Not Very Fancy Show and Tell from First Grade

Today I'm sharing a few bits and pieces from my classroom and life. I've got a bit of spontaneous greatness, some adorable student creativity, one of my favorite reading strategies, and a piece of advice I got in the teacher's lounge. Visit the Show and Tell Tuesday link up for more great classroom tidbits. 

We learned to add and subtract 10 from any number a couple months ago. This week I tried to introduce a game using the skill to some of my more advanced students, and it became very clear we needed some serious review. I set the game aside and broke out the cubes. After a quick lesson, most of the kids seemed to be remembering. When it was time for my next group, something came up and my attention was needed elsewhere. Not sure what to do, I handed the cubes to a couple kids and asked them to teach the next group what I had just taught them. It worked beautifully! They were engaged like this for the whole group time!

Our building is slowly transitioning from PBIS to Responsive Classroom, which I've written about before in posts about morning meeting and teacher language. During this transition, our official school-wide expectations have been a bit ambiguous. Recently we rolled out "BARK." (The bulldog is our mascot.) B-believe in yourself, A-Achieve new goals, R-respect our community, and K-keep it safe. To help my kids remember, I put some motions to the words. Believe in yourself is giving yourself a hug. Achieve new goals is climbing a ladder. Respect our community is clasping your hands in front of your chest. Keep it safe is just making your body into the shape of a K. We went over these at the end of the day before packing up, and one of my students got really into it. She decided to do "the K walk" all the way to her locker. Her best friend joined her. The next day, it caught on, and I had 20 kids doing the K walk to their lockers. It made my week!

I had a major breakthrough with a couple beginning readers this week. I broke out these CVC word blending roads, and they started decoding! They were so proud of themselves! This strategy has never failed me! Once kids have their letter sounds, this bridges the gap to decoding. If you have a couple kids you think would benefit from this, you might want to check out my post, Teaching Tips for Blending CVC Words.

I'm concluding my show and tell with a non-school related picture. This is my dog, Java (named for coffee, not computers). He's about 14, and not doing so well. He can't see anymore, and his hearing is not great either. Unfortunately, he's also starting to have a little bladder trouble. I tried getting some dog diapers, but he took them off or they slid off. I was talking to one of my teacher friends about this problem, and she suggested a bandana. I folded up a cloth baby diaper for a little extra absorbency, and he kept it on! It definitely looks cuter than a dog diaper! Teacher friends are such awesome resources for all of life's challenges. 

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The 20 Word Chant for Sight Word Mastery

I've been using the 20 Word Chant to help my kids learn sight words/high frequency words for a long time. The chant follows the pattern of the military cadence "I don't know what I've been told..." If you can't get it in your head, you can hear it here on this video.

This chant can be used with other words as needed.

Here are some of the activities I do with the chart in a small group with students either pointing to words or writing words on white boards:

• Model reading it while pointing to the words.
• Echo read each line.
• Say words for students to identify. (You might want to do this one line at a time in the beginning.)
• Give clues for words the students can find. "I'm thinking of a word that _____." (is the opposite of stop or rhymes with bike etc).
• Read it chorally.
• Use a chart sized paper and give each student a turn to point to the words for the group.

They will memorize it. Once they have it memorized, they can use it as a tool to identify words in their books. When they see a word they know is in the chant, they can read the chant to figure it out. It's similar to the way they can use the ABC chart and song to identify letters.

I also created a question word chant to help with all those tricky "w" words. Both chants are available for free.

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Building Community in Your Classroom with Singing and Dancing

Today I'd like to share a song and dance I use in the beginning of the school year to build community: Little Tommy Tucker's Dog.  This is a fun brain break, and if you use Responsive Classroom, this makes a great activity for Morning Meeting.

What are the benefits of singing and dancing in your classroom?

1. It gets the students out of their seats and moving.
2. It gets students interacting with each other in a non-threatening situation.
3. You can put the lyrics in poetry folders to practice fluency.

Click on the picture to download for free!

Learn the dance

Stand in a circle. Assign partners very quickly. Assure them that they will have lots of different partners during this activity so it does not matter who they are partnered with. Students stand sideways facing their partner.

