When considering my structured literacy program, I want to ensure that I provide my students with all the skills they need to become readers. In kindergarten, read-alouds are an essential way to build comprehension and vocabulary skills. I have been using a 3-day interactive read-aloud plan, and it has been great for helping me plan …
Once I have taught my students some phonics skills, and they have an understanding of how to write words, I can start working on writing simple sentences for kindergarten. This is a big leap for students. They go from putting a couple of letters together to make a word to putting a few words together …
Once I finish teaching my students letter-sound correspondences using my phonics routine and reinforcing long and short vowel sounds. I move to teaching them consonant digraphs. These are two consonants that make one sound- wh, sh, ch, th. Just like with my phonics routine and vowel review, I used a systematic way to learn and …
I love playing I Have, Who Has games with my students. There are so many different variations that you can do, but I love playing it as a letter recognition game. Pass out the cards Start by passing out all the cards to your students. If you have more cards than students, give some students …
When I first started researching the best methods for teaching students to read, I often felt overwhelmed by everything I was learning. I wanted to make sure I was keeping my students engaged in my literacy lessons for kindergarten but still teaching them important skills. So, I started coming up with games to play. These …
Write-the-room activities are always a hit with my students. If I give them a clipboard and a pencil, they are excited to walk around the room looking for cards. I wanted to get my students to practice writing letters and reinforce letter formations, so I made it into a write-around-the-room activity. Set-Up the Write-the-Room To …
Part of my structured literacy approach in the classroom is having students practice tracing letters. To become writers, my students need to learn how to form letters, and that can be hard work! Fine Motor Skills First, to be able to write, I ensure that my students have a lot of fine motor practice. I …
A solid understanding of short and long vowel sounds is important in building students’ reading and writing skills. Teaching Phonics Skills Kindergarten students need explicit and systematic instruction in phonics skills. It is one of the fundamental skills students need to be successful readers and writers. As I continue to teach my students letter sounds, …
I have come up with quick and easy kindergarten literacy activities that use simple letter cards to practise various skills with my students. These cost nothing to make – I just cut up pieces of paper and wrote on them with a Sharpie! I use the activities alongside my structured literacy routine to help reinforce …
Students can create their own no-prep sight word books to reinforce reading and writing the words they are learning. Teaching Sight Words This past year, I learned about the Heart Word method for teaching sight words. For students to automatically start reading them, I explicitly teach my students how to read them. This way, they …
