R-Controlled Lovin'

In my small group intervention time I've loved my newest group. Working with small groups of kids will probably be one of my favorite groupings to interact with, but this particular small group has just been a fabulous mixture of personalities. Between all of the quirks and laughter we've had a great few weeks reviewing R-Controlled vowels.

One of the best ways to see movement of students is repetition and application. Repetition is great for the first couple of days, but after that it can become boring. Although we do different activities with word tiles, white boards, and iPads... I'm always trying to find different activities to keep the kiddos engaged.

This go around I threw together 3 games with a couple of variations (nonsense words included for two of the games.) My students loved the change up and requested that the games were brought out to be played throughout the week. Students learning and enjoying themselves while they learn? I'll take that any day!

Click below to see them in my TpT Store!

3

Reading Foundational Skills: Fluency

This is the last post on reading foundational skills. Anita Archer, Ph. D had such a great presentation, that I had to share. The last component of this mini-series is fluency.

Fluency has 3 components: accuracy, rate, and expression. You have to build up fluency in that progression. In order to pick up the rate you need to be reading accurately. You can't add it the expression unless your reading at a decent rate. Each component builds on one another.

Factors that Effect Rate

• Porportion of words in the text that are recognized as "sight words"
• Sight words are any words that readers have practiced; often read from memeory
• Speed of decoding strategies used to determine the pronunciation of unknown words. 
• Speed with which word meanings are identified. 
• Speed at which overall meaning is constructed. 

Why Fluency? 

• Fluency is related to reading comprehension.
• When students read fluently, decoding requires less attention. Attention can be given to comprehension. 
• Laborious decoding and low fluency results in little reading. 
• As a result... the rich get richer. The poor get poorer. 

Fluency How? ... Pretty simple... practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, and more practice!

•  Provide extensive reading practice. Utilize procedures such as augmented silent reading, choral reading, cloze reading, and partner reading. Read a lot! At the least, read together. 
• Encourage wide independent reading. 
• Provide repeated reading practice at the word level. When reading word lists, have students reread word lists until competent.
• Utilize repeated reading exercises in passages to increase fluency. At least 3 times to get better. 

Passage Reading: Silent Reading

• Pose pre-reading question
• Tell students to read a certain amount and to reread material if they finish early. 
• Monitor students' reading. Have individuals whisper-read to you.
• Pose post-reading question.

Passage Reading: Echo Reading

• Teacher reads a word, phrase, or sentence.
• Students "echo" read the word, phrase, or sentence.
• Useful for building fluency and expression.
• Fade as students grow in reading skills. 

Passage Reading: Choral Reading

• Read selection with your students.
• Read at a moderate rate.
• Tell your students, "Keep your voice with mine."
• You may wish to have students pre-read silently before choral reading.
• All students are reading--modeling rate/expression

Passage Reading; Cloze Reading

• Read selection.
• Pause on "meaningful" words. 
• Have students read the deleted words.
• Excellent practice for reading initial part of a chapter or when you need to read something quickly.

Practice Reading- Individual Turns

• Use with small groups ONLY
• Call on an individual student.
• Call on students in random order.
• Vary the amount of material read. 

Passage Reading: Partner Reading

• Reader whisper reads to partner.
• Narrative: Alternate by word, sentence, page, or time (5 minutes).
• Informational Text: Alternate by paragraph.
• Coach corrects errors.
• Ask-- Can you figure out this word?
• Tell--p This word is ______. What word? Reread the sentence.
• Alternatives to support lowest readers:
• Lowest readers place on triad.
• First reader (better reader) reads material. Second reader reads the SAME materal.
• Students read the material together.
• Before reading, students can say ME (I will read.) OR We (Please read with me.)

Repeated Reading

• Student reads the same material a number of times (at least 3)
• General procedure:
• Cold-timing (one minute without prior practice)
• Practice (rereading material to increase fluency)
• Hot-timing (one minute timing)
• Often coupled with modeling by teacher, self-monitoring of progress through graphing. 

In my reading groups, we have "Fluency Fridays" these days have a specific block of time to work on fluency through practice and games. At the very lesast we are working on this component of the "Big 5" at least once a week. The students enjoy the change of pace. It's also easy to implement into reading skills centers, and "catch-up" days. 
 

2

Reading Foundation Skill: Phonics (Jam-Packed Post)

I'm finally back to blogging... this week has just been a week. The type of week that makes a person long for the weekend from about noon on Tuesday, but I survived, the weather is fantastic, and I have plans to spend a beautiful evening at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

My last post, was on Anita Archer's presentation at the state MTSS conference. I truly loved her session, and if you ever have the opportunity to hear her speak, I would highly recommend it. She is so knowledgeable and vibrant! If you missed the last post, it was on the reading foundational skill of phonemic awareness; today, I will continue on to the topic of phonics.

