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Creativity to the Core

Decor, Misc

Hey everyone! I am thrilled to be sharing some improvements with you today as part of the #2getherwearebetter monthly link up hosted by Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd & Lucky Little Learners. Today, we are talking about classroom improvements. We are thinking about this past year, learning from it, and making improvements throughout our teaching and our classrooms! REFLECT After co-teaching in two third grade classrooms this year, I have learned a lot about myself and other classroom management techniques. I have seen my co-teachers do things that I would NEVER have done or even thought to do in my own classroom (positive things, I promise!). I watched as they allowed a child to read and come to centers on his own time in order to not “throw him off” or provoke a meltdown. I have worked daily in classrooms that were so completely different than mine, but have grown to love their differences. This year was also an important one in my professional career. I completed my master’s degree in Reading and began assisting in and teaching professional development opportunities at my school. As I look back on my first major presentation to staff, I laugh. It seems like I have come leaps Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

I am so {beyond} excited to be sharing my schedule with you today as part of the #2getherwearebetter monthly link up hosted by Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd & Lucky Little Learners. (Let’s just stop right here and talk about two of the most genuine, friendly, encouraging ladies on the face of the planet! …I may be biased; Ashley & Angie are amazing!) Scheduling is my thing. I love it. Could be my type A personality. Could be my colorful flair pens…but I love it.  Wait! 🙂 My schedule is a bit confusing and very broken down into groups and rotations. I co-teach during reading only, so this is helpful to note: 8:00-10:10 – Classroom A with Ms. H, Reading 10:40-2:00 – Classroom B with Ms. N, Reading (No, I do not have my own classroom this year, however, I do have students registered under my name, if that makes sense…) —– Here’s a little peek into my day of co-teaching third grade! 8:00-8:15 (Classroom A) Welcome students, attendance, check homework, announcements, begin morning review. Homework usually consists of a reading comprehension passage and a math review page. We check homework for completion (Except if there are BIG noticeable mistakes…then we Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

  Are you ready for testing?!?! We are! We have one more school day before the FSA (Florida Standards Assessment) reading test. Over the past few weeks, we have been working oh so hard to get ready. We have reviewed in groups, in small group, in pairs, and independently. But, truth is, we are all sick of reading comprehension pages and practice assessments. (Can I get an AMEN?!) Sometimes they are just not fun to do. As teachers, we can change this attitude! This year, my co-teacher incorporated many fun activities in order to keep our students engaged while continuing to practice using our strategies in the text and on test questions. I am sharing three of our favorites with you today! These “games” are extremely simple to make and will not break the bank. Many thanks to the Dollar Store! Plus, all of these activities can be saved for next year! Students should read the passage(s) and answer all questions first, showing their evidence in the passage. All of these activities are to be done while REVIEWING the answers with students. The review can happen in small groups or whole group. Ping Pong Balls & Cups Place cups in Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

I’ve recently been spending a lot of time studying and reviewing for my state’s K-12 Reading assessment which I have to pass to obtain my Master’s degree in Reading. This test also certifies you to be a Reading Specialist, if you so choose. As I was talking to my friend from class who already took the test, she said, “I thought it focused a lot on emergent literacy, but you’re more…you know…you’re dealing with that every day.” As I read through the emergent literacy section of the review book, I realized that there were SO many technical terms that primary teachers use quite often. On the other hand, intermediate elementary teachers may not.  My friend has been in all of the same courses as me in the last two years, but she didn’t feel as confident with these terms. All of a sudden it made SO much sense to me! I mean, we’re human. If we don’t use complex (Tier 3, if you will) vocabulary often, we forget the true meaning. I get confused and think too far into all of these Ph words often, so these are the details that have helped me! Let’s take a look at a Continue Reading

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Misc

“Every child in your class is someone’s whole world.” -Unknown My brother is diagnosed PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified) with a processing disorder. That means that he is on the spectrum, but they aren’t quite sure what he has.  This past weekend, we toured a fully accredited college that is specifically designed for students with learning disabilities and/or ADHD. (If you haven’t heard of Beacon College, check it out! It is amazing!) It is there that we realized that he is not ready. There are too many reasons to list to describe why Michael is not ready. I have been in a funk since last weekend because my mind has been filled with the doubts and the uncertainties of his future. However, that is not my focus today. I want to look past that. Far too often we focus on the negative. Let’s change our perspective, and think of what students succeed at, what students find joy in. —– Visualize your students. Write down the names of your “low”, “struggling”, “behavior” students. Think about how many of them are formally diagnosed (with anything). Picture the ones that you can sense have “just a little something else going Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

