Adventures in Literacy Land: Giveaway Launch

Showing posts with label Giveaway Launch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Giveaway Launch. Show all posts

Giveaway Winners

Thank you to all of our new royal followers!  We really enjoyed reading and responding to all of your comments!  We are all blown away by your kind words and excitement!  We are excited to be sharing our ideas with all of you.

Everyone who entered the Rafflecopter should get an email with the exclusive prize pack for all of our followers.   Due to issues with Dropbox where all of our products were housed, the prize pack will be sent out as soon as possible.   Thank you for being patient.  I hope you enjoy them all!

And now for the winners of the four Teachers Pay Teachers gift certificates.  Congratulations to


Check your email for the gift certificate!  Happy shopping!

Come back daily to see what we are up to in Literacy Land!  And don't forget to share with your friends and colleagues! 

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EVERYONE'S A WINNER WEEK {Day 5}

This blog launch week has truly been a collaborative effort between 20 people, plus 1 artist and 1 blog designer who came together to create this beautiful blog design.  Welcome to our Castle!

This week, Jan. 6th - 10th EVERY follower is a WINNER!
EVERY follower who leaves their e-mail in the rafflecopter below, 
will be e-mailed our Blog Launch Exclusive Freebie Prize Pack!

Each day this week the blog authors have shown you strategies to use with different aspects of literacy.
Today, four blog authors will share information about

Hello and welcome to our new collaborative literacy blog! I am Amy from Eclectic Educating. I am currently a reading specialist in New Jersey.

As a teacher, I try to make my instruction meaningful and have a clear purpose. During reading, I try to choose high-interest stories and books that are relevant to my students' lives. For this reason, I often choose articles and short stories from popular magazines. When learning is interesting to students, it becomes much more meaningful. Students need to feel that their work serves a purpose.

This is particularly true for writing. Sometimes the purpose may simply be to enjoy the experience of writing through short stories and fiction. With the Common Core coming down the pike, however, it is becoming more and more important for students to be able to read a text and respond critically through writing. This will often be in the form of informational texts.

To practice this skill, I think it is important to choose articles that will mimic the style of the assessments students will be taking for the Common Core. This is where I think articles play an important role. Popular magazines such as Ranger Rick, Highlights, and National Geographic aim to capture students' attention through high-interest articles, which are perfect for your classroom instruction! If you do not have a subscription to any such magazines, have no fear!  EBSCOhost is a fantastic database for finding great articles. Here is a video tutorial that will explain how to use the database.


After reading these articles, have students analyze and critique the author's viewpoint. Let students support their opinions with facts from the text. Remember, choose topics that are interesting!  To get you started, my freebie for the giveaway includes a nonfiction text about chocolate milk. It explains the pros and cons of this delicious treat. When finished, students must choose whether they are for or against chocolate milk in schools. Then, they must support their opinion with facts from the article. In my experience, students get pretty passionate about chocolate milk! I hope you enjoy the resource! Happy writing!


Hi, everyone!  Andrea here from Reading Toward the Stars!  A few months ago, I had a vision of starting a collaborative blog with a group of reading and literacy interventionists who share my passion for helping struggling readers!  I am so excited to be here with all of this talent!  I spend 14 years working in third and fourth grade classrooms but always wanted to do so much more to help my struggling readers.  Three years ago I got that chance in the very school where I started working!  Now I can't turn back!  It is my dream job!

I work with many grade levels and have spent some time in third grade where they worked on subjects and predicates.  To scaffold for my students, we used puzzles to create sentences and decide if they made sense or not.  I created my exclusive freebie as part of our summer school curriculum.  It is a set of subject and predicate puzzles that students can use to create sentences and then decide if they are serious or silly.  The students had fun with it and asked to do it again and again!

Hi! I'm Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late. I've had the pleasure of teaching in the same school all eight years that I've taught, spending the majority of time in fourth grade before I was given the opportunity to work as the reading specialist for grades 3-5 Today I am sharing a writing freebie to use for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day later this month.
I Have A Dream - Martin Luther King, Jr. Writing Craftivity
Even older kids love the hype surrounding holidays, and they get excited about doing any kind of craft. When I do this activity, we take some time to read about Martin Luther King, Jr. and discuss civil rights so students understand a little more about his speech. Then we spend some time talking about dreams that we have for our country/world. I try to encourage them to really think about what's important so the writing is stronger and more meaningful.

