Educents

I can't believe that we have been in school for a month.  After a month of testing and meeting and talking with teachers, I finally have my schedule finalized (for the most part).  I currently serve about 25 first through third grade students in half hour time slots.  I also have a reading teacher who is at our school daily for an hour and she is able to see 9 students.

Testing is always necessary at the beginning of the year, but very time consuming.  We have always used Aimsweb for a quick assessment at the beginning of the year.  In the past, our school has always given the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) to students in grades 2-5.  However, our district is making a push to move away from those into using the Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System.  Some of our teachers have been using this for a few years.  They have some former, retired teachers come in and give the assessments to their class.  It is wonderful information and I feel like heading in this direction is a good thing. You get so much more information from this assessment than you do a QRI, especially if you as the teacher are able to give the assessment to your own students.

Our district has laid out a time-table for teachers and other school personnel to get trained on how to give the assessments.  Right now the only 2 who have officially been trained are myself and the all day kindergarten teacher.  The awesome thing about the teachers in our building is that they are ready to make that transition and want their students to be given that assessment.  The un-awesome (if that's a word) thing is the time that it takes to give the assessments.  One assessment can take up to 20 minutes with a 4th or 5th grade student.  Then, depending on how the student does with that level, you may have to give another higher or lower passage to find their instructional level.

Do you use this assessment in your school?  I would love to hear how other schools or buildings manage to "sweep" (give the assessment to) an entire grade level or school for that matter.  What kinds of assessments do you give at the beginning of the year?  Who does them?

Switching gears.  I saw this last week, but finally bought mine this weekend!  I found this great deal at Educents.

I am becoming quite the Melonheadz fanatic!  So this is what I saw on Educents!  I knew that I had to buy it!

Seriously, really cute stuff.  I think I am probably a little late to the party (shocker), but their stuff is really adorable.  I have been using My Cute Graphics which is all free.  The artist really supports teachers. Between My Cute Graphics and Melonheadz, I feel like the products I make for teachers, and the materials I make for my reading program can't be beat!

I will show you what I made with the Melonheadz bundle tomorrow (yes, don't be shocked, I am going to blog 2 days in a row)!  I am really liking it!

A Lot of Nothing

Wow, to say that I have been busy would be an understatement!  I can really understand how hard it is to get back into things full time and then also find time to do something other than sit in a corner and rock back and forth!

Monday
Kewanee was a blast, and I even managed to get a few things done on Labor Day!
Tuesday
Tuesday found me after school was over with the following routine:
1.  Pick up youngest from after care.
2.  Take youngest to Religious Ed.
3.  Pick up oldest from after care (couldn't pick her up earlier because she has running club)
4.  Get oldest dinner at Jimmy John's.
5.  Oldest eat dinner and start on homework.
6.  Pick up youngest from RE.
7.  Take youngest to cheer leading.
8.  Take oldest to softball.
9.  Pick up youngest from cheer leading.
10.  Get youngest dinner.
11.  Youngest homework and ready for bed.
12.  Pick up oldest from softball.
13.  Help oldest with homework and put both to bed.
14.  OH YEAH, don't forget to prepare for the presentation that you are giving to your staff in the morning (with the copy machine being broken before I left so I couldn't make copies)!

Now you may understand the whole sitting in a corner, drooling, and rocking back and forth (forgot to mention the drooling)!  Luckily, I have a great husband who does more than his part running the kids from here to there.  We don't believe in overextending our kids, but it seemed that Tuesday was the day that worked for everything!

Wednesday
The presentation went well, and I spent the rest of the day assessing students in grades 4 and 5 on the Benchmark Assessment System from Fountas and Pinnell, and then 1st grade students on our district 227 sight words.

Thursday
Thursday was our Benchmarking Day.  We use this day to "sweep" the whole school by doing various assessments.  Grades 2-5 did a fluency assessment from Aimsweb, 1st grade did a letter sounds assessment from Aimsweb, and Kindergarten did various assessments from Aimsweb and ISEL (Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy).  It took all day, but it is wonderful getting all of that data on students.  That means I am one step closer to finally knowing my caseload so I can finally start working with my little ones!  Had dinner that night with my fantastic group of lady friends.  They seriously keep me going and make me laugh all the time.  Just wish we could get together more often (some have worse schedules than I do)!

