Friday Freebie: RTI Resources

 (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/RtI-Response-to-Intervention-If-Then-Reading-Interventions-Menu)

TPT 1-Day Sale on August 19th!

Back to School is getting into full swing, so how about a 1-Day Sale to help get you ready! 
  

On August 19th grab awesome deals on all of my resources!  Use promo code MORE15 to get 28% off all my resources, including:

• NO PREP Letter of the Week
• NO PREP Short Vowel Packets
• NO PREP Long Vowel Packets
• NO PREP Consonant Blends Packets
• NO PREP Digraphs & Trigraphs Packets
• NO PREP Diphthongs Packets
• NO PREP R Controlled Vowels Packets
• NO PREP Silent Letter Packets
• 1st Grade Monthly Writing Prompts
• 2nd Grade Monthly Writing Prompts
• 3rd Grade Monthly Writing Prompts
• 4th Grade Monthly Writing Prompts
• 5th Grade Monthly Writing Prompts

Also don't miss the brand new Back to School Activities and Centers...

...and the recently updated Fall Activities and Centers!

Happy shopping and have a great school year!

NO PREP Letter of the Week Packets Plus a Freebie!

One of my best selling packs is my NO PREP Letter of the Week A-Z Bundle.  It offers a year's worth of lessons on letter naming, letter identification, and letter-sound correspondence while also building vocabulary, handwriting skills, and word building skills.  




Until recently, I've kept this pack as a year-long bundle.  However, I've had several requests for it to be broken up by letter, so without further ado, here are the NO PREP Letter of the Week packets:

• NO PREP Letter of the Week A 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week B 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week C 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week D 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week E 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week F 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week G 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week H 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week I 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week J 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week K 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week L 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week M 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week N
• NO PREP Letter of the Week O 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week P
• NO PREP Letter of the Week Q 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week R 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week S 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week T
• NO PREP Letter of the Week U 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week V 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week W 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week X 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week Y 
• NO PREP Letter of the Week Z

 

Each packet includes 12 activities plus a bonus take-home BINGO game to help build the school-home connection and extend learning at home in fun ways.  I use these packets with grade-level and below-grade level kindergartners as well as an RTI intervention with 1st graders.  

Also, I am offering the NO PREP Letter of the Week T Packet for free!  You can download the whole packet for free here:  Free Letter of the Week Packet.

FREE!

If you like it, check out all of the other Letter of the Week Packs or the Year-Long Bundle for 20% off!

Happy Teaching!

Friday Freebie: Punctuation Fluency

A month or two ago I saw an awesome idea on Pinterest. A teacher had combined letter naming practice and reading with correct punctuation inflection into an awesome activity.  It was fantastic, and I immediately put the idea to use.

However, in my excitement about this idea, I apparently forgot to repin it, and now I cannot find the pin or the picture anywhere despite an extensive search.  (Be forewarned:  searching for "abc. def?" will produce surprising number of images of women in their bras.)

Essentially the teacher had written chunks of three to four letters in alphabetical order.  Each of these chunks ended with a punctuation mark.  Brilliant!  As younger students practice letter naming they can also practice reading with proper inflection and intonation as they encounter various punctuation marks.

The pin I saw had the series of letters written out on large paper, which would be great in a classroom.  However, since some of my interventions take place outside of my classroom (like in the hallway), I need something more portable.  I quickly made these strips:  Punctuation Fluency.

I've been using them for the last few weeks and my students LOVE them!  It is a fun, quick intervention that provides fast results.

The best part?  Older students love them too!

Initially, I thought I would use these strips mainly as a letter naming/punctuation fluency combo with younger students.  But some of my older students race through texts, ignoring any sign of punctuation.  These strips have also helped them learn to slow down and improve their prosody, which in turn will hopefully help their comprehension.

You can download the Punctuation Fluency strips for free here:  Punctuation Fluency.

If you use these strips in your classroom, I'd love to hear how they worked for your students.  Also, if you know of the pin I'm talking about, I'd love if you shared the link with me!  Thanks!

TPT: Common Core Reading Assessments - 2nd Grade

My new Common Core Reading Assessments - 2nd Grade is now available!

There are 20 unique reading assessments to help track student's growth across the Common Core Reading: Literature standards.

The packet includes:
1) Terms of Use
2) General Suggestions
3) Common Core Standards
4) Note on Related Texts
5) Note on Passage Reading Levels
6) Reproducible Recording Sheets
7) 20 Unique Reading Assessment Passages

All Reading: Literature standards are covered in each passage's comprehension check.

For more information, check the pack out here: Common Core Reading Assessments - 2nd Grade

*Remember that all new products are 50% off for the first 48 hours!

Friday Freebie: Vowel Team Word Sort

Since I've gotten several emails thanking me for the Short Vowel Word Sort and Magic E Word Sort, I thought I would continue with a Vowel Team Word Sort.

Like the others, it follows the same format as before, just with common vowel teams. 

You can download it here: Vowel Team Word Sort

Hope you and your kiddos like it!

TPT: Handwriting Help - Print, D'Nealian, and Cursive

Handwriting... it can be put on the back burner as teachers focus on reading, writing, math, science, history, and everything else that we're required to teach.  I've often heard comments like, "We write so much--he'll get better with practice," and "She's young--it'll get better when she's older."

As a former high school English teacher and current reading specialist, I can tell you poor handwriting doesn't "just get better" and many kids don't "just grow out of it."

While practice does help, if a student keeps practicing incorrect letter formation then no progress will be made. 