I'm so glad you have decided to join us in our new collaborative blog, and I hope you will continue to follow us as we share our literacy knowledge with you. Enjoy all of your new freebies, and have a Happy New Year!


Reading and writing go hand in hand, and so often struggling readers are struggling writers.  Luckily, there are ways we can help our students build skills in both areas.  We can do this by analyzing mentor texts by reading comprehension skill and writing trait. As we teach students to think as writers, we teach them to think about their reading too.

Recent studies have shown that studying the Six Traits of Writing has helped students improve writing scores and skills.  The Six Traits include Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Writing Conventions plus Publishing.  Each trait can be addressed with a writing piece through the use of mentor texts for modeling, shared writing, mini lessons during writing workshop, and with writing rubrics and anchor papers to model what proficient writing looks like.

The unit I am sharing with our blog launch is using the book, Oops! by Colin McNaughton.  This unit includes reading comprehension skills and writing materials for students to write their own fractured fairy tale. Here's a sneak peak at what you'll receive by becoming our follower.

I hope you and your students enjoy using it, and I welcome you to our blog.  I hope you return often to hear all of the great ideas our team has to offer.
Thank you for taking time to visit our blog throughout the week.
It's the last day to get the Exclusive Launch Week Freebie Prize Pack, 
follow our blog and leave your email in the rafflecopter below!
Good Luck!  We hope you win one of the 4 Grand Prizes!
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EVERYONE'S A WINNER WEEK! {Day 4}

WOW!  Our Launch week has been an amazing experience and far surpassed our goal.
All of our new followers this week are 
WINNERS!
Each blog author has donated an exclusive freebie just for our new followers.
Leave your email in the rafflecopter below and the 
Exclusive Prize Pack will be e-mailed to you this weekend.
Remember to come back daily for new entries to win one of the
4 Grand Prize $25 TpT Gift Certificates!

Today 3 of Literacy Land blog authors are sharing great products and discussing strategies for...

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be a part of Adventures in Literacy Land. As a reading specialist, I work with a lot of students who lack a strong vocabulary. Learning to use context clues is vital for these students! Unfortunately, the way I usually taught context clues was using examples of strong vocabulary- and for students who already knew what that particular word meant, they didn’t really get any practice with the skill.

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When I taught 2nd grade, I wanted to give ALL of my students a chance to practice the skill, so I created “Words from Garwoodington.” (My name + “ington.”) I told my class that I was queen of a magical land where they spoke a funny language! I gave example sentences with a “word from Garwoodington” (just a nonsense word) and asked students to help me determine its meaning. Like many strategies, I follow “I Do, We Do, You Do” - taught/modeled, guided the group, and then let students try independently.

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The Garwoodington twist meant all students were involved in practicing the skill-- but also made it so much fun! Follow our blog to try a sample Context Clues with Nonsense Words freebie.

Squeal...I'm so excited that today is finally here!  I'm Deniece from This Little Piggy Reads and I teach Upper Elementary in Texas.  I love that this blog will help so many teachers by providing ideas that aren't just for one grade level or one topic, but a broad range of literacy ideas from around the world!     

I teach in a Title 1 School District; well over 90% of our students are on free or reduced lunch.  At home, they are not normally exposed to a large vocabulary.  There are a multitude of studies that directly link a child's lack of early vocabulary development to their school success or struggles.   

Enter, Super Teacher!  The Super Teacher's job is to increase the vocabulary knowledge of their students so that students can pass state tests.  Sounds easy enough, right?   Well it's NOT easy.  We have a really big gap to close!  You can't do it overnight, but you can use a variety of strategies to help close those gaps.  
Today, my freebie is a LOW PREP vocabulary strategy that you can use with any group of words your students are studying (2nd grade & up).  Students and Administrators love this activity because it gets your kids out of their seat and collaborating.  
             

I am Jana from Thinking Out Loud and am very excited to be a contributing author. One of my favorite elements in literacy instruction is teaching vocabulary in context.  Teaching vocabulary outside of a text does not help students learn new words.  They need to see those words in use in books that they read and that you read to them.  I base my instruction on Bringing Words to Life by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan.  For every read aloud, I pick two to three tier two words to teach explicitly to my students using an eight-step process.

1.  Read the story
2.  Introduce the word by rereading the word in context of the story
3.  Have students repeat the word.
4.  Give students a student-friendly definition.  (I love to use Word Central for this.)
5.  Use the word in a context different from what is used in the book.
6.  Have the students repeat the word again.
(After I have completed steps 2-6 for each word, then I complete steps 7-8.)
7.  Have students interact with the words.
8.  Use all of the words in a sentence.