Phonics is the ability to utilize letter-sound (phoneme-grapheme) associations and structural elements to determine the pronunciation of words.

This includes:

• Letter-sound associations
• Consonant and vowel letters
• Consonant combinations including:
• blends (bl,fl,st, tr, etc.)
• digraphs (sh, ph, th, ch, etc.)
• Vowel combinations including:
• digraphs (ae, etc.)
• dipthongs (oi, oy, etc.)
• r-controlled vowels (er, ir, ur, etc.)
• Deconding of regular, single syllable words
• Structural elements including: 
• inflectional endings
• prefixes
• suffixes
• Decoding of multisyllabic words
• Reading of irregular words in which letters don't represent most common sounds
• Reading decodable text

The teaching of multisyllabic words needs to occur sooner. Struggling readers in intermediate grades are often afraid of or come lacking the skills to read multisyllable words. Giving all students the strategies they need so that as they go along they can feel success as they go on.

Phonics Instruction Progression

1. Associating letters and sounds.
2. Blending sounds into words.
3. Reading words to build fluency.
4. Segmenting and spelling words. 
5. Reading decodable text. 

*Daily dictation & decoding shows the greatest growth. We say, you write, I give feedback.

Why letter-sound associations?

• English is an alphabetic language.
• Students with lett-ersound associations perform better.
• Students benefit from early, systematic letter-sound associations
• Good readers rely primarily on the letters in a word rather than context or pictures. 

Taking another look at the 3 cueing systems:

• Primary System
• Phonological cueing system (letter-sound associations)
• Confirmation Systems  "Back-Ups"
• Syntactial cueing system (word-order)
• Semantic cueing sytem (contextual meaning)

First you need to look at the the letters  then you confirm with the back ups...does it make sense?

Teaching letter-sound associations needs to be sequential.

• Easy to difficult (single vowels before digraphs)
• High frequency before low frequences (m, a, f before j, x, z)
• Separate easily confused letter-sound associations (e and i, n and m, b and d)
• Provide explicit instruction 
• Differentiate between continuous and stop sounds

Phonics: Regular Words

• As soon as a sound is learned, incorporate the sound into words. 
• Model blending of sounds into words.
• Provide practice on decoding words to build word fluency.
• Preteach difficult to pronounce words before passage reading

Decoding Strategy for Short Words

1. Say the sounds
2. Say the sounds fast.
3. Say the word.
4. Ask yourself: Is it a word? Does it make sense?

Sound by Sound Blending
Sounding out VC, CVC, CVCC, CCVC words

mom   top    shop   dot

1. (write the first letter on the board) What sound?
2. (write the second letter on the board) What sound?
3. (Move your hand under the two letters) Blend it.
4. (Write the third letter) What sound?
5. (Move your hand under the letters) Blend the sounds.
6. What word?

This strategy gets rid of blurts and keeps the review and practice going.

Continuous Blending (Modeling)
Sounding out VC, CVC, CVCC, CCVC words

sip   fit   lip  tip  rim

1. When I touch a letter, I'll say its sound. I'll keep saying the sound until I touch the next letter. I won't stop between sounds. 
2. My turn to sound out this word. (Touch under each letter and say the sound. Hold the continuous sounds. Say the stop sounds quickly. Don't stop between sounds.) 
3. Sound out this word with me. (Touch under each letter.)
4. Your turn. SOund out this word by yourselves. (Touch under each letter.)
5. What word? (Glide your finger under the word.)

Transition of responsibility with "I do, we do, you do" strategy.

CVCE words Using Rule
Decoding CVCE words

bake   rate   rat   brake   mane   man

1. An e at the end of the word tells us to say the name of this letter. (Point to the vowel letter.)
2. Guide students in applying the rule.)
1. Is there an e at the end of the word?
2. (Point to the vowel letter.) So do we say the name or the sound of this letter?
3. What is the name of this letter?
4. (Point to the word.) What word?

Teach with both examples and non-examples, otherwise over generalization can occur.

CVCE Words-Sound Blending
like   mine   fit   fine

1. (Point to the first letter.) What sound?
2. (Point to the vowel and final e.) What sound?
3. (Point to the consonant.) What sound?
4. (Glide finger under the word.) Blend it.
5. What word? 

