Gingerbread Pirates- A Gingerbread Freebie

We are all about gingerbread this year!  I am starting out our gingerbread unit with the book the Gingerbread Pirates.  This is a great book to incorporate gingerbread and the Christmas spirit of believing.

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Let me tell you a little about my book and freebie!  This year I am focusing our Christmas unit around the Gingerbread Pirates!  I am so excited to dive into a new unit!  To go along with the Gingerbread Pirates I made a compound word match.  Right now my first graders are working on retell to increase our DIBELS scores.  I made a foldable brochure over sequence of events, contractions, and favorite part of the book.   Click herefor the freebie!

Happy Teaching!

Guided Reading ~ 3 Tools to add to your Student's Toolkit

Hello again,  It's Christina from Hanging Around In Primary.  I am honoured to be blogging once again here at Who's Who and Who's New.  This time I want to share with you 3 tools that I put in the hands of my students to increase engagement during my Guided Reading sessions.

1.  Reading Phone/Whisper Phones

Many years ago I was introduced to these phones at a reading workshop at our board office.  I was hooked on them from the moment I saw how they worked.   When I was teaching my small group of firsties this is what I would hear every..single..lesson!: "he is reading to loud!"  "I can't hear myself"  "can you read quieter!"

Enter the reading phones - you can't read with a loud voice into them because you will hurt your ears. Students immediately lower their voices and use a whisper voice.  Now everyone can sit at the same table and read to themselves without complaint.  Yeah!  The only thing I need to say now is not to lick the phone or put your mouth on it ....ewww!  Thank goodness for lysol wipes.

2.  Finger lights

I LOVE finger lights for tracking text.  They are a 4 for a $1.00 at the Dollar Store and worth every penny.  When students are reading they slip on a finger light to track the text.  They can light up each word so they know exactly where they are on the page.  These lights have worked wonders for my students who are still struggling with word awareness.

 3.  Whiteboards

If you have been to my blog before you will know about my fondness for whiteboards.  I use them all.the.time. During Guided Reading we would use them for pre and post reading activities. I love that they allow me to save paper.  There is way too much paper floating around the classroom as it is. I often snap a photo of a response I want to save and place it in their digital portfolio on Seesaw.

I hope you will consider adding these things to your student's tool kits for Guided Reading.  You WILL notice an increase in engagement and it will make your job a lot easier!

Share this post with your friends ~ Pin the image below to refer to later.

Are you interested in learning more about how I teach Guided Reading and what's in my Teacher Tool Kit?  Head over to my blog to find a companion post to this one.  Click below to head over to my blog.  See you there!

Until next time,

Teaching students to think about reading

Hi, I'm Aimee from Pencils, Books, and Dirty Looks.

How do you teach students to think about reading?

We all have those students in our class that can read anything.  You know the ones that can decode words like disestablishmentarianism, but the second you ask them to talk about what they've read they're clueless.
I have a class full of above grade level readers this year.  They can decode anything!  Often we forget that decoding doesn't necessarily mean comprehending.  Even the best readers need to be reminded to stop and think while reading.  Thinking about reading is one of my favorite strategies to model.  I made cards to hold up in my classroom to remind students to stop, think, and question during independent reading time.
I display this card when I want students to read:

I hold up this card when I want students to stop and write what they're thinking:

I hold up this card when I want students to stop and ask a question about what they're reading:

I also made a tri fold to display during guided reading groups:

Often my students like to read with a friend, so I made cards to display when students are buddy reading:

And finally, I hold up this card when I want students to stop and talk with their buddy:

The cards have worked really well since I introduced them to my students!  First, I spent a week or so modeling the cards during our read aloud time.  I would stop and think out loud, ask a question about the story, or have them buddy talk about the story.  Next, I introduced the cards to my small groups during guided reading.  Each student has a dry erase dot on their spot at the table.  When I flip the tri-fold, they know to pick up their marker and write.  We don't discuss what they've written until the end.

My next step is to use the cards during independent reading.  Hopefully, within no time, they will become as good at thinking and comprehending as they are at decoding!

These cards, along with an included worksheet for students to write their thoughts and questions, are available in my TpT store.

Hey everyone!  It's Alison from Ms. Lilypad's Primary Pond.  If you are as busy as I am with getting ready for the holidays, you probably don't have a ton of time to read this post.  :)  So I'll keep it quick!

About a month ago, I created a visual reading strategies menu to use with my intervention groups.  I teach in Spanish, so the photo below shows that version, but I also made one in English:

When I made this menu, I didn't realize just how much I would love using it!  I already had a set of reading strategies posters that I keep on my whiteboard, but it's so much more powerful when the kids have multiple strategies right in front of them (like on this menu).

After I made the menu, I began by teaching the kids what each part of the menu meant.  They were already familiar with how to use most of the strategies, so it was just a matter of making sure they understood the different boxes on the menu.  I didn't teach the entire menu in one day - I taught it over the course of a few days.

Now I use the menu all the time when my kids are reading.  Since I teach intervention groups, many of my kids have a very difficult time with reading and are a year or more behind grade level.  Processing the text is enough of a challenge, so if I talk a lot or use lots of verbal prompting, this can be distracting for them (they lose track of the text).  Now what I can do is simply point to a strategy on the menu, and a student can try out the strategy without me having to say a word!  Plus, since I have small groups of kids, the menu helps me multitask.  When I'm listening to one child read but notice that another student is stuck, I can simply point to a strategy on the other child's menu, and that child can continue working without me having to stop what I am doing.

You can download the English or Spanish menu below (for free) by clicking on one of the images!  If you think that this will overwhelm your students, you can always use another sheet of paper to cover up part of the menu.  I can see these menus being used with Kindergarteners (late in the year), 1st grade, and 2nd grade.  I hope you enjoy using them as much as I do!

Happy holidays!!