To help combat and reverse poor handwriting habits, I use this Handwriting RTI packet.

There are three versions to meet your students' needs:

1. Handwriting RTI - Print
2. Handwriting RTI - D'Nealian
3. Handwriting RTI - Cursive

I use the Print version more than the others (cursive is not heavily required at my school), and I see improvement quickly.  Plus, students love seeing their improvement from their Pre-Test to their Post-Test!

Ideas for the Classroom: Bear Hunt

This short two-day Thanksgiving week was going to be great.  I just knew it.  I was in a good mood.  My students were in a good mood.  What could go wrong? 

Well, pretty quickly Monday morning I realized that many of my students hit Thanksgiving overload.  They had done so many fun Thanksgiving activities in class, that coming down for reading intervention to find yet another thanksgiving activity left them less than enthused.

Glancing around the room for an idea as my disappointed second graders sat in front of me, I pieced together this game that I am calling “Bear Hunt.”   I used it all this week (all two days!) and my students love it.  Here it is:

TPT: Common Core Literacy Centers Packet

This Common Core Literacy Centers Packet includes 8 different centers with 160+ pages for your kiddos.  My students enjoy playing/learning at these centers.  They especially love "Puzzle Words," "Rolling for Words," and "Small Word Finder."

I use these activities with 1st and 2nd grade students who are on level and with several of my 3rd and 4th grade Tier II and III intervention kiddos.

Friday Freebie: Fluency Tracking Sheets

Since I mainly work with students in Tier III interventions, it is vital that I track their progress, but all students benefit from timely monitoring of their progress.  Formative assessments provide teachers with so much information.  Are the students on track?  Are they growing?  Are they growing at a rate that will allow them to get on track with their peers? 

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then we as teachers know that something needs to change.  If I look at the results of progress monitoring and see a stagnant line, that tells me I need to change the interventions my kiddos are getting.  Obviously these particularly strategies are not working with these particular students. 

One area that many of my students are working to improve is their reading fluency.  To help track their fluency progress, I created four Fluency Tracking Sheets. 

The four sheets have different ranges of words per minute on them, making them useable for any grade level.  They are great visuals for seeing how students are progressing.  They're available for free on TPT.  You can get to them by clicking: Fluency Tracking Sheets.

I hope you find them useful too!

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Ideas for the Classroom: Word Spinners

Back in August when I entered my new classroom for the first time, I spent most of the day going through the piles of resources in the room.  Most seemed unorganized.  I found several intervention resource series with at least one book missing, piles of miscellaneous worksheets, papers shoved in corners, a tub of reading games, and a box of random items.  I'm sure there was some order to the room that made sense to the person who was there before me, but I was lost.

I immediately started organizing things by priority.  The last box of random items fell to the bottom of the list.  Recently, however, I reopened that box, and found a packet of black arrow spinners, and I started wondering how I could use them.

Spinners are fun. I loved them when I was a kid, and it makes learning seem more like a game.  There is excitement in and anticipation when you get to spin something.  Where will it land?  What will I get?

So after thinking about my kiddos needs and what they were struggling with, I came up with these CVC spinners.

Basic Spinners

They are pretty simple and easy to make.  All you need is:

Ideas for the Classroom: Alphabet Game

Many of my first grade intervention kiddos need help with letter naming and letter sounds.  For a fun way to help them master these skills I made "The Alphabet Game," which is extremely customizable for whatever your kiddos needs are.

Here is the basic set up:

FREE Literacy Resources Link Party

TPT: Short Vowel Word Work Activities

To help build early literacy skills, I created Short Vowel Packets for each vowel.  The packets mainly work with CVC words and common word families like -an, -et, -ip, -ot, and -ug, but a few other non-CVC word families like -ill, -ock, and -uff are also included.

Here are a few FREE sample pages from the Short A Packet:

 

Each packet includes:
-Two Vowel Posters
-Five Word Work Activities and Games:
1) Circle It
2) Highlight & Rewrite
3) Word Sort
4) Matching
5) Roll 'em & Read 'em

You can purchase each vowel packet individually or bundled together for a discount.  To see a preview of the packets or to purchase them, you can find them here:

• Short A Packet
• Short E Packet
• Short I Packet
• Short O Packet
• Short U Packet
• Short A, E, I, O, and U Discount Pack

TPT: Long Vowel Word Work Activities

Many of the students who come down to the Reading Room for interventions struggle with long vowel sounds.  I made these packets to help them work through various long vowel patterns.

  vs.  

Each packet includes:
-Three Vowel Pattern Posters
-Five Word Work Activities and Games:
1) Circle It
2) Highlight & Rewrite
3) Word Sort
4) Matching
5) Roll 'em & Read 'em

You can purchase each vowel packet individually or bundled together for a discount.  To see a preview of the packets or to purchase them, find them here:

• Long A Posters and Word Work Activities
• Long E Posters and Word Work Activities
• Long I Posters and Word Work Activities
• Long O Posters and Word Work Activities
• Long U Posters and Word Work Activities
• Long A, E, I, O, U Posters and Word Work Activities

Reading Research Monday: Phonics Phones

When students, especially young students, read they often are so focused on decoding words and comprehending what they’ve read that they don’t have a good idea of what they actually sound like when they are reading.  Struggling readers might not know how long it takes them to sound out a word or that the sound they are actually saying out loud isn’t the sound they think they are saying.  One way to help with this issue is by using Phonics Phones (sometimes called Whisper Phones).