Decoding Words with Onset Rime
This builds automatically and also shows patterns; additional practice for spelling

1. (Point to rime.) What part? an
2. Get ready to read words that end with an.
3. (Point to new word.) What word? ran
4. (Point to next word.) What word? fan
5. Continue with additional words.

Reading "word families" is an excellent way to buld word reading fluency. Practice the word family until students are very fluent. Use choral reading and partner reading.

Most used rimes, so focus on these!

  Decoding- Providing Additional Practice & Review

1. Encoding/Spelling: On a daily basis, dictate words that students have sounded out
1. Teacher says the word.
2. Teacher says the word in a sentence.
3. Students repeat the word.
4. Teacher & students put up one finger for each sound in the word OR both put up one finger for each part of the word.
5. Students say the sounds/parts to themselves as they write the word.
2. Feedback 
1. Teacher writes the word on the board/overhead. Student compares their word to model.
2. If student has made an error, they corss out the word and rewrite it correctly.

Spelling needs to be auditory and visual. All corrections in spelling should be visual.

Decoding-Providing Additional Practice & Review 

• Word Transformations (Use whiteboard faster practice)
• Provide starter word, students write it down.
• Say another word that is one letter different. Students form the new word.
• Continue dictating a progression words, each word different from the previous word by one letter by inserting, substituting, or deleting.

Decoding-Providing Additional Practice & Review: 3 Games/Activities with Little Prep

• Ten Second Rapid Read
• After a list of words has been read, have one student whisper-read reads for 10 seconds to his/her partner. As the student reads, the partrner counts the number of words read. Have students switch roles. Can compete to have the most words read. 
• Team Read
• Divide the students into teams having the same number of "players".  Have the students line up. When you say go, have students read the words in order. When they complete the list, have them raise their hands. First team done is the winner. 
• Cross Out Game
• Have students circle three words on his/her word list. Be sure that the students do not show classmates their circled words. Read any word from the word list. Have students locate and corss out the word. Continue reading words from the list in random order. The winner of the game is the person whose circled words are crossed out first. 

Decoding Strategy for Long Words

1. Say the parts.
2. Say the parts fast.
3. Say the word.
4. Ask yourself: is it a real word, does it make sense?

Too many students have the goal of "done" not does it make sense.

Decoding Multisyllabic Words

• Rather than using rigid, rule-directed syllabication to divide words into parts, students should be taught to recognize the parts in a flexible manner.
• Putting words into "decodable chunks" using prefixes, suffixes, and vowels should be stressed. 

When decoding the chunks swoop underneath the word parts.  Using lines drawn between the parts looks like segment. Having spaces between the words is not seen in literature so generalizations can't be made. Looping under the word parts looks like blending and keeps the words together.

Decoding of Multisyllabic Words: Loop, Loop, Loop Strategy
(Preparation: segment word into decodable chunks. Be sure that prefixes and suffixes are separate parts. Draw loops to sement the words.)

instruction    commitment    remarkable

1. (Move finger under the first part.) What part?
2. (Repeat for remaining parts.)
3. (Move finger quickly under the parts.) What part? What part? What part?
4. What word?
5. Is that a real word?

Irregular Words
Distinction between three terms

• High Frequency Words
•  Only 100 words account for approximately 50% of the words in English print
• Irregular Words
• Cannot be sounded out accurately using the most common sounds for graphemes
• Many high frequency words are irregular
• Sight Vocabulary- high frequency & other words learned
• Words that are recognized instantly

With irregular words... looking at the words, memorizing the letters in the words is key. 

Again, information shared was jotted down during Anita's presentation. We are starting up our small intervention groups this coming week & I cannot wait to implement some of her strategies with my students!

4

Reading Foundational Skill: Phonological Awareness

The state MTSS Conference is over. It was a great time, and I survived my public speaking experience. I think our presentation went well even with all of the the technological problems leading to it.

I thought I'd take the chance a share a few of the things I learned over the two day event. The first session I attended was probably my favorite and  was put on by Anita Archer, Ph.D.

If you have not heard of her, you really need to checkout her books, clips from YouTube and free handouts from past workshops through MiBLSi. A former teacher of 47 years, she brought a lot of pizazz to the presentation. Although, the presentation was geared for K-2 many of the ideas presented were great for my small MTSS intervention groups. 

The critical foundation skills are: phonological awareness, phonics/word recognition, and fluency.

Phonological awareness is understanding oral language can be broken down into smaller components.

• Sentences to words
• Words to syllables 
• Words into on-set rimes
• Words into phonemes 

All of these involve blending and segmenting.