To get you started teaching vocabulary explicitly, I have included a Vocabulary in Context freebie in our exclusive freebie pack for all our blog followers.


Thank you for visiting our blog. 
We hope these vocabulary strategies will be helpful.
Remember, leave your email address and 
come back tomorrow to get writing tips!
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EVERYONE'S A WINNER WEEK! {Day 3}

All 20 authors are excited to find out who the 
4 Grand Prize Winners will be.
Each Grand Prize Winner gets a $25 Gift Certificate to TpT!!

My goodness we're overwhelmed by all the new followers and wonderful comments!
We're listening and planning our blog posts according to your requests.

You asked for Comprehension Skills and now here are 4 great ideas.
 
Hi, I am Kylie and I live in Brisbane, Australia. 

The freebie I am sharing uses the 4H reading strategy - Here, Hidden, Head and Heart - is the answer literal, i.e. right here in the text?  Is the answer hidden; do I need to think and search?  Is the answer my own opinion or based on my past experience; i.e. is it in my head or is the answer how I feel, therefore in my heart?  This is an innovation on three level guides and Question, Answer, Relationships (QAR), by Taffy Raphael. 

I have chosen a fairy tale theme for my 4H freebie.  Included in the freebie, you will find posters, bookmarks and stars to support the 4H strategy. 

"The Three Bears (Sort Of)"  is a new picture book that is great for critical literacy.  I have included questions for sorting according to the 4H strategy to support students to clarify the purpose of different questioning types.  You can read more about this picture book on my blog post here or find other resources for the 4H strategy in my TPT store.  I hope you have a lot of success with this strategy with your students :)
Welcome Everyone! I'm Emily from The Reading Tutor/OG and I'm thrilled to be blogging in Literacy Land. Currently, I am a SAHM of twin boys, with our third on the way in March, a private Orton-Gillingham instructor (an instructional approach used to teach dyslexic learners how to read), and wrapping up my Reading Specialist certification too! My 13 years of classroom experience, training in working with dyslexia learners, and helping struggling readers in a 1:1 setting have all given me a deep understanding of what children need to become successful readers.
Sustaining and motivating reading interest in reluctant/struggling readers has always been a goal of mine. One way is to find high interest topics that have manageable readability. Here is a freebie that will do just that. Each "Read Around The Room" card shares interesting facts about castles. Providing some active movement, while reading and answering questions that review important skills and strategies will really engage these readers.  You can even hide the cards around the room for children to find. Enjoy this new freebie with your students. I'm looking forward to sharing more with all of you!
Hi, friends! I'm thrilled to be part of this collaborative blog with so many other talented ladies. I currently teach reading for grades 6-8. I love using interactive notebooks and technology because they get my students involved in whatever we are learning. I do my best to find high-interest things for us to read and learn about. I'm definitely not a use-the-basal kind of reading teacher!


The freebie I've included in the prize pack you'll be receiving is my Literary Analysis for Any Movie. It includes a guide with explanations for your students so that this activity can be completed independently. It's great to leave for a sub or to use on one of those ODD days (pep rallies, before holidays, etc.) when you're dreading the lesson more than the kids are. Thanks so much for visiting.

As a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and literacy coach, I have worked with students and teachers from preschool to grade 12.  Back in the early 1990’s, I began my research and application of what we called active reading strategies:  summarizing, predicting, evaluating, reviewing, connecting, inferring, questioning, visualizing, determining main idea, and synthesizing.  At present, these are often called reading comprehension strategies or cognitive strategies.
My resource, Fairy Tale Reading Comprehension Posters was created when I needed a visual reminder for students in  my reading intervention groups and when I was modeling lessons in teachers’ classes. Created specifically for grades K-2, you can use them with older students as well.  I used them on my Focus Wall, bulletin board, and magnetic white board. I suggest printing on cardstock, laminating, and placing magnetic strips on the back.  Use during instruction to help students anchor their learning of a simple, kid-friendly definition for each strategy /reading comprehension skill.  Hopefully most students are familiar with fairy tales and the pictures can help as a concrete example and reminder.  Included in this sample pack are mini-posters for a few reading strategies and skills.


