First & Last Letter Power!

For First and Last Letter Power, Spiderman brings us his letter in addition to a bag full of Alpha-Bits cereal! 

I give each student a handful of the cereal and they turn to their partners.  On First Letter Power day, they have to hold up one of the pieces of cereal, say the letter and sound, and then think of a word that begins with the given sound.  For Last Letter Power day, they do almost the same thing, except they think of a word that ends with the given sound.  

We practice checking the first and last letter with tricky pictures on the Smartboard.  In the images below, you can see us practicing First Letter Power!  

Top left: This picture shows something that could be a puppy or a dog.  In order to know which word is in the sentence, we have to rely on our sight words and the first letter.  I can see a DOG would start with a D, but this word starts with the letter P.  That means it must say "I can see a puppy."

Bottom left:  This picture shows something that could be pizza or a slice.  In order to know which word is in the sentence, we again have to rely on our sight words, first letter, and now pointer power.  I can see pizza would have four words and the last word would start with the letter P.  This sentence has 5 words and the last word starts with the letter s.  So we know this sentence says "I can see a slice."

Don't forget, you can find a scanned copy of all the Spiderman letters I use in this unit by clicking HERE!

Reading Education Assistance Dog (R.E.A.D.) Visit!

This morning, we were fortunate enough to have a visit from a R.E.A.D. team.  From the website, "The R.E.A.D program improves children's reading and communication skills by employing a powerful method: reading to an animal.  But not just any animal.  R.E.A.D companions are registered therapy animals who volunteer with their owner/handlers as a team, going into schools, libraries and many other settings as reading companions for children."

Even the kids who aren't very excited about reading on a typical basis were so excited to read to Katie, a beautiful black poodle.

Katie's owner began by coming into our classroom and showing us a few of her best tricks.  Then kids walked over one at a time with their books to sit near Katie as they read to her.  It was pretty cute how they tried to find a book that the dog would enjoy... Harry the Dirty Dog, Dogs and their Puppies, etc.

The students did such a wonderful job on their reading, Ms. Patty (and Katie, too, probably) said she thought they were 1st graders! ;)

Storybook Reading

So far during reading time, students have been reading non-fiction books, or "Learn-About-The-World" Books.  These books are easy for budding readers, because even the most adamant non-reader (you know, the child who insists he "doesn't know how to read" when picking up a book) will look at photos of real-life stuff and point, sharing what he notices.

Throughout the last week and a half, though, students have listened to me reread class favorites over and over again.  They've heard Harry the Dirty Dog, Caps for Sale, The Carrot Seed, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and every book in the Otis series multiple times.  The more we read them, the more excited they get because they can anticipate what's going to happen next.  They were so excited to get copies of class favorites added to their book bins.  

Now student reading is going from sharing what books can teach you to a focus on retelling.  We're practicing using transitional words when we turn the page ("and then.."), using exact story language ("trip-trap, trip-trap") and making sure the part of the story we're saying aloud matches the page that we're on.

All of this work is preparing children for reading in the traditional point-and-read-the-words way. 

If your child is approximating the story, congratulate him or her on being a great reader! 

THE BIGGEST FOCUS RIGHT NOW IS CREATING A LOVE OF READING. If you, as a parent or a teacher, tell a child he/she is "not reading" or "is wrong" in his/her approximations, you're not helping.  Build up your child's confidence and love for reading.  Encourage him/her to share what's happening in the pictures if the words are too difficult at this point.  The traditional reading will come.