Hey! I am so excited to share my brand new game show idea with you!  I have some third graders who are quite low. They struggle with vocabulary and basic sentence structure. I decided that I needed to think of a way to engage them, but still teach hard-core vocabulary before our state assessment. So, I began working on this game show product a few weeks ago. Since then, it has been played by my kiddos and edited by many other teachers to make sure that there are no kinks. I am happy to announce that my first digital game show is posted and ready to be enjoyed by many students! Keep reading to hear more about it, and scroll down for a link to the product. What is a digital game show? Basically, it is like playing Jeopardy! The game is created in PowerPoint and has clickable links throughout. You MUST have PowerPoint to play it. As you click, new pages appear. The kids were amazed that the answers were instantly given to them! Why do I need a digital game show? First of all, who doesn’t love a game show?!?! 🙂  Digital game shows are engaging to all learners Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

Fluency Overview In the past, fluency was defined as the ability to read smoothly and effortlessly, at a quick, automatic rate (Harris & Hodges, 1995; Logan, 1997). A student’s reading rate and accuracy are very important because less time spent on decoding leaves more time for the brain to focus on comprehension. However, after recent research, fluency has come to encompass much more. It now includes prosodic elements such as expression, volume, phrasing, pacing, and smoothness. When students read with prosody, they are able to capture the meaning of the story or script. Current research supports phrasing, pacing, and smoothness as elements that help develop fluency in students. (Clark, Morrison, & Wilcox, 2009) Students who do not read fluently segment the text and read it word by word. However, students who read smoothly with appropriate expression, pacing, and phrasing make reading sound like natural language (Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Fluent reading develops when students are able to make their reading sound like individuals speaking as they do in daily life. Although fluency is a large part of reading curricula, it is often neglected in reading instruction (Reutzel & Hollingsworth, 1993; Zutell & Rasinski, 1991). Many teachers refer to traditional methods of measuring fluency. This is usually comprised of giving students an unfamiliar passage and timing their reading while keeping Continue Reading

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Misc

As I look back on this week, I feel like my fun teacher spirit was dumped off in Timbuktu. We have tested EVERY day this week during our reading block. No small group. No center activities. No hands-on learning. You see, the official countdown to THE BIG TEST began a few weeks ago. Our state test (Florida Standards Assessment, FSA) is in 22 days. So you may ask, “Why in the world are you testing now?” In third grade, students are retained if they do not pass the FSA assessment. There are many other ways to promote to fourth grade, so it’s not black and white. Still, we have to follow the protocol. One important piece of the protocol is the Portfolio testing. This test consists of a series of passages and questions. We assess students on one passage each day. Then after like 2-3 weeks of testing all the different passages, we basically do an item analysis of each standard to see which ones they passed. If the student has “Mastered” all the standards with 70% accuracy, they can be promoted. If they don’t, we continue the process that the county provides (Summer School, alternative testing, etc.). It is Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

Recently, I gave a professional development to the teachers who are new to my school as a requirement for the last semester practicum of my Master’s (yippee!). The PD was focused on how to teach in and through literacy centers. But, not just any literacy centers. Real, data driven, standards based literacy centers.  RIGOR is an important word these days with our new Florida Standards (as with Common Core). The goal of this presentation was to give teachers a deeper look into providing center activities that required students to do more than move task cards, match cards together, or order magnetic letters. I am not against the former. Yes, there is a time and place for both. However, the teachers that were in this PD were interested in how to create activities that would promote the thinking and writing that we are pushing for with our new standards. After many requests, I’ve decided to share some of the slides with you below. Enjoy! Disclaimer: Before we start, I know many people cannot call daily academic activities “centers” anymore, because administration and some researchers associate centers with play. “Stations” is becoming the popular term because it seems more work-based. However, my school still Continue Reading

