Multi-Sensory Strategies for Reading

     It's been a busy couple of days and I've got lots to share.
     I had a great talk with a parent after school.  She was looking for suggestions to help her child.  Yay!  All of the students can benefit from these multi-sensory strategies.  We are starting now with the basic procedures, but these multi-sensory strategies can be applied to reading skills throughout all grade levels (multi-syllabic words, sight words geared to any grade level, challenging phonics skills).

1.  Visual Drill:   I just use one of the cards to left at a time.  The students repeat after me:  "n" says /n/.  I flash them quickly.  Once students have mastery of skills, we move on to the next ones (blends, diagraphs, etc.).
2.  Blending:  Blending is another words for sounding out.  This is similar to above.  The students repeat after me:  /n/ /e/ /p/ nep.  This skill provides excellent practice that we measure with the DIBELs assessment.  I will post about this soon.
3.  Auditory drill:  I call out the letter (skill) sound and the students write the letter in sand while saying "b" says /b/.
**This picture wouldn't upload (who knows why), but it's just a tray of sand (black/purple) that the children use to write letters.

4.  Sight Words:  We use a screen to make the crayon feel bumpy.  Once we switch for RLB (reading/language block), we will really be working on teaching and holding students accountable for knowing assigned sight words.  I will go into more detail about this later.  The important thing for parents to know for at home is arm-tapping.  This is amazing.  A student can come to a sight (words you can not sound out) and not know it.  Then they arm-tap it and voila....miracle.  To arm-tap a sight word, a right-handed child uses the right arm to tap on the left arm.  Start at the top of the shoulder and move down while saying the letters.  Finish by sweeping down the arm and saying the word.   
      Using the same strategies at home as in school will benefit all of the children so much.  I must admit that we didn't get to everything this week, but the Orton-Gillingham multi-sensory strategies will be a key component of our reading instruction.  I will share comprehension strategies as the year progresses as well.
     FYI: Thanks to our district for spending a lot of money to send me (and other teachers) to a week long training to learn about these research-based strategies.  They also spent a great deal of money on the materials.  These are the procedures we've introduced so far....many more to come.  I have been doing my best to implement these strategies without the training for awhile now and I have seen MAJOR improvements with students in the past.  I can't wait to see what happens when I actually know what I'm doing:)
      We had TWO parents come in this week for "Kid for a Day."  Hooray!  Thanks to them for coming and for sharing their feedback...much appreciated!
   

Interview Journal, Thinking and Asking Questions

     Happy Monday!  In addition to continuing to review our procedures and rules, we have also been working hard on learning how to think and question.  Each day we have selected (at random) a first grader to interview. Here's how it works!
     We have been using prewritten questions, but now is time for the children to generate their own questions.  We talked about the reasons for asking questions and they talked with each other.  Then we wrote a few down to use for our interviews.  They were great questions.  I encouraged the children to choose questions that would really generate discussion.  We also talked about how questions that ask us about our "favorite" mean that we have to evaluate and have an explanation for why our choice was our favorite...not just the first thing that pops in our minds.

     Then it was time to ask the question.  We used the thinking steps below.  Since the questions are about a topic the children know very well (themselves:), this is a great opportunity to focus on how to think when answering a question and not just settling for the first answer that pops  in our mind.  This hard work will pay off later when the content is more challenging!  I give the children an opportunity to answer the questions(s) to each other as they practice "teaching" to a partner.

     Finally it's time to write.  I am using lots of multi-sensory strategies (many posts about these to come soon) to help the children.  One of which is visual cues for a sentence.  We pound the words in the sentence and write it together.  Finally, the students copy the sentence in their journals.  They are moving along with this process quickly and some will be able to write their own sentences....yay!  I use a timer to break down the steps and help to teach time management to the students.  I encourage students to tell a story with their pictures and to include details.

     Here is a great example of a finished interview journal entry.  Sorry the picture is sideways.  We practice reading the entries, too.  This is a great way for us to get to know each other,  to learn listening, thinking and questioning procedures and to work on sentence writing skills.  The children will be so excited to share these with you when we've learned about everyone.
      One more thing:  the math kits went home today.  We practiced with them today.  The children were very engaged with practicing numbers.  I sent home their sheet so they could practice (with the vinyl sleeve) at home for fun, too. 

