Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

Improving listening skills

I've been working on a guided reading pack that I hope to have out in the next month or so and as I was working I kept thinking "Luke could do this!" It's so exciting as a teacher to be able to use my expertise at home, also! Especially when we're at home all summer!

Luke is 3 1/2...he's a typical BOY. He likes anything that has to do with  messes, dirt, trucks, tractors, games, sports, and the list could go on! He is high energy and doesn't. ever. stop! I hear boys are this way.

Ella knew all her letters and sounds by 2 1/2. NO JOKE. We didn't even have to "teach" them to her. She just picked up on it as we read, watched Word World, did puzzles and such. Luke...notsomuch. He's just not interested in letters and reading like Ella was. I by no means feel like he is behind, but I want him to have a solid foundation to build upon.

So I created this little game...it's nothing too exciting or ground breaking but it really helps with LISTENING. What toddler/ preschooler doesn't need help with their listening skills?!
Listening is the FIRST step to phonological awareness. Phonological awareness (PA) is an awareness of sounds and how they work. Vaughn, from "Research-based methods of Reading Instruction" states: "Children who enter school with PA have a very HIGH likelihood of learning to read successfully. Children who lack PA have great difficulty learning to read. Obviously children who come to school without PA need to develop it!"

Well, obviously I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that my babies are good readers and love to read. Making reading games FUN at this age is so so important! So I created this little animal sound game. Phonemic Awareness is about the SOUNDS and is all auditory. And what child doesn't love animal sounds?!
I printed out THESE animal cards, laminated, and cut them. I placed them all face up so that Luke could see them. I asked him what each animal is and what noise they make first. Now for the fun part...momma made the sound and Luke had to slap the correct card. We played this game with sister. Maybe if your child is not competitive or not a toddler just a sweetheart, then you could play the competitive version. {The first kid to slap it gets to keep the card} We tried that version and it went something like this:
LOL. Well, that's life with a toddler, right?!
You could do different variations of the game where you say multiple sounds "baaaa, mooo, quack" and your child will have to slap the first, middle, last sound they heard, etc. The possibilities are endless!
I hope you can use this with your kids- and those struggling little babies at the beginning of the year, too! This is a great game for guided reading! Let me know if you snag these up!

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READ week!

Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!
I was at Target today and picked up a few (or 7) Dr. Seuss books for one of my very best friends' soon-to-be baby! Being a teacher and all... I feel like it's my obligation to give books as baby shower gifts (along with other baby goodies!). Is anyone else with me?!

If you want to see my plans for the week, visit my post last year. I'm doing most of the same things plus some new extra activities! I made these cute little fluency fans for this week in particular. Head over to TpT to snag them up for free!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Real-and-Nonsense-Fluency-Fans-1141822
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Real-and-Nonsense-Fluency-Fans-1141822

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TWO!

 Gosh.. when I typed that title it might be misleading. LOL
No- I'm not expecting (anymore- ever! whew!) and definitely not two!
Our best couple friends have twin boys. They just turned 1 and are the most precious little twins ever. But I can not imagine doing two teeny tiny babies at one time! Bless any of you who have twins!

The baby I've been working on is my Kindergarten Comprehension pack TWO!
I've had such a wonderful response to my first pack and several requests for more- so here it is! 

I printed and laminated a few things from the pack this weekend and started with it in small group today. They LOVE these pages! My kids like having the visuals to dig through to figure out which picture goes with the story.
I don't know if your kids are bananas for sight words like mine- but they LOVE to find them in EVERY (and I mean EVERY thing) that we read- random ad on the side of YouTube?! "I see go Mrs. Alderson!!" "I see like! play!" So the color code in the story is right up my kids' alley!
 
I love the blue hair on that little guy- this was extraordinary work for this student! Comprehension? Easy check!
Don't worry- I'll leave you with a little freebie from this pack. Scrambled sentences!
 Just click on over to the product description and "Download Preview" to snag this one up!
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Kindergarten Comprehension

Good morning!
I hope you all had a fabulous and blessed Christmas! Ours was great! AND today is my little boy's birthday! Happy 2nd birthday LUKE!
 He's pretty much the cutest little boy ever, right?! ;)

I've been working on a few things on and off the past few weeks and FINALLY had time to get this little bugger finished up, and I am so excited about it!

Some of my kids really struggle with comprehension as they are reading out guided reading books. They have no problems during read alouds, but when you're focusing on the letter sounds and stretching the words out and punctuation, I can imagine it would be easy to lose meaning for these emergent readers!

So I created this little packet:
There are 3 different levels of reading passages and 5 "create a story" pages included all with visuals corresponding to the passage AND graphic organizers for any story you can imagine! Now one of the best things about teaching Kindergarten and having a daughter almost-Kindergarten age?! I get to use her as a guinea pig!
I read the passage to her and we went through and colored the words by the key and she helped to put the matching visuals onto the story board. (I put magnet tape on the back of the board/ visuals and slapped it onto a cookie sheet)

{To get this page for free click on over to my product page and "download preview}
And the best part- I have it 50% off until tomorrow only so you can get 60 pages for $3.00!

p.s. One of my SUPER sweet and fabulous followers recently became a blogger herself! I'm so excited we can officially call each other "blogging friends". She has a super cute emergent reader freebie up! Head on over to her blog {it's adorable!!} and tell her I sent you!

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