If you want our Exclusive Follower Prize Pack, 
follow our blog and leave your email in the rafflecopter below!
Drop by tomorrow to learn 3 new vocabulary strategies.
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EVERYONE'S A WINNER WEEK! {Day 2}

This week, Jan. 6th - 10th EVERY follower is a WINNER!
EVERY follower who leaves their e-mail 
in the rafflecopter below, 
will be e-mailed (this weekend) our 
Blog Launch Exclusive Freebie Prize Pack!

Today 4 experienced teachers are sharing insight into...
Hi friends! I'm Wendy from Read With Me ABC.

I'm a first grade teacher turned reading specialist.  While I loved my experience as a classroom teacher, I'm thrilled with my role as a reading specialist.  I spend my workdays doing what I love best, teaching children to read.

I am super excited to be joining my reading friends in this new adventure.  I do hope you will follow us on this journey.  We have so many exciting literacy ideas to share with you!  So let's get started...

An important component of reading instruction is fluency, or the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression.  We can improve students' ability to read fluently by providing them with opportunities to practice reading sight words for automaticity.  Students can practice sight words individually or in phrases. By practicing sight words in phrases and short sentences, the reader is able to create meaning from the words in context and use expression.

I created an activity, Chat, Chat, Trade: Fluency Phrases, to share with our new Literacy Land followers.

This activity will get students up and moving while practicing their sight word phrases.  It uses words from the First 100 Fry Sight Words and is inspired by the research of Edward Fry and Timothy Rasinski.  I hope you'll enjoy using these fluency phrases with your students!

Hi everyone!  I am Jennie from JD's Rockin' Readers.  I taught First Grade Reading Recovery/Title I Reading for the past 11 years and currently made a change to a regular First Grade teacher.  
I am very excited to be a part of this new literacy blog.  We would love to have you follow us on this journey as we will share our literacy knowledge with you.

I have included a Sight Word Beginning Reader for you today.
This reader is called The Pirate and focuses on the sight words I, see, a, and my.  It is very imperative that beginning readers collect a good number of sight words that they know how to read quickly.  This sight word reader is a little different than most you might see.  Many early readers have a patterned text (which I do agree is a needed skill for beginning readers).  However, what I do find is that many students learn the pattern of the text and then they don't focus on looking at the words.  This reader uses sight words but the pattern changes.  Students learn how to self-monitor their reading right from the start and learn that it is important to look at the words all of the time.  The book also allows students to practice writing the sight word "my" into their own book.  I hope you are able to use this book with your beginning readers!  Happy New Year!

Welcome to Literacy Land! I am Wendy D. from Ms. D’s Literacy Lab.  In the past, I taught Head Start, Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, First Grade and implemented Literacy Coaching within classrooms. Currently, I have been a K-5 Reading Specialist for thirteen years in Boston, MA. I am very excited to be a part of this new literacy blog!

It is very important that beginning readers collect a set of sight words that they can read quickly.   Sight words help a reader to self-monitor and cross-check when they are reading emergent and fluent texts. In addition, a lack of sight words may be a reason that readers plateau and seem to make slow progress. Games are one of the ways that I create fast, fun repetition and learning with my students!
My exclusive freebie for you is Knock Out Those Sight Words!  
(Teacher Directions are included)
Enjoy! Happy New Year!
Fluency: It's Not Just About Speed!

We all know what a fluent reader sounds like. They sound smooth and automatic with the delivery of their words. The speed of their reading changes, speeding up at times and slowing down at the right time. The fluent reader also uses a variety of expressions to convey the feelings of the character. Fluency is all three areas working together to promote the comprehension of the text.

Although it takes all 3 of these components to make a fluent reader, sometimes we get too concentrated on speed. But just teaching a student to read fast or as fast as they can does not help with comprehension. In fact, it can be a deterrent. Students need to know this too.

Model for your students a good example and a poor example of each of the 3 areas of fluency. It helps them to hear and see both good and poor models of each fluency area. Students benefit from concrete examples!

After teaching students about the 3 areas of fluency, give them fluency bookmarks to help them to remember to work on their fluency as they practice reading.


Thank you for visiting our new blogging endeavor, 
Adventures in Literacy Land.
Come back every day this week for more chances 
to win one of the 4 Grand Prizes.
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EVERYONE'S A WINNER WEEK! {Day 1}

Over 2 months in the making and it's finally here!
All 20 blog authors want to invite you 
to follow our literacy journey on 
This week, Jan. 6th - 10th EVERY follower is a WINNER!
EVERY follower who leaves their email in the rafflecopter below, 
will be emailed our Blog Launch Exclusive Freebie Prize Pack at the end of the week!