Please let me know how the math homework went...I kept the activities simple for now while we all (me too...it was a challenge to gather just those few materials) get used to the procedures.  Have a great evening!



Classroom Community

      I am still trying to catch up to share all of the things we did last week!  I thought this was important to share with you because this was a foundational lesson (www.firstgradewow.blogspot.com) that we will refer back to all year long.  We read the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and wrinkled up the heart every time the children made fun of her name.  You should have seen the look on your kiddos' faces.  The empathy was abundant!  They felt so bad for poor Chrysanthemum.
     We then talked about how hurtful words can be.  The children wrote their names on band-aids to symbolize how kind words can heal the wrinkled heart.  The white heart says, "Before you speak, think and be smart.  It's hard to fix a wrinkled heart."  The big red heart says "Always use kind words."  I don't think it's ever too young or too early in the year to talk about the harm that bullying can do.  We will revisit this theme throughout the year and I thought it might come in handy at home, too.
     I did not have a blog entry yesterday.  But....it was for a good reason!  I went to Crayons to Computers.  This is a "free store" for teachers.  I got lots of supplies for our classrooms.  One great find was a box of 200 vinyl page covers.  You will see these when you get Monday's math homework kit.  The children can put a game or activity inside the vinyl sleeve and use an overhead or dry erase marker so that the game/activity can be reused throughout the year.  Please be on the lookout for the math homework kit.  These stay at home and we'll build on it all year long.  This is a new homework plan, so please share your thoughts....I'm pretty excited about it.  We had a very productive week and today was a great day!  Give your kiddo a pat on the back and have a great weekend! 

Special First Graders

Today the class read poems and sang songs about being special and unique.  We looked at self-portraits of Mary Cassatt, Vincent VanGogh and Rembrandt before the children created their own self-portraits.  An example is above.  The self-portraits are displayed in our classroom for now, but I'm sure you will treasure them when they come home.  The children were so creative!  One student even asked for two colors of paper to create "highlights" in her hair....how cute! Little did they know that while they were having fun, they were also hitting our language arts targets:  I can follow rules for listening; I can listen to the speaker.  They did a great job of tracking the speaker (following the person talking with their eyes) as I gave directions for each step and they shared about their special qualities.  Each self-portrait is unique:)  Stop by to see them!

Peacemakers

      The students have been working hard to learn all about our classroom community.  Last week we read the book David Goes to School by David Shannon.  The students thought about ways that he was a peacebreaker in his classroom.  This funny story provided the basis for a great discussion.  We also talked about how to be a peacemaker in our classroom and sorted word cards to make this poster.  All of the students signed  a Peacemaker Pledge.  We talked about what to do if there is a conflict and we created a special spot in our room (right by our posters) for students to work out their differences.
     Mrs. McMahon and I spent a lot of time this summer exploring new ideas for teaching and learning on Pinterest and on the internet.  This original idea came from here.  It is so much fun to try out new things that have worked in other classrooms.  Looking at all of these blogs gave me inspiration to create one for our parents and our school. 
     I will be sharing lots of the other things that we have been doing.  We want to help make the transition to first grade as smooth as possible.  The children all really seemed to enjoy this activity and discussion and we can continue to refer to these ideas throughout the year.  You might even find yourself calling your child a "peacemaker."

First two days, hooray!

     We have had a wonderful first two days of school!  This is my first attempt at keeping a blog, so please be patient as I learn.  My purpose for this blog is to increase communication with families, tell you exactly how the children are learning all those targets and to show off success.  Once I have a little more practice with this blog, I plan to post lots of pictures and share all that goes on in our classroom.  It will also give me a good spot to put all of the important papers in case anything gets lost at home.  Thanks to Mr. S. and Mrs. M. for spending lots of time showing me how to do this!
     Today I read through the student information sheets that you all spent who-knows-how-long on last night.  Please know that your time and comments were very appreciated.  I learned so much about the children that will really help me to get a head start with them.  So.....thank you!  Now, I'm going to see if I can figure out how to get this thing to post.