If you teach kindergarten or have been in a kindergarten classroom for a while, you know that centers can be difficult to put into place. Young students come to us with very little independence and are not able to read directions. Hands-on activities are key to a successful kindergarten classroom. I came from teaching high achieving first and third grade, so I was familiar with a fast paced, centers-based, independent, active math block. As I prepped for kindergarten math, I made sure I had many activities and manipulatives ready to go. BUT as I began getting into the groove of teaching math to my scholars, I reflected on what was and wasn’t working with my young students. You can read more about that here. I realized that I needed to simplify and make activities low prep for myself and predictable for my students. Here are a few of the centers that are working WONDERFULLY for our classroom this year… White Boards – The magical oh-so-much-more-wonderful version of paper. At the beginning of the year, students practiced writing numbers 1-30 using a number line. Currently, my students are writing as many addition sentences as they can on their own. I’m not quite Continue Reading
Fluency is such an important part of our lives in the primary grades. Letter fluency, sound fluency, sight word fluency, math fluency…the list goes on and on. Our classroom even has a “Fluency Center” where students practice their very own set of 10 sight words each day. However, there is not enough urgency at that center….and to be honest, I was craving more urgency. I wanted my students to want to see how quickly and consistently they could recite letter sounds and sight words, but I wasn’t quite happy with what I had going on. Then I was introduced to Spot It. By a second grader. …and of course I ordered it the very next day. Yup! That’s the truth! This game transformed my small group warm up in literally one day. All students are on task. They have to be. They game requires that you are constantly observing, constantly reassessing, constantly making connections between different images or words. There are so many versions of this game, which is wonderful for teachers who want to keep those struggling students actively engaged. How to play: The game is extremely simple, but challenges the brain the entire time. Because of this, it is perfect for primary grades. Students feel successful and Continue Reading
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