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Literacy Centers, Misc

I’m linking up with Miss DeCarbo for Wordless Wednesday! I know this is longer than a normal Wordless Wednesday, but I’m excited! This month we’ve been working on identifying character traits in books and short videos. This week, we watched Ormie the Pig. It is an adorable video about a pig who is attempting to get a jar of cookies off of the top of the fridge. He puts many different ideas to use trying to knock the cookies over. The kids LOVED this video. Before watching, students were given this handout. We (teachers only) chose specific traits, and students copied them into the boxes. As they watched the video, students graded Ormie and showed their evidence. We explain a general scale aloud to students before they begin. As you will see below, we allow students to disagree as long as they have evidence to support their opinion! It creates FANTASTIC discussion in groups. And that’s about it! Super simple. Highly engaging. Example Grading Scale for the Character Report Card A = OH! He is definitely _____! B = I see that he is ______. C = He can be _______, but _____. D = He’s not very _________. F = I Continue Reading

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I'm Meredith, a South Florida teacher who loves coffee and creating.
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creativitytothecore

💻DIGITAL PORTFOLIO🗄 In 2017, my husband was 💻DIGITAL PORTFOLIO🗄

In 2017, my husband was starting a new job in a different city and I needed a job. I wasn’t going to be able to travel there to interview as it was about 4 hours north of us. So I decided to create a digital portfolio to essentially allow principals to get an inside view of my classroom from afar. 

📸 I used @weebly because it was easy to create and free! I keep the URL to myself since there are some pictures of student faces. I organized my portfolio by Marzano domains (the teacher evaluation system in FL). Pictures were a must and I linked many videos as well. Essentially, I showed proof of each domain and many of the categories within each domain. ⭐️Swipe to see some snapshots⭐️

💌When I sent emails to principals, I included the link so they could view at their convenience. When I applied online, I dropped the link into the section labeled portfolio or even “Is there anything else you’d like us to know.”

🏆I got a phone call within an hour of sending the email to principals. And I was then hired immediately from that phone interview. I sincerely think that the portfolio helped my principal to “see me in the classroom” without physically seeing me.

👌🏻Ever since, I’ve updated it and used it in every job inquiry and interview. It works every time and I often get comments about how convenient it was for admin.

❤️Do you have a portfolio? Is it digital or in a binder? Has it helped you secure a job? I truly think that digital portfolios will be a huge benefit with interviews under cov!d regulations.❤️

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteach #iteachtoo #teacherinterview #teachingportfolio
Keep reading books to kids, no matter the age!🙌 Keep reading books to kids, no matter the age!🙌🏼

Do you agree? Like, share your thoughts in the comments, and share with anyone you know!!! 🥰

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #readaloud #listeningcomprehension #booklover #structuredliteracy #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #iteachtoo
📢Sound on📢 CC: Students are telling their mo 📢Sound on📢
CC: Students are telling their mom about the word “have”. They say “No English word ends in a V. So you have to put an E after it. But it doesn’t make it “hAve” (long A).🤩

Tonight when I received this video from their mom with the text “I learned something new from them today!” I laughed hard, but I was so so so proud!❤️

My students are continuing our homeschool routine via my lesson plans while out of town. So tonight they taught their mom about the orthography of the English language.🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

💭No English word ends in V. They also don’t end in I, U, or J. (3 exceptions: you, thou, and I)
This explains why HAVE has a silent E at the end, but is not pronounced with a long A. Words that DO end in I, U, V, or J are loan words borrowed from other languages or abbreviations. For example, “menu” is French and “taxi” is an abbreviation.

🤷🏼‍♀️Did you know this? I did not know this until this past year...my 7th year of teaching. If you do know this...when did you learn it?

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #thelogicofenglish #structuredliteracy #phonicsinstruction #english #linguistics #iteachfirst #iteachsecond
This is what we call progress. Week 1 & Week 20. A This is what we call progress. Week 1 & Week 20. Almost 6 months to the day.🙌🏼

📝My second grader needed lots of phonemic awareness, phonics, and writing intervention. We have hashed out those skills nonstop since the first week of August. It’s been an amazing journey to watch. 

📚When I look at these two samples, I see text understanding, sentence structure and variety, written comprehension, and significant phonics growth. Both of these are reading responses to decodable passages. 

❤️On the first page, I had to assist with finding facts, writing sentences, and spelling words. On today’s writing, I only had to help with the EA in “defeated” and when to use -ED. I watched as a previously reluctant writer, finished an entire page of writing while I worked with another student. THAT is called a win.

🤩This is not to toot my own horn. It’s to celebrate my student and his hard work. It’s to focus on the fact that if we are CONSISTENT with foundational skills, they will translate into reading and writing improvements. 