Friday
I spent Friday making up students that were either absent on Thursday or we skipped for some reason or another.  After school, I volunteered at my daughters' school for their Fun Fair.  I was only supposed to stay from 6:30 - 7:15.  I finally got home at 8:45!  Totally for a good cause and my girls had fun!

Saturday
Softball game for my oldest and Septemberfest parade for my youngest.  Seriously can't wait until we can do something together as a family again!  Also, sorry to say I watched Notre Dame lose to Michigan.  Great game though!

Today
Ahhhh, caught up (just a little, you don't even want to see my laundry pile)!

So I am taking a moment to be in the moment and think about what I am doing Currently.

Pretty self-explanatory.  Thanks to Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for this great linky.  This monthly self-check helps keep me "in the moment" which was one of my back to school goals!

Have a great week all!

Beginning Sound Books

For those of you who read my Kewanee post, we had a wonderful time.  We were delayed a day because of a huge storm that happened at the same time we were ready to leave.  My oldest was in the basement for most of the evening, so we knew we should not chance it for her sanity (and ours)!  After many delicious pork chop sandwiches and rides that I used to do many times over which now make me dizzy, we are home and enjoying a beautiful day before the week begins (along with the busy schedules).

I was able to finish my series on beginning letter sound books.  I have noticed for some kindergarten students, that many repetitions with books at an emergent level are necessary.  This is especially true of children that come to school with little or no literacy background.  So, I created emergent readers that will help reinforce the letter sounds that children are reading.

Our school uses a program called Jolly Phonics.  I think it is a wonderful program!  It teaches children the sounds of letter and letter combinations in a specific order.  It gives the students a story, a song, and a motion that go along with each sound.  I used this order when thinking about the sequence of the books and the progression of the level of difficultly in them.  Here is the order they use:

I just stuck to beginning sounds (for now).  Now that the series is complete, I am making a bundle of all the books on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Here is what comes with each book.  This is an example from the letter S book.

This page gives you gives you ideas about how to use the book along with how to use the Running Record.

This page gives you the CCSS standards that correspond with the book.  Vowel books have one more standard addressed than the consonant books.

This page gives you resources to look up if you are new to giving Running Records.  This page also describes the criteria I use for establishing different levels of reading (independent, instructional, frustration).  I also describe my rationale and the order of the Jolly Phonics sequence.  Here is a look at the whole book.

The book also comes in black and white.  I plan to laminate and bind (maybe with some fun duck tape or Washi tape) the color version and use them again and again.  The black and white copies I will make and have the students keep them in their book boxes for Daily 5.  Each book in the series varies in number of pages.  The progression also introduces the students to more advanced sight words as you go through the series.  The vowel books have long and short sounds in them.  Each book is a an "A" level according to Fountas and Pinnell.  That means that these books are very patterned and the pictures closely match the text.  There may be new vocabulary in the books as well.  There are 2 exceptions.  The F Letter Book and the Q Letter Book are both level "B" according to Fountas and Pinnell.  Either the pattern changes more frequently, or the books have a return sweep that (more than one line of text on a page) that the students must account for when reading.

This is what the Running Record looks like for each book.  This is a great way to see if your students are ready to: tackle harder emergent readers, have a good grip on the sound associated with the book, understand 1:1 matching, and use picture clues to solve new words.  It's a multi-functional assessment!

That's it!  22 books are in the bundle.  If you bought each book individually, it would cost you $44.00.  I am listing the price at $35.00.  I am also putting the bundle on sale for an additional %15 off for the next 24 hours!  Click on either picture below and it will take you to the bundle.

I am also offering the first book in the series the Letter S book for free for the next 24 hours.  Pick it up and try it out!  Click below for the freebie!

Hope you are enjoying your Labor Day!

Sight Word Incentives

I am attempting today to link up with two other blogs today.  The first is from Fourth Grade Flipper.

This Tuesday, I am linking up for the very first time!!!  I consider that something new that I have tried!

The second is a link that I just found.  It is from Head Over Heels For Teaching.  It is a Saturday link (but it is still open)!  

This linky party focuses on student motivation.  So, I thought I would share what I do with motivating students to learn their sight words!

Last week, I posted about how I assess sight words.  This idea of growing the amount of sight words that a child knows is enough for most students.  Just being able to see their numbers go up and up and up is all they need.  However, there are those few students that just need a little extra push to practice what you already know is important.

Therefore, I have created a Sight Word Incentive program called SIGHT WORD CELEBRITIES for students to be even further motivated to learn their sight words.