Chart from Anita Archer, Ph. D

Segmenting and blending activities have the greatest benefit for reading acquisition according to the National Reading Panel. A student's phoneme awareness performance in Kindergarten/First is a strong predictor of long-term reading and spelling success.

How to Incorporate:

•  Kindergarten 10-15 minutes a day, could be done throughout the day.
• Working on syllables could be done by playing the "name game." It's a good way to work on syllables and learn about one another. 
• Blending and segmenting can be done throughout the day. Have students listen while they are lined up for lunch, give them a word to blend together... maybe where your headed or an object around the room.   
• First grade 10 minutes a day incorporated into phonics instruction. 
• All elementary grades should incorporate phonemic awareness into spelling.

 Phonemic Awareness Activities Should Be:

1. Few in number. 2-3 activities done often.
2. Explicitly modeled.  Don't commit "assume-aside" 
3. Supported by concrete materials or gestures.
4. Designed to include all students. 

Instructional routines, although often thought to be boring by teachers are actually motivating to struggling learners. This is due to the probability of success that these students can experience through these activities.

Blending Sounds into Words

1. We're going ot play a say-the-word game. I'll say the sounds. You say the word.
2. Listen. aaaaammmm
3. What word? am
4. (Repeat with other words.) 
5. (If time permits, check individual students)

Practice with words that students will decode. Maybe a particular sound or word family that you are working with. 

There are two types of segmenting: smooth and separate.

Segmenting Words into Sounds--- Smooth Segmenting

1. Put your fists together.
2. Get ready to stretch the word.
3. The word is fin. What word? fin
4. Stretch it. fffiiiiinnnn (pull fists apart)
5.  Shrink it. fin (bring fists together)
6. If time permits, check individual students.) 

 Segmenting Words into Sounds--- Separate Segmenting

1. We're going to say the sounds in a word.
2. Fist in the air. Put up one finger for each sound.
3. The word is sat. What word? sat
4. First sound? /sss/ Next sound? /aaa/ Last sound? /t/
5. If time permits, check individual students.  

*It's critical to not distort sounds. Some sounds such at /t/ you can't hold as long. If you do, you will inadvertently add a vowel sound to it.*

A lot of information for a Sunday, it may not be the most applicable for all of my upper elementary friends; however, I teach an intervention group that I think I could use some of these activities and skill work in throughout our intervention times.

For topics less brain draining and more fun... my BBB Jivey, is having a MASSIVE giveaway. Click the picture below to have 5 chances to win some amazing products and items.

0

Baloney: A Post of Sunday Randomness

There has been so much going on the last few days that I feel the need to link up with Sunday Smorgasbord as well as share a great mentor text for language arts: Baloney.

First up, there is a HUGE giveaway going on where EVERYONE wins! A summer planning linky with packs for lessons and decor. The packs are divided into K-2 and 3+ so you can pick and choose which pack fits your needs/wants the best. You can sign up to win more than one pack. All you have to do is follow the scavenger hunt from blogs to TPT or Facebook, find all the secret words for the pack and your golden! To get started visit I'm Lovin' Lit's page!

 

Second, my 300 follower giveaway is still going on! Chance to win $25 TPT gift certificate and items from my store. 3 prizes two ways to win! Click the picture below to learn more! 

 

Third, I'm loving all of the link ups each week for my summer linky and I'd love for you to join in to! It's a summer recipe swap of sorts. Link up your favorite recipe, a recipe from Pinterest, a restaurant recommendation {basically, anything food related!} You don't have to take pictures if you don't want to either. I post a new link up that is open all week each Monday, all summer long! Be ready to pin, there have been some really great meal ideas/desserts and drinks posted!

Fourth, one of my good blogging buddies is celebrating her birthday and bloggiversary with a chance to win $50 gift certificate your choice to either TPT or Amazon! Click the picture to enter.

Last, and certainly not least... the linky that is the reason I want to win that $50 Amazon gift certificate: The Collaboration Cuties Mentor Text Linky! If you haven't been following along, this linky is chock full of amazing texts that you can use to teach from. {My amazon wishlist grows exponentially each Sunday!}

Here is a quick pitch from my friends at Amazon:

Henry P. Baloney needs to come up with a very good, very believable excuse for being late to szkola yet again--or he's in big trouble with his teacher Miss Bugscuffle. But never fear! Henry has a doozy of a story. You see, it all started when he misplaced his trusty yellow no. zz zimulis. One thing led to another, and before he knew it, he was on a razzo blasting off into space, where he eventually landed on the planet Astrosus. All went well there, as the intrepid explorer entertained the Astro guys with his funny piksas--until they decided Henry and his piksas would be entertaining to eat. Things go on in this vein until somehow, miraculously, Henry P. Baloney ends up back in his classroom, a mere seven minutes late--but still one writing utensil short!

