Years ago we started using the DIBELS assessment to screen students for reading difficulties and to monitor at-risk students throughout their intervention. We had all this wonderful data, but there seemed to be a gap between the data and then exactly how to use the data to guide … [Read more...]
Activities on the Go! Race Car Blending
It's always so much fun to take a little trip to our local Habitat for Humanity restore. You never know treasures what you can find. When my kiddos were furnishing their college apartments and dorm rooms we were pretty much restore regulars. My girls are also big crafters and … [Read more...]
A Strategy for Helping Students Learn to Blend
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you may know that I’m just a little (okay, a lot) addicted to professional books. I really love keeping up with the current research in reading and learning difficulties. One of my favorite authors is Isabel Beck. I love her book, … [Read more...]
Phonemic Awareness Activities – Just Grab and Go!
Last year I was cleaning my basement getting ready for our annual garage sale and came across all those old Disney movies housed in VHS cases. Although our VHS player is long gone and the kids are now into their late teens and twenties, parting with those old movies was pretty … [Read more...]
Phonemic Awareness Activities On the Go!
It's amazing sometimes where inspiration hits. A few weeks ago I had to kill about an hour and decided to hop on over to Michael's Craft Store. As I was walking through the bead aisle I found this really handy plastic tote. It was just the right size to fit picture cards! … [Read more...]
Teaching Students to Blend Words
Blending sounds into words--what an exciting step in learning to read. Once students know a few consonants and vowels, we can begin to teach them how to blend those sounds into meaningful words. Blending, for some students, is a challenge. Do you have students who know their … [Read more...]
Teaching Phoneme Segmentation
Phonemic awareness is one of my favorite topics relating to literacy instruction. Studies of reading development have demonstrated that the acquisition of phonemic awareness is highly predictive of success in learning to read. It's so important that our beginning readers have … [Read more...]
Ready for Some Football?
Ready for some football? The big game is quickly approaching--unfortunately the Lions won't be playing so I'm not sure who I'll be cheering for. Anyway, Super Bowl Sunday is really fun at our house. We typically gather with our close friends and make a night of it. I'm … [Read more...]
Using Blending Boards During Small Group Instruction
We've finished our DIBELS Next testing and our intervention groups are now in full swing. Our teachers have been bringing out those blending boards that the Career Tech students made us last year (love them!) and are using them within their small group instruction. We started … [Read more...]