Technology and Literacy

I'm so excited to be joining the talented teachers of Literacy Land as Literacy Land celebrates its second birthday.  I am Amanda from A Very Curious Class.  This month we are sharing our area of expertise, but I also want to introduce myself.

I began teaching in third grade reading, and I was there for two years.  This is now my 10th year in kindergarten, and while that first year was quite an adjustment, I am loving it!  Our building serves all the preschool and kindergarten children in our district.  Last year, I had the opportunity to have a "high ability cluster" in my classroom and meet the needs of our building's highest students.

At the beginning of my career, we had a phenomenal technology teacher in our building.  She was excited to teach me about the different technology available to our students.  I was lucky to work with her a couple years before she moved to a different building.  Since then, I have been excited to explore new technology and connect with others to learn new ways to make learning more engaging for my students.  I, by no means, feel like an "expert" as I am always learning something, but this is something I enjoy doing and see many benefits for my students.

I am very fortunate to have access to technology in my classroom and building.  My building has a computer lab of 25 computers as well as iPads in every classroom.  We use iReady as a computerized assessment tool in our district.  We also have subscriptions to Raz-Kids, which my students use in our classroom during reading centers.

I love reading and learning about new apps that will benefit my students.  One of our favorites is Book Creator.  If you have not used this app, try out the free version.  It allows you to write one book to try it out.  My students, in kindergarten, are able to use the app relatively independently at this point in the year.  Their biggest struggle is formatting and making everything (text) look the same.  Books can then be published in the iBook store.  Here is our latest book about letter sounds.  We choose to publish all of our books free, and a technology integration teacher in our district takes care of doing this for all of us.  He tells me it is very easy to set up an account for publishing.

At this point, I realized that we have only focused on nonfiction writing using Book Creator.  I have a couple kids who I know would love to write a story on here, so we might have to break this app out during our writing time for them to write their own stories.

Another app we love is ChatterPix.  I've used this one with nonfiction text the most. Students can record up to 30 seconds of speaking and make the photo "talk".  Students love talking about their topic using this app.  A different way we used it was to interview staff members at the beginning of the year and take their photos.  Students then shared information about each staff member interviewed through the ChatterPix app.

Interviewing one of our staff members.

Here is the ChatterPix of our awesome literacy coach.

Pic Collage is a great way for them to organize their thinking. We used this to create an "All About Me" collage at the beginning of the year.  The kids took a selfie then used the app's search tool to find pictures that showed things they like.  This was a great intro to technology at the beginning of the year.

Last year on a snow day, I sent a message via Remind and e-mail telling students to look for 2 or more things in their house that rhyme.  They brought these items for show and tell the next day then used Pic Collage to take photos of their items and label them.

Working a collage this year.

Some apps we love to practice literacy skills include: 

• Hideout: works on word families
• PeaPod Apps alphabet apps are great for theme vocabulary
• Grasshopper Apps : I like these because you can easily customize them to work on skills your students need.
• Sight Word Ninja: great for practicing sight words 
• Endless Alphabet: another good one for vocabulary

We were fortunate to have author/illustrator Todd Parr visit our school this year.  It was an awesome experience for our kiddos (and teachers/community).  My students loved all his books, but we chose to write our own book about feelings. We used KidPix computer software to write a feelings sentence and illustrate in Todd Parr's style.  I then e-mailed these saved pictures to myself to get them on the iPad and we turned them into a book using Book Creator. The pictures were also printed and displayed at our local library, where Mr. Parr presented that evening for the community.

As you can see, I wrote their ideas out on a white board for them to copy as they typed.  Because we were publishing it, spelling needed to be correct.

I hope this post gave you an idea or two about incorporating technology to help with literacy skills.  I'm looking forward to sharing more with you throughout the year!

Thematic Teaching With an Interdisciplinary Twist

Two years ago, I graciously accepted an offer to contribute to Adventures in Literacy Land, and I have been blessed because of it! Not only have I learned so much from my creative and talented co-authors, but I have made friends that offer support and encouragement. One of the greatest things about connecting on-line with other teachers and working collaboratively to support and share our passion for literacy is that we all bring something different to the literacy "table". 