Trust the ultracreative author/illustrator pair, Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, the Time Warp Trio series, and more), to mastermind a plot this bizarre and yet somehow familiar to any school kid. Sure, Henry P. Baloney is a cute, saucer-eyed, green alien, but he has problems just like you and me--such as the threat of Permanent Lifelong Detention. Remarkably, as Scieszka reports in his afterword, when he received and decoded the transmission of this story (directly from deep space, mind you), it was written in a combination of many Earth languages, including Finnish, Swahili, Latvian, Esperanto, and Inuktitut (decoder included). Go figure.

Last year, one of the classes wrote their own frindle stories, and after reading this book I thought the same could happen. With our MTSS/RTI activities, I thought I could restrict students to come up with a nonsense word that fit patters that they are working on (long vowel pattern, r-control, etc.) {Nonsense words/word attack skills are a challenge for many of my students.} The story filled with excuses for Henry being late, provides a bit of humor as well as a chance for students to use context clues to figure out what Henry is talking about.

A fun book, I'm wanting to try later this school year. What mentor texts do you use to teach language arts skills? Be sure to link up!!

11

Some Pinteresting Ideas for MTSS/RTI

Jivey has switched things up this June with her Workshop Wednesday to a Pinterest showcase. This week I have a few different pins to share with you that I am wanting to use with my MTSS/RTI groups this year.

Although I worked with students last year who were fairly low on the phonics continuum (short/long vowels, r-controlled, etc.) There is talk around the building that we may periodically change up the groups we are working with. This will be done so that:

1. All teachers can become familiar with the skills, know how to teach them all, and as teachable moments occur throughout different classes every teacher will know the best ways to do that.
2. Everyone can realize the challenges that come with planning, teaching, and record keeping of our MTSS adventure. Whether working with students on phonics skills, fluency, multisyllablic words, or advanced vocabulary; each group holds it's own set of challenges. 
3. New ideas and techniques can be tried, tweaked, etc.

Source: fourthnten.com via Christy on Pinterest

Lisa, at Fourth and Ten had a great post on her fluency intervention centers. I'd like to incorporate centers similar to these (hopefully creating or at least updating the contents in them from time to time), at least once a week in my reading classes. The best way to increase fluency is with repeated readings. Throughout the day to day, trying to cover new materials, there doesn't always seem to be time for that. Having boxed up centers ready to go will help me to include fluency more often.

Source: fcrr.org via Christy on Pinterest

If you haven't been to this sight you NEED TO GO seriously. Free activities grades K-5 that correlate to the MTSS/RTI skills and CCSS. It's great. Free. Color coordinated (if you have color printing too.)

Source: ladybugsteacherfiles.blogspot.com via Christy on Pinterest

I love Ladybug's Teacher Files and her syllibication games look great as well as hit on a skill many of my students have not mastered yet.

There are few ideas for those of you who are implementing MTSS/RTI in the coming school year. I helped with an organization process for our building this summer. I'll try to blog about that adventure and some of the things will be implementing in the near future.

Meanwhile...

There are a couple of great giveaways going on too. So be sure to click the pictures for a chance to win a ton of great resources and prizes!

A prize your SURE to WIN!! Free until 9 pm TONIGHT a lapbook from Where the Wild Things Learn!! Click to learn how you can get your free copy!!

2

Tried It Tuesday,Featured and Givaways!

I'm back for Holly's Tried It Tuesday. I'm loving this linky (among many others) for so many pin-worthy ideas!


Today I'm going to share about a fun little app I had some of my MTSS/RTI students download last week (and even as 5th graders they enjoyed it)...Sock Puppets (the free version). {I've been trying during my free time today to upload a quick video to show off the app, but I discovered it takes a $1 to save videos to the camera roll, bummer!}

 You get to choose your cast of characters

Choose your scenery and props

 

Record and Play!

It's a quirky, fun app that utilizes virtual sock puppets. On the free app, you get 30 seconds of recording time. Just tap the characters to move them. Once you start to record, you click the puppet you want to "talk" for you. Once your finished recording and hit the play button back, the app automatically changes your voice for the different characters. It was a fun way to have the students share what they knew about the differences in long vowels, short vowels, and r controlled vowels and a unique informal assessment.Other classes have used it for retelling, vocab lessons, etc. It was just a comical way to add some pizazz to otherwise repetitive and sometimes boring topics. 