Each day this week there is a different literacy focus.  Five talented bloggers will share their tips for...

Welcome!  Welcome!  It is absolutely thrilling to me to be a part of this wonderful literacy community!  I am Em from Curious Firsties.  My teaching started in Knoxville, TN where I taught second grade.  When I moved back to Cincinnati, OH I taught first and second grade (including a looping year).  About five years ago, I requested to be a Title I teacher (my dream job).  Currently, I work with only first grade students.  My school is departmentalized and leveled; therefore, I push into the classroom and provide small group instruction with my co-teachers.  I absolutely love my job and the challenges that it can pose.  
 
My FREEBIE product is a vowel-consonant-e word ladder packet.  Word ladders are a great way to engage our students in word study.  They have to analyze the clues to uncover the next word.  My ladders differ from traditional ones because I focus them on one specific pattern.  They provide support to students that have decoding difficulties and would benefit from practice with specific patterns.  I’m happy to share it with you!  The blogging world is such a great place to learn and grow.  I am excited to be a part of it!

   

Welcome Friends!  We are the blogging team of Colleen and Stacy from The Rungs of Reading.  We are so excited to be a part of this new collaborative blog to bring you best practices in the field of literacy.  Today we would like to talk a little about the importance of phonics/decoding strategies.  Teaching children proven decoding strategies provides them with a strong foundation to ensure reading success.  Decoding is the process of translating print into speech by rapidly matching letters (graphemes) to their sounds (phonemes) and recognizing the patterns and rules that make syllables and words.  Although there is a part of our brain that deals with language processing, about 30 percent of children do not access this part of their brain automatically and therefore must be taught decoding principles using explicit, systematic, and multisensory approaches and strategies. 

One decoding principle that can be tricky for children to master is learning the r-controlled vowel sounds ar, er, ir, or, and ur.  When a vowel is followed by an "r", the "r" changes the sound that the vowel makes.  Sometimes teachers refer to the "r" as "Bossy-r" as the "r" bosses the vowel to make a different sound. We hope you enjoy our Roll the Die game from our Wonderful Wizard of Oz bundle that reinforces this important decoding rule.  This game can be used as an ELA center, small group RTI intervention, or informal assessment. 

Hello there!  My name is Jessica and I am coming to you from Hanging Out in First!  I am so excited to be a part of this blog and to share with you so many wonderful reading resources.  The freebie that I am sharing with you is part of my phoneme segmentation pack.  Phonemic awareness is crucial for beginning readers.  It is the ability to manipulate phonemes, or sounds.  As a student learns to manipulate phonemes, they are then able to begin blending and encoding sounds as they read and write.  It helps students to see patterns within words and recognize chunks of sound. 

My phoneme segmentation pack is just one aspect of phonemic awareness.  In this pack, students will learn to segment sounds.  This means that they will begin taking the sounds apart, thus laying the groundwork for future writers!  This pack is just a sample of my larger phoneme segmentation packs in my TPT store. It includes Elkonin boxes for a push, say, sort activity, a graphing for sounds activity, some coloring for sounds pages, and a fluency page to help progress monitor phoneme segmentation fluency.  I hope that you can use this freebie and keep in touch with us as we share so many more valuable resources with you!!


Hi everyone! I am so delighted to be part of this wonderful collaborative group!

My freebie for you today is related to initial phonemes, or sounds. Research has shown that children learning to read must be able to manipulate phonemes in order to advance in their reading skills. Yes, first they must be able to identify those sound units, but manipulating them is important because readers need to remember them and compare those phonemes and the letter(s) that represent them. A reader needs to be able to pull out a single phoneme from a word they read and to compare and contrast  it with different letter sequences. For example, a child learning to read needs to be able to figure out that the initial phoneme in fall and phone is the same but they are represented by different letters.

With that being said, my freebie will have your students working on adding initial phonemes (sometimes we call these onsets) to word families (rimes). For example, a student will take the phoneme c and match it with ake to make cake. However, matching it to ack will not make a word. I am excited for your students to give it a try and I hope that the practice is fun for them and doesn't feel much like work! Thanks for stopping by our blog today!

We hope these ideas are useful in your classroom.
To get our Exclusive Follower Prize Pack Freebie, 
follow our blog and leave your e-mail in the rafflecopter below!
Make sure you visit every day this week to get more literacy tips and 
enter daily to win one of the 4 Grand Prizes.
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