I called it Sight Word Celebrities so it fits along with my whole "Popcorn" assessment theme.  Sight words should pop like popcorn into your head.  And, I figure when you are a celebrity, you go to movies and have popcorn!  Personally, I put my Milk Duds in my popcorn as soon as the movie starts.  Then I have warm, salty, chocolaty goodness with my popcorn.  (Got that trick from my mom, thanks mom)!

The incentive program is a year long with the end of the year culminating in a MOVIE PREMIERE!  We are talking the whole shebang, red carpet (or fabric) and everything!  The sight words that I use are the sight words from the Dolch grade level lists, and they are organized within the grade level according to frequency of use.

Let me show you how the incentive program works.  Let's take the pre-primer list for example.  Here is how I divided the words from that level.  I divided the words into 10 lists.  This way, you can introduce the new words to the students in small chunks so the whole list does not seem that overwhelming.

Each child gets a Progress Chart.  This is where they (or you) can keep track of their progress toward mastering all 10 lists. 

As you can see from the chart above, every child gets invited to the Movie Premiere after they have mastered List 2.  I made the decision to have every child earn the ticket to the premiere early on in the program.  Remember, this is supposed to be motivating for students so I wanted to ensure success for all at this early stage.  After they have mastered list 4, then they will get to have popcorn at the Movie Premiere; after list 6, a drink; after list 8, candy; and after all lists, movie star sunglasses!  When the students have reached each milestone, they glue the proper icon onto their charts.  The icons I use are shown below.

The treats all vary depending on what the children can eat and allergies and such.  And the movie changes depending on what is current.  But the fun stays the same!  I like this program, because it is structured, but loose enough for me to make changes if needed.

I have made incentive programs for each of the Dolch lists:  pre-primer, primer, first grade, second grade, and third grade.  Each incentive pack comes with:

Table of Contents
Explanation of Program
Sight Word Certificates

Student Progress Sheet

Student Icons

Corresponding Assessment Pack

Parent Letters

Class Progress Forms

I am so looking forward to using it with the kids this year!

What do you do to motivate your students?

Sight Word Assessments

My experience before I became a Reading Specialist was primarily with upper elementary.  Not too long into the practice of actually becoming a Reading Specialist, I realized how important sight words are to beginning readers.

Beginning readers are so all over the board with their sight word vocabulary.  It is easiest to move students along with the number of words they can read quickly if you know how many words they already know.  I found that assessing my students as the beginning of the year is the best way to give them the most growth when compared to the end of the year.

Our district does not use either the Dolch sight word list or the Fry sight word list.  We have used in the past (changing now through committee work to align it with Common Core) a list that was mentioned in Regie Routman's book Transitions.  Many of the words overlap with the Dolch list seen below.

So therefore, I have some ready-made assessments for the Dolch sight words.  This helps the children that I see immensely, because I am always looking for growth in their number of sight words read.

I based the assessments on a popcorn theme.  I love telling students that these words sometimes don't follow all of the sounds that you have learned.  When you see them, the words just have to POP into your head like popcorn.

For each assessment pack, I made popcorn flashcards.  This picture shows have of the pre-primer words.

I also made bookmarks for each pack.  I did this so I could introduce just a few words at a time for the students.  I can make sure that they master that list and then move on to the next lists.  Each bookmark has no more than 7 words on a list (with the pre-primer, primer, and first grades have no more than 6 most of the time).  Here are the first 6 lists of the pre-primer pack.

The most important part of the assessment pack (I think, but what do I know), is the assessment forms.  For most students, checking their progress once a quarter (or trimester) would be fine.  However, there are some students that you are going to have to gently nudge along their sight word journey.  For these students, I use my progress monitoring sheets.  I check their progress more frequently than other students.  Here are the assessment forms for the pre-primer pack.

So there you have it!  A quick and easy way to keep track and help guide the learning of those all important sight words.

Other blogs do some fun things like give away items free to the first three people who respond back with their email attached.  Let's face it, look at the side of my blog and you will see that I have no followers yet.  According to Bloglovin, I have 1 person following me (and I have a feeling it is a colleague who is being nice)!  So, here's the deal.  I will give away an assessment pack to the first person who comments on this post AND leaves me their email.  You can have the assessment pack of your choice!  Keep in mind that this will be my first comment EVER since I started this whole process.  No pressure!  Seriously, I am just daring you to do it!