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Why and How to Teach Sequencing
I had so many questions after reading one of my student’s stories: “I asked my mom if I could have cake and my sister got mad at me. Mom said it was ok so we had the cake. My dad got the cake for my mom.” After questioning, I learned that Dad had bought a…
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Easy Assessments with ESGI
Teachers know assessment is key in planning instruction. BUT, it’s not easy finding time to assess in your already-busy schedule. I used to sit with each of my students for such a long time, then have to manually input data, look at charts across screens or notes…all times the number of students I had. And…
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Favorite Picture Books for a Gingerbread Man Unit
Gingerbread men are a staple during the holiday season! So many people are a fan of the little elusive cookie that everyone wishes to devour. Maybe that’s why there are SO many different versions of the classic story. But you don’t have to go digging through all of them to find the best picture books…
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Using Thematic Word Walls for Writing in Kindergarten and First Grade
If you teach kindergarten or first grade, you know what it’s like to be asked how to spell a word over and over. . . and over again. You likely have some sort of word wall or sound wall on display in your classroom. We often use these “walls” to help students learn sounds or…
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Sentence- Writing Activities For Kindergarten and First Grade
When we teach reading, we don’t expect our students to pick up a book and read, without explicitly teaching them everything from print concepts to decoding and comprehension strategies. So why don’t we do this with writing instruction? In many classrooms, students are expected to just write sentences- or even stories- with very minimal instruction…
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How to Teach Students to Sound out a Word
Stretching the sounds and blending them, aka sounding it out, is a go-to strategy for helping students decode. It’s the oldest reading strategy in the book, but perhaps still the most important. If you’re familiar with my reading strategy resources, you’ll know I use fun characters and interactive PowerPoints to teach decoding strategies and follow up…
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13 Picture Books for Teaching Phonological Awareness and Phonics
Using read-alouds to practice phonological awareness activities is a great way to motivate your little learners while exposing them to lots of important skills. Here are some great picture books for teaching phonological awareness and phonics. I also added ideas for activities to do with most books! *You can click on any title to purchase…
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6 Important Things about Phonemic Awareness
Did you know that phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success? And even though it can be “done in the dark,” that doesn’t mean it has to. It’s so important to make sure our students get enough practice with phonemic awareness along with phonics instruction. Here are some important things to…
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How to Make an Easy Yearlong Writing Portfolio
You don’t have to wait for the end of the year to make a memory book! Make a yearlong scrapbook that doubles as a writing portfolio for kindergarten and first grade! It’s so great to see how your students’ writing progresses throughout the year and doing this little by little avoids trying to cram it…
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Scaffold Writing with Wordless Books to Help Beginning Writers
A great way to scaffold for your emergent writers in kindergarten and first grade is using wordless picture books. These include pictures and students add the text. The word bank helps with spelling and vocabulary. They also include editing pages and students can add details to revise. Read this post to find out how to…
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Invented Spelling: Good or Bad?
One of my favorite things about teaching kindergarten and first grade is reading students’ writing. Sometimes it takes pretty good detective work to decipher it, but you can get so much insight from their invented spelling. Plus, it’s super cute! Obviously, when children are first learning to write, they won’t spell every word correctly. So,…
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Phonological Awareness Activities and Games to Engage Your Students
“C-a-t. . . . MAP!” Ever have students who do that? Even when students know letter sounds, they may still have trouble reading because they don’t blend the sounds correctly. The likely cause is a lack of phonological or phonemic awareness. Phonological, Phonemic: What’s the Difference? First things first, phonological awareness is the ability to…