1. Bow, wow, wow (Stomp your feet, one stomp per word.)
2. Whose dog art thou? (Lift your hands up in a questioning way.)
3. Little Tommy Tucker's dog, (Hold hands with your partner and turn so you change places.)
4. Bow, wow, wow, (Stomp your feet, one stomp per word.)
5. Turn around to face the person behind you. That person is their new partner.

When teaching this to my class, I first teach the song by having them echo sing. Then I ask for a volunteer to help me teach everyone the dance. We stand in the center of the circle and model the dance. After modeling, I quickly walk around the circle assigning partners.

When we start doing the dance together, I remind the students of the upcoming actions after each line. When the song is over, I tell them, "don't turn around, but just turn your head and peek behind you to see who's standing there." Once everyone has looked behind them, I say, "Turn around and look at the person behind you." That person is their new partner! We repeat the dance until students eventually end up returning to the partner they started with.

Community building tip

To get the students talking to each other in a non-threatening way, I give them quick things to say to their partner each round.

• Give your partner a high five and say, “I'm sure glad you're my partner!”
• Shake your partner's hand and say, “This is so much fun!”
• Wave at your partner and say, “Partner, those are some cool shoes!”
• Smile at your partner and say, “Howdy partner, you're lookin' good today!”

This tip is from a Kagan training I attended. It helps "break the ice" and get kids talking to each other. It's safe for shy students because it's highly structured. It can be used anytime you are assigning partners.

See and hear Little Tommy Tucker's Dog song and dance 

Below are some videos I found of people singing and dancing. The actions sometimes vary slightly from mine. You can alter them to suit you.

I've played this game successfully with end-of-year kindergarteners and beginning of the year first graders.

If you love integrating art and music into your classroom, follow my Arts Integration Board on Pinterest!

  Follow Not very fancy's board Arts Integration on Pinterest.

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Teaching Tips for Blending CVC Words

Even with a reading endorsement, college did not teach me how to teach first grade reading. The specifics of phonemic awareness and phonics instruction weren't part of any courses I took. In this post I'm going to give you the essential information about how to teach blending, a crucial skill for learning to read, to every student including those who really struggle or are still learning to speak English.

This information combines knowledge gained from at least 2 professional development trainings, some extensive online research and personal experience. I'll also introduce a fool-proof activity designed to help students learn to blend CVC words once they are ready to transition from blending sounds to blending letters.

Teachers used to commonly tell students to "sound out" words when they were stuck. This phrase is vague. It's better for teachers to explicitly state the skill students need to use. Often what we mean to say is, say the sounds in order and blend them together. However, if a student doesn't know how to blend the sounds together, neither prompt is going to help them read this word.

To decode words, students need to know how to blend letter sounds together.  They start by just blending sounds.

What is blending?

Blending is a phonemic awareness skill: combining individual sounds, or phonemes, to make a word. The phonemes are the sounds produced by the letters, not the letter names. When getting started, the students are not looking at any letters. They are only blending sounds they hear the teacher say.

Blending vs. Segmenting

Blending is the opposite of segmenting: it assists with decoding words. It is the process of putting isolated sounds together to make a word.

Breaking a word down into individual sounds, or phonemes, is called segmenting. Segmenting is what you would do to assist with spelling. It's a completely different skill, but it is easier to teach. There is far more information about teaching segmentation than there is about teaching blending.

Blending is the key skill students need to decode words. Teachers need to segment words in order to give students the opportunity to blend them. To blend sounds, students listen to each phoneme, or individual sound, in order. They may echo the sounds slowly at first, then they get faster until they can say the word normally. 

How do you teach blending sounds?

Blending sounds is a pre-reading skill, like segmenting. Students first develop blending as a phonemic awareness skill. When they have a strong understanding of letters and sounds, they apply the skill to their reading.

Students begin learning to blend sounds using CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. This works because there aren't many sounds to put together. It also helps that many CVC words are very concrete, so they are words young children have experience with and can picture.

Students often need direct teacher support to develop their ability to blend sounds. There are some letters that are easier to blend than others.