📢Keep on keeping on, friends! Light that spark and watch for these moments that warm our teacher hearts. Progress over perfection!

(Curriculum is a phonics book titled: “From Phonics to Reading” by Wiley Blevins, Sadlier Publishing)

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachtoo #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #phonicsinstruction #structuredliteracy #writeeveryday
🤍If there’s one work thing I’ve been thankf 🤍If there’s one work thing I’ve been thankful for over the last year in this pandemic life, it’s online professional development. Countless webinars, live chats, and courses are available digitally now for free or low cost. It’s been such a year of growth for me!

🤍During most breaks you can find me lesson planning or sitting watching a webinar of sorts (or doing both simultaneously). I enjoy the bit of quiet & cozy up in my swivel chair while highlighting or taking notes. Enneagram 3 for ya...always doing something. I can’t help it.

🤍I should’ve kept track of each session I watched, each course I attended, each article I read. That would’ve been a great addition to a digital portfolio. “The Pandemic PD.” 😂 But I didn’t.

🤍I have really loved The Reading Teacher’s Top Ten Tools course. YouTube videos from The Reading League & PaTTAN are also top notch. If it’s podcasts that you need, check my highlights for suggestions.

🤍The resource pictured here is The Reading Science Academy. It’s a monthly subscription created by Dr. Stephanie Stollar who is a professor at Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati. (MSJ is well known for their masters and doctoral programs in the Science of Reading). The subscription is $9 and offers core and monthly content from experts in the field. I love it so far!

🤍Have you taken virtual PD this year? What has been your favorite? Let us know below so we can all share!👇🏼

#iteachtoo #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #virtualpd #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading #growthmindset #alwayslearningalwaysgrowing
Just a reminder to myself and any other mamas out Just a reminder to myself and any other mamas out there - get IN FRONT of the camera from time to time and have someone else capture some moments for you. ❤️ You won’t regret it!
Sight word = ANY word that is orthographically map Sight word = ANY word that is orthographically mapped and permanently stored in memory so that it is retrieved automatically.

•Sight words are not only Dolch and Fry words. It is not as effective or efficient to memorize irregular words as whole words or by shape.

🎉Spellings of words are bonded to their pronunciations and meanings. (Phonemic awareness and vocabulary instruction are SO essential here!)

•Building your sight word knowledge leads to reading automatically, without decoding each word as you come to it. Reading automatically therefore leads to fluent reading which leads to higher comprehension of what you are reading.

💡When words are mapped and become sight words to us, the connections in our brains are activated EVERY time we see the word, REGARDLESS of if we want to read it or not. If someone flashes a word and takes it away immediately, you will still read the word automatically without even trying to. This is why we can look at something and know what it says before thinking, “Hmmm let me read that!” We cannot keep ourselves from reading a word that we see and we can also not forget how to read a word that we have mapped.🤯

Swipe to read each of the four quotes as they go together and are taken directly from her published work.

Source: Linnea Ehri 1992, 1995
Linnea Ehri is a well known psychologist who has developed and published research on orthographic mapping and the stages of reading (and much more!).
Merry Christmas from our family to yours! ❤️ G Merry Christmas from our family to yours! ❤️ Glory to the newborn King! 👑
We’ve been working on syllable deletion in three We’ve been working on syllable deletion in three syllable words this week and last. Students have been ROCKING it!🌟 

This specific example was our last of an E2 set from Kilpatrick’s Equipped for Reading Success book. I love how she, suddenly and unprompted, realized that the word was like another word she knew.❤️ I went with it and showed her how to manipulate one syllable within 3 syllable words as an intro.

This was randomly caught on video but made me so excited. It shows why phonological awareness is important. It helps students to identify, read, and interact with multi-syllable words.📚

We have manipulatives out and students can use them if they wish. Eventually I notice students rely less on tapping the manipulative and simply answer quickly and automatically.🙌🏼

💭How have you seen manipulatives help with phonological awareness instruction?💭

#iteachtoo #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #phonologicalawareness #equippedforreadingsuccess #syllabledeletion #syllables #multisyllablewords
Quick Tip!💭 Print out a one or two page versio Quick Tip!💭

Print out a one or two page version of a sound wall and use it to track the data from your auditory drills!📝

Auditory drills - ask the student to write all the graphemes or all the ways (that they’ve learned so far) to spell a particular phoneme.🗣 

I just date it and give it a check if it was correct or almost correct. Then I can visually see which sounds we haven’t practiced yet. We do auditory drills about every other day and I just had this idea last week. It’s now saving my sanity!🤣

#iteachfirst #iteachsecond #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #structuredliteracy #auditorydrill #soundwall
Let’s talk about decodable texts.🗣 📚HIGH Let’s talk about decodable texts.🗣

📚HIGH QUALITY decodable texts are extremely helpful for students to transfer knowledge of their learned phonics skills from isolation to within text. Typically, a well written decodable passage or book will have 80% decodable words and 20% high frequency words or content words that do not follow a typical pattern.

