Hello Friends!
It's Kimberly from Loving Kinders. I am very excited to be the guest blogger this week.
I wanted to talk about...
As a kinder-teacher, I find it difficult to find
developmentally appropriate guided reading texts. I find that there are a plethora
of “ A leveled readers” but do they nurture young readers? Do they offer interaction
with print concepts? Can they keep the book and re-read it for fluency practice
or sight word retention? In most cases, no. they. don’t.
As another option, I wanted to share with you what I use and how I
support developing readers in my classroom.
I LOVE using Interactive Emergent Readers with my kinders as
part of their guided reading curriculum especially, as they develop into
confident readers and writers. By using
these texts, kinders are able to develop into self-assured readers with
valuable literacy tools that promote and assist them as growing readers.
I’ve found that kinder learners learn best with a GUIDED,
Supportive and interactive approach to reading. There is a reason that “with support” is
within our standards!! Everything we do as instructors is meant to guide
and develop our young kinders into self-sustained, confident readers.
This is my simple approach.
I focus on three things.
#1 Identify Conventions
#2 Identify Sight Words
#3 Touch Read and Echoing
In a small group I use a booklet emergent reader. I make sure that the reader does not have more than 4-5 words per page and that all words are appropriate for my reading group. I am not too picky with the emergent reader, I just want to make sure that we can write on it and that they can take it home. Many times I make my own booklet. For this post, I am sharing my weather reader that I used during my weather week.
We begin with step #1- Identify Conventions. These are the
RULES for writing. I LOVE to
color-code. (I REALLY DO!) I thoroughly believe that
color-coding assists students with skill retention and maintains consistency
when working with standard specific skills.
I ask my kinders to use colored pencils or crayons to underline the capital letters green and circle the end marks red. I don’t know where or why I thought of this? I think it came to me on one of those AMAZING teacher waves that just hits you~ Smack in the face! Utter teacher genius. Well, at least for me. Also, I am not sure why it works…but it DOES WORK, and it looks great! Lastly, I would have to agree that it helps my kinders 100% remember the WHY in the rules when writing and developing sentences.
#2 Identify Sight Words
I l-o-v-e to use color-coding! Did I tell you that
already? Well, in addition to the red
and green, my students circle their sight words YELLOW with MARKERS. First, please know, that I never EVER let my students use markers!!! Why? Because I don’t like markers,
that’s why. They are fat, they don’t
allow for detailed drawings, and lastly, because they bleed through the paper. YUCK! So... I don't like markers.... So when I read with my kinders in guided reading and they can use a marker to circle their
words, it’s like LIQUID GOLD.
Literally, it is a piece of GOLD!!
It's GOLD I tell you!
#3 Touch Read and Echoing
This is something that I am sure that you use when you are guiding and supporting young readers. In our small group each student is required to touch each word and we either read it or tap it out. After each of the words are read on the page, most likely from one of my readers, we ALL echo the entire sentences ONCE, or TWICE, or however many times we might need.
This 3-Step Approach supports,
guides, and assists readers in their quest and journey to become successful,
confident, and sustainable readers and writers.
I hope these ideas help you
nurture our dearest and developing kinders.
Watching young readers and writers begin to read is a priceless gift
that we are given as teachers. There is
nothing better than watching a kinder read for the first time.
Enjoy your kinders.
If you are interested in my weather unit please visit my store and/or my blog.
Great guest post! I do the yellow highlighters of sight words, but not the red and green. Good idea. See you around! Kathleen Kidpeople Classroom
ReplyDeleteI bet focusing on conventions also transfers well to their writing! Thanks for sharing your ideas.
ReplyDelete-Leslie
TeachJunkie.com
KindergartenWorks.com
Thanks ladies!!! I really enjoyed writing this one!
ReplyDelete