I am also pretty excited to be featured today on Fun in First Grade's New Teacher Blog Tuesday. So if your wanting to know even more about me, please head there. Be sure to follow as well, so you can discover new blogs each week!

One last thing... there are a couple of great giveaways going on! Be sure to click the pictures to enter... as that's the only way you can win!

Multiple chances to win based on grade levels. A great opportunity from my of my favorite blogging buddies Jivey! Whoot for 300 followers!

The second giveaway comes from a sweet, first year Kindergarten teacher (and former K-State grad) Regina! If you are a teacher in K-2 this is definitely a giveaway for you!!

5

RTI Resource: FCCR

I'm sure many of you have heard of this resource, but on the off chance you haven't your in for a treat: FCCR (Florida Center for Reading Research) is a wonderful resource for all things RTI.

This website is set up with tons of free resources for many of the phonics and reading skills all students need. The resources are put all together. Divided by grade level and topic. Annnd for my slightly organizing loving self if printed in color the topics are color coordinated. Swoon.

Topics for K-5: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension, with varying degrees of skill levels depending on the grade. Just choose a topic, find a corresponding activity you think will work for you, download, print, cut, and use!

I've utilized this website in my MTSS groups as well as when covering reading skills in center rotations during the day!

2

RTI: App with Checking Out!

Another MTSS/RTI update for you all... with an app I was introduced to within the last week: Phonics Genius!

This is a FREE app with tons of words grouped by their phonics sounds (over 5,000 words is what iTunes has listed.) The app has three ways to practice words. Currently, I have students read the word aloud, then click to hear the word read, to see if they are reading/pronouncing the word correctly. It's good for a couple of my RTI kiddos who also have speech difficulties.

I haven't used it a whole lot yet (since I really haven't known about it all that long) but there are features I do like. Besides the vast amount of words used, I like how I can add my own cards to the mix (there are always a few tricky words that my students struggle with consistently) and that I can add new lists to group flashcards the way I want for those target areas we are working on.

I'm looking forward to using and learning more about this app, hopefully it can be helpful for some of you as well!

0

RTI Update

We've been hard at it. Working in our reading skills to "close the gaps."

Just to recap. We started with Aimsweb testing. Sorted kids into groups. The kiddos with the highest need were give the QPS (Quick Phonics Screener) to identify specific needs, and now we are into the heart of it. Teaching. Progress monitoring. Trying to find materials that work and keep students engaged.

I work with two groups of students. One group is working on short vowels the other on long vowels. These are relatively "low" on the trajectory of increasingly difficult phonics skills.  These are heterogeneous groups for our MTSS/RTI groups. It doesn't matter what the child is labeled, if they even are, all that matters is that they need a particular skill and these groups are in place to try and get them the skills they need.

The biggest problem that I have come against is finding materials that are both age and skill appropriate. There are many great resources for lower elementary with these two skills. However, my fifth graders, feel that words such as "cat" "hat" "beg" are babyish, and really not engaging. I would have to agree. I'm constantly on the search for materials that work for this group of students.  Until I find the perfect mix of materials or program that really seems to click.

There are parts of West Virgina Reading First, that I really like. It is very explicit and systematic...thorough too. But I tweaked it. I didn't spend an entire week on one short/long vowel sound. That was way too boring, not only for the students but for myself as well. So I modified. We covered a sound or two a day with days to review several sounds at a time. That helped.

Click to see the lesson and activity books. A free resource from LINCS.

Then, I changed things up a bit more. The last couple of weeks, I have pulled almost exclusively from LINCS (Literacy Information and Communication System) adult reading program. What I like about this program is that a a single lesson focuses not only on a vowel, but syllabication, reading more age appropriate text, as well as other skill work. I still use West Virgina as a bit of inspiration incorporating activity ideas, just not the full program.

So, as I cut and paste and put things together, I try and supplement as I can. An quick activity I whipped up to start a lesson was a simple word sort. In my long vowel group, I wanted my students to understand the basic VCe pattern as well as knowing that not all VCe words are long, and some words are just flat out rule breakers. We had covered long vowels and variations for a couple of weeks, so this worked as a good warmup/informal assessment.

To get a free copy for yourself click here to go to TPT or here to go to TN.

3

Valentine's Freebie for RTI

Quick post tonight.

My grad class load is stealing away my time and so I took a few minutes tonight to make a review game for my short and long vowel MTSS/RTI groups tomorrow and Thursday to warm up.