📚HIGH QUALITY decodables are engaging, develop a story line or share factual information. They do NOT have sentences that sound “off”. (If they do, skip those books.) Students should be reading texts that sound natural. 

📚HIGH QUALITY decodables allow students to feel successful and confident when reading AND writing! Students should understand the story line and be able to respond. They should discuss the story and retell just as they would with trade books. If they are able to read fluently and decode successfully with automaticity, they will be able to spend valuable working memory focusing on comprehension. Writing about reading is also essential to practicing written comprehension and encoding of the learned phonics skills.

❤️Also, let’s go ahead and clear the air, friends. ❤️ I use a variety of throughout texts each day & each week: Read alouds, content texts, close reading passages, decodable readers, leveled readers, readers theaters, poems, songs. Each of those has fiction and nonfiction options. ⭐️⭐️⭐️EACH type of text has a time and place in the classroom.⭐️⭐️⭐️ YOU, as the teacher, need to make the choice based on what your goal is for the lesson & based on your students’ stage in reading development. I refuse to sit here and bash one type of text. I feel that it is unreasonable to say one type is “bad”. 

💭Instead of fighting against a type of text, think “When and how can I use this with my students? What would this text help us to accomplish? How should we approach this text? How should we discuss and write about this text?”

📢Share your favorite HIGH QUALITY decodable text resources below!💬 

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #decodabletexts #decoding #comprehension #discussion #readingteacher #writing #readersofinstagram
Thank you @polkadotsandplanning for such a fun act Thank you @polkadotsandplanning for such a fun activity! We will be doing this weekly from now on- the kids requested it!❤️

Sticker sounds is a great way to practice segmenting the phonemes in words. Kids get 2-4ish repetitions of segmenting the one word which I think is just fabulous!💭

This activity promotes orthographic mapping of the word because students are first paying attention to the sounds, then the letters that represent those sounds, and then finally the sequence that those letters are written in.🧠 

👩‍💻This highly engaging yet simple activity can be transferred to a digital environment by adding clipart or images onto a slideshow or Jamboard. It’s also ideal for in person instruction right now because students do not share the stickers.😷

If you try this in your classroom, be sure to tag @polkadotsandplanning! 🙌🏼

#iteachfirst #iteachsecond #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #stickersounds #orthographicmapping #soundtosymbol #speechtoprint #phonemicawareness #encoding
Open sorts are a great way to direct student atten Open sorts are a great way to direct student attention to the structure and patterns within words.🤩

In open sorts, you give students a set of words. They then decide how to group them. Today, students decided how many groups to create and which words to put into those groups. I did not give them any information except for a list of mixed words.

💭I’ve found that this process really helps ME 🙋🏽‍♀️ as the teacher to determine: 
1️⃣which skills students pick up on quickly (this often shows which skills have been solidified)
2️⃣how fluently they can verbalize WHY they sorted that specific way
3️⃣how well they describe the connections that they made within their groupings of words.

Swipe to see two videos: first grade (VCe) and second grade (R-controlled vowels).🎥 This activity was done before reading a decodable text. All words were taken from the decodable text. 

