Beginning Reading

Today I progress monitored almost all the students.  Then some students worked in groups to work on fine motor skills, letter sound recognition, visual processing, and phonemic awareness. Finally, we read The Smart Cookie. 

Today we listened to The Couch Potato and worked on our vowel sounds!  Everyone is getting so good at identifying vowel sounds. We also reviewed fantasy and reality, and practiced orthographic mapping and identifying each sound in a word. 

Today we had a very fun egg hunt where we practiced matching capital and lower case letters.  When a student completed a word, they earned a prize.  It was a fun game!  Then, we read The Great Eggscape, which featured Shel from our story last week.  We also practice syllables again and our ending marks.  

Today we learned something new--ENDING PUNCTUATION MARKS!! We learned if a sentence is asking, telling, dangerous/excited.  Then we learned what punctuation goes with those sentences.  We also reviewed blends, beginning, middle, and ending sounds, and syllables.  We learned about Shel the egg in our read aloud this week!  Listen to The Good Egg again! 

Today we worked on some new sounds and consonant blends at the beginning of our words.  This was great!  I was so proud of how hard everyone was working.  We also talked about what a syllable is and how to determine the syllable in a word.  We put our hands under our chin and said the word.  Then we counted how many times our hands moved.  I teach this skill this way for two reasons--It's a tactile way to count & it isn't confusing, like counting can be.  Sometimes students want to count the total number of sounds.  That's a phoneme, not a syllable.  Additionally, this method encourages better diction! 

Our story this week is Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner.  It's a great study in what happens above and below the ground in all four seasons! You can find a read aloud by clicking on the book title above. 

Today we worked on CVC decoding for some and alphabetic principles for others using sidewalk chalk! We made a hopscotch type game. Then we read a story called This is Not My Hat.  It was pretty funny and allowed us to talk about some things like stealing and being sneaky.   As a reminder, we will not meet next Monday, but I will see you again on 3/18. 

Today we reviewed the first 26 most frequently used words and we worked on identifying color WORDS.  Everyone knows their colors, but not everyone can recognize those color words.  We also listened to two stories with Novel Effect and had some fun with the sound effects.  If your kiddo asks, the hilarious book we read was called The Book with No Pictures.

I started progress monitering students as well.  I am assess on sight words mastered, reading fluency (wpm), alphabet writing, and a few other areas as well. 

I also forgot to take up the packet from last week, so if you don't mind to send those back in and I'll look them over! 

Today we did so much!  We practiced our sight words by filling in the blank spaces  on the note I left on the board.  We had some guess and check methods, but most everyone did a great job of trying to decode the words and putting in the correct spaces.  Then we did our alphabet fluency practice.  We had 60 seconds to write as much of the alphabet as possible.  Most everyone improved from the last time we did this (two weeks ago), so I was very proud!  We also practiced changing letters to create new CVC words.  Finally, we read a story for Black History Month about Mae Jemison, who was a famous female astronaut.  You can watch Mae Among the Stars to work on the at home work this week too!

We have been working pretty diligently to master the first 13 most frequently used words.  Please practice this at home as well!
a, and, for, he, in, is, it, of, that, the, to, was, you

Today we worked on our sight words with a note from Dr. Rowe at the beginning of the class.   Then we worked on our writing skills and remembering to write from the top line to the bottom line.  We also read a story about a LOVE MONSTER and talked about opposites.  

Today we worked on alphabet writing fluency by seeing how many letters we could write in 60 seconds!  We'll continue to practice this each week.  Please work on the following heart words/sight words:
I, see, the, a, can, to, at, in, is, it

I would like for the kiddos to master those words by spring break! Some kiddos already have those mastered. 
Keep working on the packet for the work this week too.  

Today we worked a lot of visual patterns and name writing.  We're going to make sure we're making letters anchored to the bottom line and our lowercase letters do not go past the middle line!  We also read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  Everyone has some practice pages to work on for this week.  If you need to rewatch/reread The Snowy Day, you can do that by clicking on the link.  As always, if you have questions, please feel free to email anytime! 

