Hello Everyone! I almost forgot to post one other thing. I have had a ton of questions and e-mails about my story retelling rope that I posted on last year.You can read about that here! :) I have been doing retelling ropes for a long time. Does anybody remember "Project Read?" The author of that amazing curriculum was my inspiration for this way of teaching kids about the parts of a story and extending that into retelling. "Retelling" is an important component of discriminating comprehension in our beginning readers. Making it hands on is important to me! Kids almost always cement learning better when they can incorporate as many senses as possible. I took some time to redo my retelling rope icons, my retelling poem, made some little posters about the parts of a story, and redid my anchor chart. Here are some pics of what this little unit includes. Here are some pics of finished products, anchor chart and student retelling rope. For your free mini unit on retelling grab the rope and click here! I hope this helps with your lessons on retelling!! Hold on and have fun!! Joyfully! Nancy

Hi teacher friends, Some of my favorite memories in elementary school were centered around reading novels in the classroom! I’ll always remember making a glittery web with glue and black paper while reading Charlotte’s Web in third grade. (I also remember our teacher scolding us for the giant glittery mess on the

Teaching the Magic or Silent E Rule? Once kids know how to decode VCE words, they can read SO many more words! Read tips for making it fun!

I have a quick and simple tip for you today. Another teacher gave me this tip a few years ago and I love it! (I wish I remembered who gave me this tip and where they got the idea from so I could give the credit.) Do you ever start to give directions and you ... Read More about A quick classroom management tip

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Are you struggling with teaching argumentative text to your upper elementary students. Here are 5 tips to make teaching argumentative text easy for you!

You must know that one of the best things about teaching kindergarten is your students' ability to believe whatever you tell them. Like the magic of Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy, or leprechauns ... or Spiderman??!! Yes, even believing that Spiderman came to our classroom to tell us how to become the best readers possible! This new reading unit transitions us from focusing on retelling emergent storybook stories (reading from memory and picture support) to focusing on the actual print in the book. Moving away from telling what we think the author could be saying to what the author actually is saying. Away from rereading stories we've already heard aloud to reading brand new, on-our-level stories using our very own reading 'superpowers.' Examples of these "powers" include but are not limited to: pointer power, partner power, letter power, picture power, reread power, fix-it-up power, etc. Parents, you'll get a mini anchor-chart of these powers once we've gone over all of them. This chart will stay in your child's bag of books to come back and forth between school and home. We've only had two lessons in this unit so far. But these lessons are SO EXCITING and CONVINCING and MAKE STUDENTS WANT TO READ SO MUCH that even just two of them are powerful! So let's take a look at the first one. On Thursday, I sat down and pulled out a book to begin my mini-lesson. Camryn couldn't help but interrupt. "There's something there," he said, and pointed. Note: 5-year-olds will always notice something out of place in the classroom. Especially when it has spiderwebs on it. "Oh, you're right!" I said. I picked it up carefully, not wanting to get spiderwebs on my hand. "It says Room 304. Should we go find that room?" "YES!" The kids shouted. We ran to the door, thinking it was a good idea to find out what room we were in to know which direction to head. "OUR ROOM IS 304!" someone shouted. We rushed back inside. The kids were eager to know what was inside. I asked, "Are you sure I should open this? There could be .... spiders inside!" They looked uneasy, but they were certain they wanted to know what was inside. "It's a package!" Camryn kept saying. I reached in and pulled out some more cobwebs. Thanks, Mrs. Buzzell, for capturing all these ridiculous facial expressions. Then I pulled out a letter. "READ IT!" all the kids shouted. I began reading. I paused. "I wonder who wrote this?" I asked. "YOU DID!" Tyce shouted. "Tyce," I said, "Look at this handwriting. It's terrible. My handwriting is much better than this. Do you really think that I wrote this?" All the other kids chimed in, "NO! Her handwriting is WAYYY better!" Tyce still wasn't convinced. By the time I got to the end of the letter, I asked Colin to come read who signed it. He said "Spiderman." I said, "No way! I think you must have read that wrong. Yuto, can you take a look at it?" Yuto looked it over. "YUP. IT SAYS SPIDERMAN." Here's where the kids got really excited. It was time to see what special tool was inside. WOW! Finger flashlights! We got to wear them and go around the room, highlighting words we could read. Students found sight words, other words they know, letters and letter blends. Then students were able to use them to highlight words as they read their books. On Friday before lunch, I started reading the book Skeleton Cat. I told the kids we'd finish it when we got back from lunch. We came in, got our book boxes, and sat down to finish the story. Camryn shouted "THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!" but I kept talking about Skeleton Cat. Other students joined in, saying, "LOOK! LOOK MRS. RICHARDSON! THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!" I paused and looked at them. "Another what?" "ANOTHER PACKAGE!!!" they said excitedly. Sure enough, there was another envelope sitting in the same spot. "No," I said, "I'm fairly certain that's the same package from yesterday. Let's find out what happens to Skeleton Cat!" Greyden said "No, it can't be the same one! You put yesterday's up there," and pointed to my desk. "Oh, you're right!" I told him. "I guess it must be a new one! Should I open it?" "YES!" They all screamed. "But we might not get something we want this time," I cautioned them. They didn't care. They wanted me to open it. Again there was a letter. (I didn't get photos of this one, it happened too quickly. Mrs. Buzzell was out of the room and Mrs. Dean was with the kids as I was setting up. I mean, as Spiderman came by. I wasn't able to give her my phone in time.) This time it said: Super Readers, I will be secretly visiting you and giving you clues to become the MOST SUPER readers on Earth! You will find the first super power in here! -Spiderman And in the envelope, we found (among extra spiderwebs): "What do you think these are for? I don't understand this at all," I said. Annaley said "I think they're for pointing!" "Oh, yes," I said, "They must be for pointing! I put a glow-in-the-dark witch finger on each of my fingers and began playing with them before pointing to each word in Skeleton Cat with all five of my fingers at once. "NOOOOOOOOO," all the students shouted, "YOU HAVE TO SHARE!" I told them if I shared, then I couldn't tap my fingers and make spooky noises. "YOU HAVE TO SHARE," they insisted. "Well, how many are we supposed to get," I asked. "ONE!!" they said. "Oh, I guess that makes sense," I agreed. I let each student come and get a finger before meeting their partner back-to-back for independent reading. As we get new tools to highlight our SUPER READING POWERS, these will get added to our bags of books. To coincide with our new print work, students now have bags of books to take home each night. Students will shop for new books each week based on their specified shopping labels, which tell them how many books to choose from each labeled bin. These labels will change as student reading levels change. Also included in reading bags are our sorting journals (so students can practice sorts at home), library books, poems, and book club badges. And, you know, since the kiddos need to shop for their own books, I needed to stock up our library with some good ones:

Print our FREE silent e word list and silent e book. Reading Elephant offers systematic phonics books for struggling readers.

Here are some of the things we did this week for our Fairy Tale/Storybook Character Unit: We talked about what a fairy tale is and what fairy tales sometimes have in them. We talked about the Story Elements in each of the Fairy Tales we read this week. Little Red Riding Hood Here is the chart I used to fill in the Story Elements as we talked about them as a class. While filling this chart out, we made our characters and set up our classroom (setting) so we could act out the story. Little Red Riding Hood Activity: They made a picture of Little Red Riding Hood and then filled in the boxes describing her. Goldilocks and the Three Little Bears We filled this in after reading the story. I had the students make this story character map for Goldilocks. Cinderella We filled this in together as a class. I laminated these Story Element Anchor Charts so I could write on them with an Expo Marker and easily wipe them off! Writing Activity: If I had a Fairy Godmother... The Three Little Pigs I read two versions of The Three Little Pigs and we compared the two stories. I had the students fill out these WANTED posters for the Big Bad Wolf. Jack and the Beanstalk We did a measurement activity. The Frog Prince Graphing Activity: Would you kiss a frog? Fairy Tale Elements Chart: After reading each fairy tale we went through and marked what fairy tale elements the book had. Storybook Character Dress-up Day: To end our unit we had the students dress up as their favorite storybook character. They came to school dressed in their costume with their book and we guessed who they were. Even all the first grade teachers dressed up! Here is just a peek at some of the storybook characters the first grade teachers have dressed us as during the years. The Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed Alice in Wonderland All Laura Numeroff book characters! Click HERE to download my Fairy Tale Unit from my TpT store!

Cultivate lifelong reading skills.

These four no-prep reading games give great practice reading i-e words! And they're free!

Reading Comprehension Passages This huge COMPREHENSIVE bundle of reading comprehension passages is designed to help your students become skilled readers. The passages are perfect to use to develop comprehension, fluency, phonics skills, vocabulary and sight word knowledge. This bundle includes passages for: - Short Vowels - Digraphs - Blends - Long Vowels - Diphthongs - R-Controlled Vowels This bundle includes a HUGE 118 pages of reading passages!!! All of the passages come in both a PAPER and DIGITAL version (compatible with Google Slides). Passages for both USA and AUS/UK spelling are included too. What’s Included? SHORT VOWELS Short A: (-at, -ap, -an, -ad, -ag, -am, -ack) Short E: (-ed, -en, -et, -ell, -est) Short I: (-id, -ig, -in, -ip, -it, -ill, -ick) Short O: (-ob, -og, -op, -ot, -ock) Short U: (-ug, -un, -ut, -ub, -um, -uck) DIGRAPHS sh (beginning) sh (ending) ch (beginning) ch (ending) th (soft) (beginning) th (soft) (ending) th (hard) wh qu wr kn ph ck ng mb ss ff zz ll tch dge ght BLENDS br cr dr gr pr tr fr bl cl fl gl pl sl sc sk sm sn sp st sw spr spl str squ LONG VOWELS Long A: (a_e, ai, ay) Long E: (ea, ee, ie, y) Long I: (i_e, ie, igh, y) Long O: (o_e, oa, ow) Long U: (u_e, ew, ue, oo, ui) DIPHTHONGS au aw ew oi oy oo oo (u) ou ow (as in town) ow (as in pillow) ought R-CONTROLLED VOWELS air ar are ear er ir ire oar or ore our ur How Can You Use Them? - Distance Learning - Independent Work - Guided Reading - EAL/EAS Students - Interventions - Homework - Literacy Centers - Special Education They will help develop: - Sight Word Knowledge - Phonics Skills - Vocabulary - Fluency - Comprehension - Writing ♥♥♥ Follow me to be the first to hear about FREEBIES and updates ♥♥♥ ♥♥♥ Earn TPT Credits when you leave feedback ♥♥♥ I welcome and appreciate any feedback, comments or suggestions. You may also contact me on [email protected]