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #phonicsfun #wordsorts #decodablereaders #literacy #structuredliteracy #reading #readinglesson
Happy Thanksgiving from our family & the little di Happy Thanksgiving from our family & the little dinosaurs! 🦖🦕 We are grateful for our family time, health, and outside adventures this year. Even with this unpredictable year & many unwelcome experiences related to quarantine with two littles 🤪, we made some precious memories. 🤍 Thank YOU for joining us here and following along. Wishing everyone a blessed holiday season!
Math turkeys were a huge hit today! This idea has Math turkeys were a huge hit today! This idea has been floating around...I think @creativelyteachingfirst was the first to make one! Thank you! 🙌🏼 We had one turkey that had ➕➖✖️➗ and another that had just ➕➖. So fun, high engagement, and low prep!👍🏼

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #math #mathactivities #postitnotes #iteachfirst #iteachsecond
Walk the Dog 🐕 This fun “game” is an alpha Walk the Dog 🐕

This fun “game” is an alphabetical order scaffold or practice activity for students. After seeing it from @wimberleydyslexiacenter last night, I just had to try it out. Just make an alphabet line & grab any little figurine...doesn’t have to be a dog. Make the dog or character walk along the line as you work through the list of words in alphabetical order. It’s a great hands on visual for students who are just learning.🙌🏼

This was his first day putting our vocabulary words in ABC order and he did a fabulous job! Swipe for the video.🌟

Do you play “Walk the Dog” or something similar in your class?💭

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #handsonlearning
High Frequency Word & Spelling Tip Often when tea High Frequency Word & Spelling Tip

Often when teaching high frequency words or new phonics patterns, I will find a connection between the meanings of multiple words with the same pattern. 

We were working on the word NIGHT. We stretched out the sounds orally. Then drew lines or elkonin boxes for the sounds. We learned that many words with IGHT have something to do with light.⭐️ 

So LIGHT became our key word to help us remember the times that we spell the long i sound as IGH in many words that we commonly see in text and write. Obviously, not every word with IGHT relates to light, but it does give students a way to internalize words that are spelled with the same or similar patterns.

This is also great for:
🎵 NG words often have to do with music or sound (ring, rung, ding, dong, sing, sang, sung, zing, zang)
💦 NK words often have to do with water or liquids (sink, sank, sunk, dunk, drink, drank, tank, rink)

#teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachfirst #iteachsecond #iteachtoo #phonicsinstruction #highfrequencywords
Dropping a tip for all you Post-It lovers out ther Dropping a tip for all you Post-It lovers out there!💚

After assessing students’ spelling of decodable and irregular words, I use a post it to jot down any errors with minor notes. This post it goes into my phonics planning binder so that each day when I teach, I see the post it and can reference what each student needs to review more in order to master. I make sure to throw these words in as practice warm ups, into phonemic awareness activities, guided reading groups, dictation, and explicit phonics practice.✅

Gone are the days of one and done spelling lists. Instead, teach a skill for a week or two, and then each week, add those TYPES of patterns to the words that came before. I never give spelling lists anymore, but rather teach a skill and then expect students to implement that skill in any word with that pattern or the patterns they’ve learned previously. It’s a great way to see if kids are retaining learned phonics rules in their writing.📝

How do you teach & assess spelling?📚

#spelling #phonics #postits #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachfirst #iteachsecond
Daily phonemic awareness has been so important in Daily phonemic awareness has been so important in our classroom this year! This portion of our daily Listening Games from @hellojenjones is now a competition between both siblings.🤣

They are very into this part because it’s the most challenging for them. “Which word has a different first sound?” requires students to listen and discriminate between initial sounds. They are listening for phoneme alliteration and then determining which word isn’t a match.

If they get all 5 of the set correct in one day, they get an extra gold tag. It’s some fierce competition y’all! ❤️

#teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #phonemicawareness #phonologicalawareness #listeninggames #iteachfirst #iteachsecond
Finding beautifully illustrated children’s liter Finding beautifully illustrated children’s literature is so important! Today we drew our attention to the author/illustrator’s job in Brick by Brick. We talked about how she used collage to make the pictures pop and to add teeny details.🔍

One of my students was amazed by this and wanted me to explain how to do it. I tried my best...🤷🏼‍♀️ I’m not an artist, but I do know books. I said, “Oh! I know another book that has collage illustrations! Thank You, Omu!” We grabbed it off the shelf and looked at the similarities between these two beautiful books. Then my student said, “Can you get more of these? Can you search the library for collage books for us?” 🥰😍 Why yes. Yes I will.

I’ve made an effort this year to include my students while choosing new library books. It’s definitely paid off because they are excited and very interested in searching for new books. We place holds every 2 weeks at the local library, and I do drive up pick up to get them. It’s a huge benefit to our day to day in the classroom to have access to so many books. If you know of any other books that have collage type illustrations, please let us know!❤️

#teacherspayteachers #teachersfollowteachers #booksonbooks #illustrationart #iteachfirst #iteachsecond
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