You can make blending easier by using words that begin with longer consonant sounds because the initial sound can be stretched out and you can smoothly shift from the consonant sound to the vowel sound. Consonants with long sounds are f, l, m, n, r, s, v, z. They are good initial sounds because they can be stretched. For example, it will be easier to blend s-a-t and f-i-t than to blend d-a-d and b-e-t. When you say a sound like /d/ or /b/, it's short and abrupt; you can't flow smoothly into the next sound.

What do you do if students have trouble blending sounds?

If a student isn't able to blend 3 sounds, try combining two sounds for them. To make blending easy for students, use words with long initial consonant sounds. Blend the first two sounds for them, then leave a pause and say the final sound:  zi—p, fa—t, si—t. The shorter the pause, the closer you are to saying the word, so the easier it is for students to blend the sounds.

It's rare that this would be impossible, but if you get a blank look, model a few times. You could also put out a few pictures representing CVC words. For example, display pictures to show log, dip, fin. (Note that these words are very different. None of them start with the same letter, and none have the same rime or final sound.) Tell the student these pictures are to give them clues about the word you are saying. Use words you are confident the student has heard. If working with an ELL student, you may have to talk about the words before giving them the sounds. When ready, say," lo--g. "

This is to give the student a chance to experience success. If they can't be successful with this, back up and focus on phonemic awareness skills like identifying the first sound in a word.

Continue using picture support with words that are more similar, like fin, fog, log. (Notice that this group has words with the same beginning letter and words with the same rime.)

This procedure should not take long. If one lesson isn't enough, they need to go back and work on simpler phonemic awareness skills.

When students can easily figure out that "zi--p" is "zip" and "fa--t" is fat, start using short initial consonant sounds like "di--m" and "pa--t."

Once they can consistently blend with this technique, switch the part of the word you're blending for them. Start isolating the first sound and blending the second two sounds for them.  Go back to using words with a long initial consonant sound. For example, the teacher can say z--ip, f—at, s—it. Eventually, move on to words like "d--ip" and "t--en."

When students can consistently finish blending CVC words with the teacher doing two of the sounds for them, they are ready to blend all 3 sounds on their own.

Say segmented CVC words for the students: z—i—p, f—a—t, s—i—t. (Notice that once again, we switch back to words that start with the long consonant sounds.) If you treat this like a mystery and call it a secret code, it really boosts enthusiasm.

How to teach phonics blending

When students know most letter sounds and can blend 3 isolated sounds with teacher support, they are ready to decode CVC words independently. They need to be very solid with all their consonant and short vowel sounds because they are transitioning from phonemic awareness to phonics.

They are not only dealing with the sounds now, they are also mentally converting symbols--letters--into sounds and blending those sounds together to make meaningful words. Doesn't it sound incredibly difficult when you put it that way? That's because it is incredibly difficult! Fortunately, we can make blending easier for students by making it more concrete.

Drawing a simple road with the letters from a CVC word stretched out across it makes blending concrete for beginning readers.  

Students can use an actual toy car (or pretend any small object is a car) and say the sounds as they drive the car along the road.  Like with phonemic awareness, it’s easier if you start with the longer consonant sounds. It also helps to keep the vowel sound the same and introduce new vowels gradually. 

Short vowel sounds in CVC words

Usually, short vowel progression goes something like this: a, i, o, e, u. In my experience, i and o are the easiest for kids. I suspect this is because they are common and more consistent in how they sound than a.

It is extremely common for reading textbooks to start out with -an and -am. This seems logical because an and am are usually taught as sight words, so you are starting with word chunks that the student should be familiar with. However, if you listen closely to these words, you’ll notice that the /a/ sound (at least with my Midwestern. US accent) isn’t the same as the short a sound as in apple that beginning readers are taught. Students have trouble getting the word because they use the “apple” sound and it doesn’t sound like a word they know. I suggest avoiding words that end with -am and -an for a while. Start with chunks like -ag, -at, -ap, and -ab. 

Effective phonics blending practice

To give students lots of engaging practice with blending, I created a self-checking activity, Blending CVC Words, that they can work on independently. Sometimes this activity gives students their first experience putting together their phonics knowledge with their phonemic awareness knowledge.

Click on the picture to see it on Teachers Pay Teachers.