My kiddos are doing much better with their vowels, but nonsense words are still tripping them up. This game is a mix of both long and short vowel nonsense words. If students can read the card they can keep it, but watch out! A broken heart means that you loose all of your cards.


Click the picture to download this freebie!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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Don't Get Scared! Freebie!

It's a snowday!! I'm so excited, the flu has been going around and I think everyone needed a day to rest up, heal up, or just stay healthy.  The moisture is desperately needed too!

Back to school life... MTSS is going well, but it's very repetitious. So I'm spicing things up just a bit.

They are pretty scarey, aren't they? :)

Enter... "Don't Get Scared". My fifth graders really weren't scared of the cute monsters in this game.. but the monsters made things a little more cheerful and fun! Them game is similar to the popsicle stick game BANG that I've seen around Pinterest using the short vowel words that we are working on currently. I enjoyed the movie "Monsters Inc." and used that as an inspiration in this game.

Since we used the Quick Phonics Screener (QPS) to sort the students into groups, we were able to see the students "word attack" skills through the use of nonsense words. Our district hasn't taught nonsense words per say, but I did throw in nonsense cards to use with this game. I've touched on nonsense words more during MTSS as the kids told me it they look like another language and they just don't get it. Why would we want them to read stuff that wasn't real? After explaining why, and going over the short vowel patterns again, I think they are getting it.

To see what this game is like you can click the picture above for the Short A freebie! 

Or to purchase the whole bundle, or to just check it out, click the picture above.

*Note.. this game is strictly three letter CVC words. I'm working on creating one that has more difficult CVC pattern words for my current MTSS group.*

What games or activities do you with your kiddos to reinforce short vowels? I'd love to hear your ideas to keep our MTSS/RTI time engaging. 

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Getting Into the Swing of Things: RTI

What a week it has been, but things are going good.

Just a refresher: we completed Aimsweb testing, sorted kids, and this week began our Tiered times to implement RTI/MTSS. We were told that sorting was the hard part, and that anxiety builds while trying to get all the particulars figured out {materials, staff, and spaces for instruction}, but once we could start teaching kids, things would get better....and they have.

This was my coffee table this weekend. Hopefully the early onset of carpol tunnel brought on from cutting lamination becomes worth it.

With my short/long vowel groups, last week I  used lesson plans from West Virginia's Reading First these are very good, explicit lessons...but... I like to make lessons my own. I'm did the activities as they were called for last week, I typed up and laminated all of the necessary flashcards and word lists to go along with it. While I like the convenience that can come with the Reading First lessons, they are very elementary...great for K-2. I'm looking for and hoping to create some more resources that are a little more 5th grade friendly.

Click the picture to go to the lessons

This week I'm trying out some of the resources, that actually come from an adult reading course. The lessons are structured a little more upper elementary friendly. Working on passages that they may actually see out and about. The lessons are super scripted (page after page...) but I really do like the questions and progression. So we will see how this works, maybe I will mash up this with some of West Virgina's materials.

Another teacher I know is using Rewards it also incorporates multisyallabic words so I like that aspect in that program too. 

Groups that are working on more advanced phonics skills are working with Spiral Up, a program our school bought. Again, although the lessons are explicit, these with all of the necessary flashcards and materials, all the teacher's I've talked to have been finding other materials to add to it. Our principal is okay with purchasing other materials if they are of need, so who knows maybe we'll find something super stellar. So far, there hasn't been a cookie cutter recipe, a program that is so great that it works for all... but in my opinion that's the way it should be...supplementing, differentiating, individualizing. These programs are good in their own right, but it takes the teacher element to make them great and make them work for the best ability for the students.

Click the picture to learn more

So for now, that's where things stand. It was fun to see during inservice earlier this week, how much the 4th grade has accomplished in so little time. I teach in a 4/5 building, in October 4th grade started their MTSS switches and 5th grade just this month. The MTSS teams made a visual using sticky notes (color coded too!) to show where the students were when taking the test and where they have moved up/down to. Almost all showed progression. There were a few yellows (inaccurate and slow, group 4 on Aimsweb, and in need of phonics interventions) that bumped up to white!! (Accurate and fluent, group 1!!) 5th grade didn't change quite so much, but by the time they had compiled the data, we'd been at it only a few days.

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Background Information: RTI/MTSS

I thought, since I sort of introduced the story of my districts MTSS adventure in the middle of the story, I should back it up and give you a little more information and a behind the scenes look.

