We primary grade teachers know that kids come to school with a variety of letter knowledge. Some kinder, and even first grade, students are still working on letter identification. This was the case for most of the schools I taught in. In her book, The Next Step in Guided Reading, Jan Richardson says that students who […]
With guided reading, it always seems like there are so many tools. I think this is right. There just are so many! I have written HERE about my favorites, HERE about some more things I used all the time, but it just never fails. Every time I walk into the Dollar Tree I can’t help […]
As technology in education advances, more teachers have access to iPads in the classroom. How neat is it that we have more ways to reach our learners! Using iPads during guided reading might seem difficult, but it’s just the opposite! Even if you only have one iPad for you and 22 friends to share, there […]
Word walls can be used no matter what grade you teach. Between anchor charts and students’ products, I know classroom real estate is valuable! So let’s talk about word walls and how to make them worth the room they take up. What is a Word Wall? Word walls in the primary classroom are the centerpiece! It’s […]
Guided reading–it truly is the heart of reading instruction in my classroom. Not only is it my favorite part of the day, but it’s a time when kids get instruction that leaves them truly feeling empowered to be the best readers they can be! Whether you are new to guided reading or you’re already successfully […]
After launching literacy stations and putting procedures in place, they tend to go pretty smoothly. Some days, however, they can get chaotic, especially after a break, a long holiday weekend, or a few days with a substitute. We all have been there! It also happens between station rotations in a single day. Friends, even classrooms […]
Launching literacy stations is a big task! You plan each station, carefully explain each one, provide time for your students to practice the station, and then let them go. But what happens when they don’t last the full 20 minutes at a workstation? What happens when they constantly need help? What happens when your little […]
Using music in the classroom to reach our little learners is a fabulous tool. Research tells us that when we are learning through music and movement, more parts of the brain is engaged than any other time. Music is enjoyable, engaging, and motivating for our little learners! It also helps keep our students on track […]
“What are your best sight word tips to help my readers learn them quickly?” is one question I get asked often. Well friends, I think it all comes down to how you introduce high-frequency words and how you keep reinforcing them. Once students understand how to orthographically map a word, it helps their brains learn […]
Differentiation. It’s definitely a buzzword in education these days and I think there is a solid reason for that. It works. It’s how we reach ALL students. It’s what is best for students. I’ll never forget in college when I was taught about it. All I could think of was the crazy amount of work […]
Guided reading has several tiny bits and pieces that come together to make your time at the table successful. I feel like the more I taught guided reading, the more aware I became of each puzzle piece. One of the pieces that I don’t think I fully grasped the power of until years later was […]
Hooking students at the beginning of a lesson can be a make or break moment. It’s the time that you truly create buy in for the topic you are teaching. I would do my best every day to make the hook of my lesson engaging and to truly capture the attention of every child. Here […]
Teaching children to read is truly a more difficult task than I feel like any primary teacher receives credit for. Let’s be honest–if you handed the right tools to just anyone do you think they could get the job done? I remember my first year in kindergarten and just how overwhelmed I was by the responsibility […]
A step-by-step guide to getting started with guided reading to grow strong readers. Guided reading. Those two simple words bring either happiness or fear to you. They bring happiness because you are able to reach each and every student, differentiate learning, meet each student where they are, and provide coaching as you see them blossom […]
If you hang out here often, you know how much I love guided reading. If you are on my email list, you have read about my guided reading journey. I jumped in during my first year of teaching and often felt like I was drowning. I wasn’t really sure what to think of the whole […]
We all know the drill. We often times are sent to PD sessions that don’t keep our attention or that don’t quite meet our needs. This is why, as teachers, most of us are readers. We are life-long learners. We take our learning into our own hands. We own it! Often times with balanced literacy, […]
Interactive read alouds are one of my favorite parts of our day! It’s a time for us to gather close, emulate the bedtime story time that so many kids do not get at home, and recreate that intimate time. It’s the time that I get to model how to think like a reader. I also […]
Mastering phonemic awareness is a key factor in reading readiness for little learners. No matter what reading level a child is on – pre-readers to high readers, they ALL have or need a strong foundation of phonemic awareness. Sometimes we just don’t know where to begin to help our students build the foundation of reading and other […]