Today we worked on blending CVC words.  We also worked on retaining our basic sight words.  To this point, we have learned :
the, see, am, I , a, and, for, was, you, of--We'll keep reviewing these in class, but keep practicing them at home too!  We also practice reading sentences about decorating a tree.  We practiced pointing to each word as we read it!  This is very helpful for beginning readers.  A few of my friends are also working on the TH sound this week. 

We had some new friends join today! We worked in groups again and then we all wrote some wonderful sentences together! So proud of how hard everyone is working. Please work on the packet for next week and bring it back Monday. 

This week, we continued to work on letter sounds and sight words.  

Today we read a book called CRANKENSTEIN! It was about a little boy who is quite cranky and says MMMEERRRHHHH a lot!  Then, we practiced our writing skills by writing about what makes us cranky! We also practiced our drawing skills (and following directions) by drawing ourselves as Crankenstein.  We also practiced some sight words :) 

Today we worked on new letter sounds C, H, E, K, R and we reviewed the sight words we have been working on for the past few weeks.  Some students are starting to string sentences together, so that is very exciting!  I also sent home a new packet for this week.  Keep up the great work on those!  

Today we worked on sight words by playing a round or two of Four Corners (check our my Instagram page to see this in action)!  Then we worked on blending sounds together to read CVC words and sentences with sight words.  We also updated our color monsters to give them eyes and mouths, which made them very emotional :)
Since we have had a bit of time to get to know each other and the process, I am going to start sending a little packet home each week.  This is not meant to take long to complete at all.  At most you should spend 10 mins per day on it.  It is way to keep up consistency and provide more exposure to the skills we are working on in class.  Everyone should have received a letter from me explaining the packet and the packet itself.  If you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out! 

Today we worked more on writing names, color words, and SATPIN!  We read the Book Monsters Love Colors and started an art project to go along with that book.  We'll work on that when we return from fall break! 

I hope you all have a great Monday off next week and I'll see you when we return on 10/16!  

Today we worked on SO MANY THINGS!!! We read a new book together (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?) and we worked on color words through our color word puzzle.  Some students worked on identifying sight words and building sentences.  Other students worked on identifying our sequence of letters (SATPIN).  Please keep working on these letters and their sounds, so that those are automatic.  Also work on recognizing the sight words we have learned thus far: the, I, see, a, this, is, my

Today we reviewed the sounds SATPIN and the words I, see, the, a, this, is, my.  We worked on phonemic awareness and blending sounds together.  We also built magnatile structures and learned how to label them.  This is one of the first steps in the writing process. Finally, we learned sign language for the letters SAT.  Continue to read your mini-books and practice your sight words from above.  Also continue to practice writing names.  We will only work on capital letters for now.  If students are ready, I will introduce lowercase, but for their names only.  Also continue to review the sounds for SATPIN.  We will add in new letters next week.  

Today, we worked on writing our names!  Almost everyone has this mastered (at least in all capitals).  Continue to work on writing your names this week.  If all capitals are mastered, you can move to first capital letter and the rest lowercase.   We also reviewed our sounds of SATPIN, which were great!  I was so proud of everyone.  I can tell you have been practicing at home.  We also reviewed our sight words (I, see, the, a)  and we practiced using those in sentences with our SATPIN words (I see a pan, I see the tip, I see a mat, etc.).  We worked in small groups to build letters, identify beginning sounds, and practice reading and writing with Dr. Rowe. We also read a very fun book called, Hungry Bunny.  Lastly, we learned three NEW words (this, is, my) and we got a new mini book to practice reading this week.  For this week, practice the words: I, see, the, a, this, is, my and practice writing the letters SATPIN.  I am so, so proud of how much everyone is learning!  

Welcome to the first day of class!  Today we had an amazing day!  Everyone was fantastic!  We worked really hard on learning the letters SATPIN.  We also worked on learning our high frequency words: I, see, a, the.  Lastly we practiced reading our mini-book At the Zoo.  I was so proud of everyone and I can't wait to see you on 9/11.

For this week, please practice:
Sight words every day- our words this week are: I, see, a, the
Letter Names and sounds (upper and lower case)- SATPIN
Practice Writing Names (first and last)
Practice Reading mini-book At the Zoo