MTSS Team
A group of teachers and the principal who are working to figure out all of the ins and outs. They've also spent countless hours rounding up and preparing materials. They all deserve medals, extra pay, or some extra days off! Our school has voluntarily entered this process to help benefit our students, this team is a huge part in pulling off this whole venture.

Testing
Our school uses Aimseb testing 3 times a year (fall, winter, and spring). Using the online program, students data is processed and we can see if they are 'on target'.

Testing: Part 2
For students who are not quite up to the target, additional testing is completed. We used the Quick Phonics Screener (QPS) for students to be inaccurate and not fluent. I love this test! Although it doesn't tell you every single skill that might be missing, it does a pretty good job, and it is quick and easy to administer.

Sorting
For any subset of the QPS (which the majority of it is composed of both nonsense/real words so that student's ability for word attack can be gauged too) that the student scores 8 or lower, a mark is made. The lowest number subset, that has a score of 8 or below, will be the first group the student needs to be a part of. The kiddos I'm working with had a missing skill of short or long vowel, relatively low skills on the spectrum. This does not mean that they have to work through 8 different groups to make it up to multi-syllable words. Almost all of the student's I'm working with skip several subset skills before landing into their next phonics group (or even a fluency group.) Phonics groups will be monitored weekly.

For students who weren't on target, but were accurate just not fluent, these students were placed into fluency groups. These groups also work 30 minutes a day. The groups are not small (10-15) as compared to the phonics groups (no more than 4 students). The fluency groups are monitored bi-weekly. There is a lot of repeated readings, readers theater, and Read Naturally programming in these groups.

The last group of kids were found to be both accurate and fluent. These kiddos are also going to a "reading skills" class (this is what we are calling our MTSS time so that no child is stigmatized). This group is at and most are above where the target line says that they need to be. These students are having enrichment time. Learning about roots of words, where words come from, doing digital readings and then writing about them on blog-like platforms. They are also working on creating materials to share with their peers through classes like science to make the curriculum more successful for all. 

Backwards Testing
For the kiddos being monitored weekly and biweekly, before any real teaching can begin, we started with backward testing. For my kiddos, I used the Aimsweb probes, the lowest number, for grades 4th-1st. Then, I took students one at a time to do a running record. Using the Aimsweb progress monitoring, it shoots out the probes to use based on the grade level that the students are working at. 

Teaching/Monitoring 
This is the heart of the matter. The fun stuff. I enjoy getting to work with some different kids in a small group, with more "fun" hands on activities than can always be done in whole group classes. I'll be posting some of the resources that have been used here soon.

Scheduling
This whole MTSS/RTI programing was suppose to start at the beginning of the year, but things are a lot more time consuming/intensive than originally thought. The administrator was fore-thinking, in that he created two "MTSS" blocks. Both for 30 minutes towards the end of the day.

For the first half of the year, teachers used one time slot for independent reading and the other spelling. Now, spelling is essentially "gone". My groups (short/long vowels) still do spelling but it is very basic, they don't necessarily get a grade for it, I use it more for formative assessment.

Getting rid of spelling on the grade card was debated (as there is parent support for it, since it's easier to help with) but, we are hoping there is good movement by the end of the year and that it would just become too much of a headache to change where the grades would come from in the grade book.  


Well, that's the nuts and bolts and the behind the scenes look at what we are doing!

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RT What?

RTI...RT what?

Well it's... Response to Intervention, Response to Instruction.... or for those of us in the great state of Kansas MTSS (Multi Tiered Systems of Support)... slight variations but all mean the same. No matter which acronym you are used to, they all boil down to the same thing: closing the gaps and helping all children succeed. 

My school district is in the midst of setting up our MTSS system and I figured that while we are trying to learn, grow, and get the hang of things that I ought to share some of the ups and downs with you as well. This will be a bit of a sporadic series of posts as new things are tried, but I hope you can find something of use to you as the year goes on. 

As a district, we've administered the Aimsweb tests. Through this testing, we've begun to sort kids into groups based on needs. We have 5 phonics groups, these are our Tier 3 students and will receive 60 minutes of additional reading support in very intense and structured ways. We have two fluency groups, who make up our Tier 2 groups, these groups receive 30 minutes of additional support. Lastly we have two groups of high fliers that are doing enrichment activities for 30 minutes a day.

Up until today, we've been like Linus without his blanket. There were piles of resources, there was data showing kids and their needs, but we didn't have a chance to teach the material, see what worked, and well... there was just been a lot of anxiety. That ends today. In T-10 minutes our first groups arrive. Backwards testing begins and starting tomorrow we move forward.

I'll be posting ideas, how things go, and lesson ideas here soon! Wish us luck!

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