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Category: 1st Grade

Turkey Digraphs

Isn’t practicing an important concept so much more fun when you can do it with an engaging, seasonal activity? We created this free beginning digraph turkey center as a companion to the phonics program we’ve been working on and we want to share it with all of you! Speaking of our

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1 Easy Trick to Simplify Word Sorting

Aren’t we all looking for a way to simplify the management of 25+ students and all their little word sort cards each week? A reader told us this tip a few years ago and we couldn’t believe how simple and easy it was. It’s a CRAYON. Here’s what you do…

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One Giant Leap (Day)!

There’s something just so fun about leap day. I think it must be the novelty of a day that only happens every 4 years and the feeling that you get a bonus day! We wanted to create a day of exciting leap day activities that were still meaningful. We chose

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Easy Class Parties

CLASS PARTY. The words sometimes strike fear in the heart of a teacher, right? As if we don’t already have enough to do, we have to plan a class party too? Oh the chaos! But it turns out it’s possible to put together a simple party, devoid of chaos, that’s

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Halloween Fun: Carving Out Time to Learn

We have a fun new bundle of Halloween activities for your little spooks! It’s important to us that when we make something seasonal that it’s both fun AND meaningful and we’ve worked hard to achieve that with these activities. They’re also differentiated so should be appropriate for grades 1-4! The

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A Teacher’s Guide to Fluency

For a long time, fluency was the forgotten component of reading instruction.  I know it never came up in my college courses!  But in the last 10 years or so, the view has shifted.  Fluency has come to be recognized as a vital skill in developing proficient readers. For the

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Getting the Most Out of Fluency Homework

Timed, repeated readings with feedback are one of the best ways to improve students’ reading fluency. Read more about repeated readings here! How you manage repeated readings depends on what works best in your class. Some teachers have parent helpers or aides work with the students. Some teachers do timed

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Beginning Fluency: Leveled Passages

When it comes to fluency practice, students need something to read.  But what?  Really, any text that students can read independently works for practice: rereading familiar books Reader’s Theater scripts student newspapers (Scholastic News, Weekly Reader, etc.) joke books short poems But if you’re looking for more targeted practice, leveled

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Beginning Fluency: Segmenting & Blending (SBF)

I remember when they handed me my list of kids who hadn’t passed their DIBELS Nonsense Word Fluency.  It seemed like it must be a cruel joke!  Nonsense words?  Really????? Over time I’ve come to love and hate Nonsense Word Fluency.  I love it because that first year with DIBELS

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Beginning Fluency: Letter Sound Fluency (LSF)

Once students know letter names, they’re poised to master letter sounds.  Yay!  We have a set of homework pages to help your little learners take this next step. Like our Letter Name Fluency (LNF), the first place to start with Letter Sound Fluency (LSF) is assessment.  For this test, the

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