As we celebrate our 2nd birthday (WOOT!), we also celebrate Lit Land's authors- new and old. We celebrate our diversity of backgrounds that allows us to grow professionally from one another and from interaction with YOU, our loyal and royal readers!

This month we are sharing our area of "expertise". As a passionate literacy educator and coach, I have many areas of interest. One constant that has spanned my career of working with students and teachers in pre-k through grade 12, as a classroom teacher to reading specialist to literacy coach, has been instructional planning, specifically thematic teaching.  I have written curriculum and planned with vertical and horizontal building teams as well as written curriculum at the district level. One of the things that I loved the most as a literacy coach was the opportunity to work 1:1 with teachers to plan and write lessons that integrated literacy as well as those that were interdisciplinary in nature.

My teaching style reflects the way my brain works when planning: I think holistically in terms of themes. I always start with the question of "What interests do my students have?", "What would they enjoy learning about?" and "How would they best learn and study this theme?" There is much research to support that thematic teaching is an efficient and effective model for both students and for teachers.

Advantages of Thematic Teaching

There are many advantages, but here are my top three:

• Increases students' interests~ engaging
• Helps students to make and understand connections among content areas
• Compacts curriculum and makes efficient use of time

Depending on your position and school district, you may have more of a dictated curriculum and perhaps even mandated lesson plans. I've worked in schools like those too, yet I have also had the complete opposite where I had (almost) complete freedom, as I was writing my own curriculum whether it be for the classroom or for student intervention purposes. 

Currently, I am homeschooling my youngest child who is in the 3rd grade.  I want to share with you a little about how I plan a thematic unit in the hopes that it will inspire you and give you ideas to use with your own students.

We are at the end of a snow unit. I try to be as student-centered as possible, capitalizing on students' interests and what I call "wonders" (i.e., things they are curious about).  Up until this week, we had not had even one flake of snow. Both my boys were lamenting this fact when I had a last-minute idea!  How about a mini-snow unit?  

Questions to Consider When Planning:

How do I start planning a thematic unit?
I don't think there is a right or wrong way to plan a thematic unit. You might begin with a big picture question (e.g. How is snow made?). Or, you may select a topic/theme that you know will motivate your learners.  Some districts and schools still use basals and anthologies.  Many of these books are arranged by theme and you may get an idea that sparks your interest.

What things do I include?
To determine this, I consider how much time I have to spend on the theme and what resources I have.  For my snow unit, I knew I wanted to integrate science (how snowflakes are formed and how snow is different from other forms of frozen precipitation) with reading and writing.


Purpose: Why am I doing this?
This is where differentiation and individualized learning probably comes in.  For some classes (and for my son) that I have taught, sometimes I selected a theme because I knew it would motivate and inspire them if they needed a "pick-me-up"


How much time do I have?
I actually find that I save time when I teach thematically. Content areas such as social studies and science are merged with ELA and sometimes math.


What are the curricular standards/objectives expectations?
To compact curriculum, think about whether you can meet a science or social studies objective during ELA time. I often use our social studies text during our reading block, which merges two curricular areas and maximizes our time.

Other Considerations

Interdisciplinary Connections
With so much to cover in English language arts and math along with other expectations, it can be difficult to cover content areas such as social studies and science. Integrating other content areas into your thematic unit can "kill two birds with one stone"~ save you time by making efficient use of your time. Plus, this is so effective in teaching students how to make connections among contents and is an authentic application of math and ELA knowledge and strategies. Of course, it all depends on what your scope and sequence looks like in the content areas and how much flexibility you have.

Integrate genre- go beyond paired texts
In my snow unit, I included fiction (short story and poetry), a biography (Snowflake Bentley), reading from the science text, a science/STEM experiment, and an informative PowerPoint.

Integrate the "arts" and "specials"- music, art, P.E., etc
My son loves art, especially art and music. We made our own snow, made "shivery snow paint", and created a snow globe topper for informative writing. Plus, it was also a fun surprise that part of his piano practice for this week include some winter themed songs!

