Dolch 220 Sight Word Assessment

admin April 28, 2013 No Comments

The Dolch 220 sight words make up between 50-70% of the words we encounter in text.  Most of these words cannot be sounded out and students need to be taught to instantly recognize these words in order to be fluent readers.  Because recognizing these words is so important during reading, it is important that we use a variety of activities to teach, practice and memorize sight words. It all begins with assessment.  Before you begin teaching sight words, it is important to know which words your student(s) already know.   When you download the Sight Word Assessment and Progress Monitoring file, you’ll receive the assessment, student recording forms and progress monitoring charts.  You’ll want to periodically re-assess you student(s) to be

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Springtime Vowel Sorting Freebie!

admin April 13, 2013 No Comments

I was out shopping the other day and stopped in at the Dollar Tree.  It’s so much fun when they change their seasonal items.  The spring items are especially fun to use in some sort of activity.  These cute little watering cans are ideal for a sorting activity.  We have a few kiddos who are still confusing their short vowel sounds and this spring-themed activity will be great to use during small group instruction.   When you download this freebie you’ll receive 32 flowers with short vowel pictures.  Directions for assembling your activity as well as teaching directions are included in this file. Click the following link to download this freebie Flower Can Freebie Enjoy!

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More St. Patrick’s Day Activities!

admin March 3, 2013 No Comments

I was in my teacher friend, Deb’s, classroom this week and her students were working with common vowel teams.  We checked her inventory of activities and decided we needed to make some fun activities for use in her literacy centers to work on this phonics skill.  For a quick and easy activity, I whipped up this St. Patrick’s Day 4-In-A-Row game. Click the following link to download this freebie St. Patrick’s Day Vowel Teams 4-In-A-Row Activity To play this game, you’ll need a board for every two players.  Each player will need about 10 colored chips of the same color (each partner must have a different colored chip).   So, if we were playing, I may have 10 red chips and

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St. Patrick’s Day Digraph Activities

admin February 23, 2013 No Comments

St. Patrick’s Day is soon approaching!  My goodness, this school year is flying by.  It’s kind of fun how we measure our school year by the coming and goings of the holidays.  So far this year we’ve had 10 snow days!  Can you believe it?  10!  When you live in the great white north you never know what can happen.  We have 6 snow days built into the calendar (yes, that’s true) and anything over that we have to make up at the end of the year.  With winter not even over, we may have to go well into summer.   Anyway, here’s a little digraph activity I whipped up on one snow day morning. What you’ll need to do is

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Short Vowels Cue Cards

admin February 5, 2013 No Comments

Some of our little readers are still having trouble confusing those short vowel sounds.  We certainly see this in their written work.  I’m hoping these cue cards can help.  Simply print the cards, cut them out and place them on the desk or table.  They serve as a visual cue to help with correct use of the vowel when writing.    Of course, not every student will need the cue card;  just those students who are still substituting one vowel for another. Click the following link to download FREE short vowel cue strips Vowel Prompt Cards If you are working with short vowel sounds in your small group intervention, the Vowels Sticks and Vowel Snatch are two great activities for teaching these

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Teaching Blends and Digraphs

admin January 23, 2013 No Comments

Seems like this week there’s been quite a few questions about blends and digraphs.  Teachers have been asking and wanting to know what the difference is between a blend and a digraph, which to teach first and the best way to teach these skills.  Well, with all these questions, that was motivation enough for me to finish this post that I started literally a year ago.  I’m hoping this post can answer some of these burning questions about teaching blends and digraphs. Question 1: What’s the difference between a blend and a digraph? Consonant Blends A consonant blend is when two or more consonants are blended together, but each sound may be heard in the blend.  The most common beginning

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I (Heart) Vowels

admin January 19, 2013 No Comments

I know it’s a little crazy, but I really do love vowels.  It’s so important that our young readers learn those vowel sounds correctly so that they can decode words and use them correctly in their writing.  Activities which involve discriminating the vowels sounds are so helpful, especially for those students who are having difficulty hearing the difference between the similar sounding vowels.  I created the vowel sticks activity with a little Valentine twist for use during your small group instruction.  For children just learning the vowel sounds, you may opt to begin with only two vowels (begin with dissimlar sounding vowels such as the /o/ and /i/) and then gradually work up to using all five.  You simply say the vowel sound and have the students hold

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Ready for Some Football?

admin January 17, 2013 No Comments

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 thinking maybe the Ravens? To celebrate the big game, Kyle and I quickly whipped up a fun sight word activity.  All you’ll need to do is print the footballs  single-sided to double-sided (I usually print them on cardstock), cut them out and you’ll have a ready-made game!  This activity is easily differentiated as you choose how many and which sight word footballs to use.  To play the game, students take turns choosing footballs and reading the

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Four In A Row Winter Themed Freebie

admin January 12, 2013 No Comments

These cute little 4-In-A-Row templates have just been sitting in my computer files just waiting to be made into an activity.  Last month I used the templates to create activities for sight words, but I know many of our kinders are now working on decoding CVC words and I wanted to make an activity specifically for them.  Of course, there are first graders who could use extra practice with this skill, too. Click the following link to download this freebie! Winter 4 In A Row CVC Words My first grade friends are now working on decoding CCVC/CVCC words.  So I whipped up this 4-In-A-Row game board. Click the following link to download the 4-In-A-Row game board for blends Winter 4

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My Favorite Resources for Dyslexia and Learning Disabilities

admin January 10, 2013 No Comments

We are often asked by parents if we think their child has dyslexia when the child is having difficulty learning to read.  This question certainly is raised if the child is reversing letters or numbers in writing.   There seems to be a certain mystic around the term “dyslexia”.  “Dyslexia” simply means “difficutly with words” as dys means “difficult” and lexia, “words”.   The term “dyslexia” is used mostly used within the medical profession when describing children who are struggling with reading.   In the school setting, when a child’s reading difficulty is so severe that he or she requires special education, the child is often labeled with a “Specific Learning Disability” (SLD).   We know that dyslexia occur on continuum.  The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) reports that perhaps

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