In working with my 2nd grader just recently on contractions again, I created some SIMPLE Contractions Puzzles. Seriously. There are no bells and whistles with these. Just simple, easy-cut puzzles. *This post contains affiliate links. **The free download can be found at the END of this post. Introducing Contractions to Readers Contractions can ... Read More about SIMPLE Contractions Puzzles

This year, I revised the materials in my reader's notebooks. I'm using a combo of a binder and a notebook for reading workshop this year, and I'm not 100% happy with it. I thought I would share some of what I've been doing. Maybe you can help me tweak. Let me first tell you how I've been working it. In their binder, they have a section for anchor charts and handouts. There's an index where they write the title of the paper so they can see at a glance what they have. It' sort of like a mini version of my anchor chart binder, but they have only the few charts I give the entire class and the ones I give specifically to them as needed during conferencing. There's also a section in their binder to keep track of books they have read, books they want to read, and a genre tracker. Now, the notebook is more of our workhorse. The notebook is where they take notes during mini-lessons, jot their thinking about their independent reading, and write their weekly letter to me for assessment. These are the notebooks I use. I got them at Staples during the ten cent sale. My friends turn their notebooks in one day a week. This way I only have to read 4 or 5 a day rather than all 24 at once. As you can see, orange notebooks are due on Tuesdays. When you open the notebook, you will first find this page: I think the note is pretty clear. Our focus this year is all about thinking deeper about our reading. The next couple of pages give an example of friendly letter format and how to edit/proofread their letter. We edited "idea chart" to read "thinking stems" Next, there are facing pages that have the "thinking stems" we use. A reader had asked me to post a link to these, but I just can't find it. I pulled these pages from a file I've had for a few years. I know I originally found them on the web, but when I tried to find them again this year I couldn't. If you have ever run across these, please let me know where so I can credit the author. This is glued on to the left page of the notebook. The other pages is on the right side. I like them facing each other so they can see it all at once. For some reason, I took two half-page pictures of the other page, Update! (7/22/12) Special thanks to Marilyn who emailed me the link she found for these Thinking Stems. This link should take you to a Word document you can print out. I believe they are from the Calhoun School District, but again not sure. CLICK HERE TO GO TO DOCUMENT. These thinking stems are good for helping my friends who have difficulty coming up with something to write. I used them as a springboard when I modeled writing a reading response letter not just once, but twice for my friends. I will do more modeling of this as time goes on and I expect more from their letters. After these pages, I still have two blank pages. One is for a rubric that I have yet to put in their notebook. That's one of the things I've not yet figured out to my satisfaction. While the kids know what I'm looking for, I want a rubric in their notebook. The problem is I can't find one that fits exactly what I want and I've been too lazy busy to just sit down and make my own. I guess I'm going to have to just do it this weekend. The rest of their notebook is filled with notes from our mini-lessons, their independent writing about their reading, and their weekly reading response letter to me. It's actually all working pretty well so far, but I just have this gnawing feeling that I'm missing something. So, I'm throwing it out there to you! What are you doing with your reading notebooks? What do your friends do with their notebooks? Do you use a rubric? What and how are you assessing them? What's worked for you? By the way, don't forget to ENTER MY THANK YOU GIVE AWAY! There are only about 22 or so entries thus far, so the odds are pretty good! You have also been leaving some great ideas for picture books to use in mini-lessons. Click over and check out the comments. Even if you don't enter, you will get some great picture book suggestions.

It's such a powerful letter.

I have no doubt that every one of us has seen something odd in our textbooks—a name, an illustration or a graph that looks just a bit too odd or completely bizarre for it to be in a textbook.

Punctuation refers to the marks used in writing that helps readers understand what they are reading. There are 12 commonly used punctuation marks. …

A Collaborative Reader Response activity to help build better answers.

Four-Star Reading Responses Anchor Chart. Use this anchor chart to show your students between a vague 1-star response and a detailed 4-star response!

Want to help your child or students master magic e words? This post has links to over 50 free printables!

Sharing some activities to do with students for teaching CVCE words using magic e. All of this and more is available in my TPT store!