“Mom wants answers after child with ADHD receives ‘Least Likely to Pay Attention’ award.” That was in my newsfeed the other day. It’s easy to look at a story like that and think the teacher is incredibly cruel. And though it seems so obvious that this was a terrible, terrible idea,
There are some common mistakes that teachers make when they embark on teaching oral reading fluency. I’ve made some of these mistakes myself. But we hope to save you from making the same mistakes and have some idea for you of what to do instead. Mistake #1: Using ONLY 1 minute timed
We’re back again with some adorable Christmas literacy centers. This time we’re tackling consonant blends : s blends, l blends, and r blends. These centers are a fun and seasonal compliment to our phonics program. Word Play Phonics for 1st and 2nd grade is a differentiated word study program that incorporates weekly
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
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…
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
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
My favorite part about the start of the new year is that it feels like a second chance at a fresh start with your class! Here are some January activities, ideas, and tips to inspire you to take this opportunity to revitalize your classroom! 1. Sharpen your procedures Doesn’t it sometimes feel
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
Do you know The First Six Weeks of School by Paula Denton and Roxann Kriete? I love this book! I got it early in my teaching career and it’s one of the few books that I pulled out to reference EVERY YEAR! The main philosophy of this book is that
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
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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