When they drive their car across the road and say the sounds to themselves, they suddenly realize that they know what the word says. They can flip the paper over to see a picture of the word and confirm their success.

This is the moment first grade teachers live for. The moment that they realize: I can read words! They aren’t just remembering the words; they are actually figuring out what the word is by using their letter knowledge and blending skills. Talk about a powerful moment!

Teaching in a high-poverty, ELL school in an urban district, I had a 100% success rate with this system for teaching students to blend sounds and decode words.

The full activity contains 65 words with accompanying pictures for students to practice decoding.  If you want a sure-fire way to teach your students to blend CVC words, look no further. It’s incredibly engaging, effective, and easy to use.

How to Integrate Hand-Clapping Games into Literacy Instruction

Integrating music and art into instruction across the curriculum can improve student performance and create a stronger sense of community in the classroom. It might seem like arts are fun extra activities to insert into the day if there happens to be time, but this is not the case.

There is research to support the use of singing and dancing in the classroom. Quite a bit of it is listed at the Center for Lifelong Music Making (the organization that taught my classes). I see the benefits in my own classroom. I'm happier. The kids are happier. There's more enthusiasm for learning when I have been able to use the techniques I learned from at the arts integration classes I took, my students perform better.

Update: Do you want to read more about the benefits of hand clapping games? Check out this post at the Inspired Treehouse.

My students have recently developed an interest in hand-clapping games. Some of them have lyrics I don't particularly care for, so I've been teaching them ones I prefer. One of my favorites is Miss Mary Mack.

Unfortunately, I cannot find a video I really like to show you. This one is a good tutorial if you aren't sure how to do the hand-clapping pattern. Following the hand-clapping pattern is part of what makes this activity impactful, so I encourage you to teach it.

Notice that in the beginning she just does the movements and says the movement she's doing rather than singing the song. *shoulders, thighs, clap, right, clap, left, clap, both* This is a really good way to introduce the movements to your students.

Ideally, you should stand with your back to your students so they can copy the movements exactly. Of course, that would be a direct violation of Elementary Teaching 101, so the alternative is being a mirror for your students, that just means you have to say right while moving left--you may want to practice first!

I always teach the movements in isolation, and I have the students do them without a partner at first. Actually, when I first teach the hand-clapping, I just do clap, right, clap, left. There's really no wrong way to do it in my opinion, but the combination of the hand-clapping pattern and the singing is what really activates the brain. 

I teach the words and game first, then I give the students a copy of the words to build fluency. It also supports phonics skills: -ck, final -y, and -ed endings. I've made this lyric sheet available free of charge in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

There's also a book by Mary Ann Hoberman with some additional verses that I really like. You can hear some kids reading/singing it in this video. (I couldn't get the embed code to work.)

If you like this post and want to learn other ways you can integrate singing and dancing into your day, check out these posts about Little Tommy Tucker's Dog, and Goin' 'Round the Mountain.

Check out posts by other lovely education bloggers at Techie Turtle Teacher's  Movie Clip Monday Linkup!

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me!

How to Inspire a Love of Words With Poetry

My favorite things about poetry are that kids LOVE it, and it can be used to teach so many skills! Use it for phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, writing, and vocabulary. It can even be used in content areas like science and math!

In my classroom, I have my students collect their poetry in a 3-brad folder. In the beginning of the year it takes a bit of time to show them how to use the brads, but I think it's worth it. I used to use spiral notebooks and have the kids cut the poems out and glue them in. I've found the folders to be much simpler. I also like that it gives the kids an opportunity to illustrate.

During the month of April I've been giving my students a new poem everyday. I have tons of poem books, so I often just type them quickly so the kids can have their own copy. First Grade W.O.W. has an excellent poetry pack you can download for free. I keep them pretty plain because I want the kids to deepen their comprehension with illustrating. Sometimes I direct the illustrations to help solidify new vocabulary or help them remember words that are hard to read.

I usually choose something for them to highlight with crayon. Sometimes we use different colors to highlight different components. 

