I can" Statements, Poster Set

Launching the Reader's Workshop

I am a huge fan of Lucy's Reader's Workshop.
First graders are such enthusiastic readers.
Together we are building good reading habits and dropping the bad ones:

  

And a few more charts for our anchor lessons:

 

Read! and Read some more!

Phonics Reading Goals for Emergent Readers

Assign these "I can" statements as individual reading goals 

to hold students accountable for their reading achievement. 

AND IT WORKS!

I purchased the beanie babies to match the reading strategy posters.  The kids love them!

Included are a set of phonics based reading goals. Here is a sampling:

 Whenever I conference with a student, and during our guided reading groups we revisit their reading goal and determine if they are ready set a new goal.  I move their star accordingly!  If they have met their goal, I print out a copy of the strategy poster as a reward for them to take home.

And... there are more to come!

I will continue to update the product as I create more goals!

Printing Tips:

Print one per page in color for classroom display
and clip students names according to their personal reading goal. 

Print 2-4 on a page and send home for parent awareness/involvement. 

Print 2-4 on a page and document student growth in a data portfolio. 

You can purchase a complete set at my TPT store:

Foundational Skills Reading Goals

Enjoy!