We look for:

word chunks

beginning blends

word endings

parts of speech

vowel teams

repeated words or phrases

rhyming words

contractions

Sometimes I just ask, are there any words of interest? Students tell about words they find interesting and explain their thinking. Students suggest words from the word wall, unfamiliar words, words with silent e, and words that they like. 

When I introduce a poem, I read it aloud first. Then we echo read. I ask the students what they notice, and they share their observations with the class. (If you get super excited about the good observations, you start to get better observations. )

I love to act surprised by their ideas. 

"What?! You found 4 words with silent e. And we're learning about silent e right now! What a coincidence!"

Kids love to read poems with funny voices and act them out. You can use cards from I Love 2 Teach for fun voice ideas.

* ICYMI  I often post videos of poems and songs on Movie Clip Monday.*

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How to be a Vocabulary Ninja!

I love using big words with my students. Research shows there is a 30 million word gap between the words heard by the wealthiest and the poorest kids by the age of three. You can learn more about it in this easily digestible article from National Association for the Education of Young Children. 

One of the strategies early childhood educators can use to address the gap is to use big words in natural ways throughout the day. In this post I'll share some big words I use and give examples of the ways I sneak them into the day. I know we all have our own tricks, so please share yours in the comments!

By Joey Gannon (The Last Thing You See) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

1. TRANSITION

Examples: 

"In a minute we'll transition back to our desks." 

"Before we transition to math, we'll take a little exercise break."

2.  OBSERVATION

Examples:

"What observations did you make?"

"That is an excellent observation."

"You're very observant."

3. DISTRIBUTE

Examples:

"When your desks are clear I'll distribute the papers."

"You can choose a friend to help distribute your birthday treats."

"Would you distribute these for me?"

4. RESPOND

Examples:

"If you want to respond to the question, please raise your hand."

"Listen carefully so you know how to respond."

5. PROCEDURE

Examples:

"What is the procedure we follow for getting drinks?"

"We need to review our procedure for getting the teacher's attention."

6. LOCATE

Examples:

"Put this paper in a place where you'll be able to locate it tomorrow."

"If you can't locate your pencil, you can borrow one."

7. DEMONSTRATE

Examples:

"I'm going to demonstrate exactly what you should do."

"If you don't demonstrate that you know how to walk in the hall, then we'll have to practice."

"This assignment is for you to demonstrate that you know how to ______."

8. UTENSIL

Examples:

"Get you writing utensils ready."

"You may use any writing utensil you'd like."

"The only writing utensil we're using right now are pencils."

9. DISCUSS

Examples:

"You and your partner can discuss your ideas."

"This is a good discussion."

10. CONVERSATION

Examples:

"I heard some good conversations during this lesson."

"I was having a conversation with another teacher."

11. PREPARE

Examples:

"I'll give you a minute to prepare."

"Let's prepare to go outside."

"How can you prepare for ______?"

"Are you prepared?"

12. ARRIVE

Examples:

"If we want to arrive on time, we need to leave now."

"When did you arrive?"

"Our guest plans to arrive at ___."

13. CORRECT

Examples:

"That's correct."

"What is the correct way to ____?"

14. ASSISTANCE

Examples:

"I can't give any assistance on this test."

"I can assist you when I'm finished.

"That task doesn't require any assistance."

15. FLEXIBLE

Examples:

"Our schedule is mixed up, so we'll need to be flexible today."

"Thank-you for being so flexible."

When I use these words, I often give the definition or use a familiar phrase immediately before or after: "Look carefully at this picture....Raise your hand if you'd like to share your observation."

Sometimes kids ask me what the word means. I usually give them a compliment for seeking new information. Sometimes I give a quick answer, but sometimes I challenge them to use the context clues and make an inference. Other times I ask the class if anyone can help. 

If you'd like a little reminder, Feel free to grab the picture below:

If you want to read more about teacher language, check out the post I wrote last summer as I reflected on my Responsive Classroom training.

You might also be interested in a post I wrote about the conversation I had with my 6 yr old son about sexism when his friends told him, "Girls always go first." 

Don't forget to share your tricks for sneaking big words into your teaching.

If you found this post to be interesting or fun, I'd love for you to connect with me! There will be more posts about this topic in the future!

Tai Chi via photopin (license)