Highlights From Our Snow Unit

Science and informative writing 

Snowman Shape book from Creative Clips

Snow globe writing!

Snow paint!

After reading Snowflake Bentley, he worked on a lap book to synthesize and showcase his learning.  I used resources from these two fabulous teacher-authors for the lap book:

Of course, there is a whole lot more that goes into planning a thematic unit, such as assessment and reflection. I hope you were able to gather some new ideas for your thematic planning that integrates the content areas.

You can read more details about my snow unit (including lots of FREEBIES!) over on my blog.  Just click the picture below!

Enjoy!

Inspiring Little Readers

Hi! I am Jonelle Bell from A Place Called Kindergarten. I teach Kindergarten in Ohio and am a mom to 3 sons. (Both rewarding and challenging jobs.) I am excited to be joining Adventures in Literacy Land as it celebrates turning 2. 

I look forward to sharing my love of literacy with the readers of this blog.

My expertise comes from 25 years of teaching and learning from little readers. There is no greater joy as a Kindergarten teacher than to watch 5 and 6 year olds gain the skills needed to become readers. From phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, concepts of print, listening comprehension, vocabulary to decoding and comprehension every milestone is a cause for celebration. 

(Read more about these skills in Jessica Hamilton's post HERE.) The list of skills little readers need to build a reading foundation is long, but they also need to think of themselves as readers and make connections to books and authors to fall in love with reading. 

We start the year off with establishing reading routines at home and at school. At the beginning of the year many Kindergarteners do not think of themselves as readers and reading may not be a part of their routine at home. 

Here are some things that I do to inspire my little readers...

Develop Family Reading Routines

It is important for early readers to spend time reading and being read to. One of the first things that I do at the beginning of the year is help parents understand the importance of making reading a part of their daily routine. Read to Your Bunny is a great book to read during your parent information night at the beginning of the year to establish the importance of nightly reading. 

"Read to your bunny...and your bunny will read to you."

Create an Interest in Characters and Authors

I have a huge book collection in my classroom. Most of the books go untouched until we spend some time reading about a character, learning about an author and making connections stories. Then...watch out...there becomes a frenzy for that character or author book box. 

-keep your book area organized by your students' interest

-make finding books and putting books away manageable

-keep a list of characters and authors displayed and make connections to them

-buy several copies of class favorites like...

               

Make Connections to Books

Connecting 5 and 6 year olds to stores, characters and authors make for some interesting conversations. I had a conversation with a student about how he is afraid to go to sleep at night, but is making a plan just like Scardey Squirrel does to help him fall asleep. Priceless!

Read Favorites Again and Again

Both at home and at school you need to read little readers their favorite stories again and again and again. During read to self I love hearing retells of Goldilocks or Pigeon stories, especially from my struggling learners. They are able to do this because we have read those stories several times. 

Readers and Book Lovers

I call my students readers and book lovers all throughout the year after we establish what it means to be a community of readers and book lovers. 

A community of readers is a place where children...

-want to read every day

-refer to themselves as readers

-choose books thoughtfully

-handle books carefully

-share favorite books with their peers

I love teaching literacy skills and inspiring my little readers! 

It is my hope that they will leave Kindergarten with the confidence to continue to think of themselves as readers and book lovers as they continue to grow in the area of literacy throughout school.

Using Twitter to Improve RtI Instruction

As we continue to celebrate Literacy Land's birthday this month, I'd like to introduce myself! My name is Daliene, but many teachers know me as Not JANE (Not Just Any Nerdy Educator).  I'm excited to join the Literacy Land blog and share my RtI instructional strategies as well as Professional Development ideas for intervention and reading teachers.

During my 11 years of teaching, I've had the privilege of teaching in grades K-8 in three different states and two countries.  I started my career as a middle school science teacher, transitioned to intermediate ELA, loved being a Gifted and Talented Coach K-5, and enjoyed two years as a first grade teacher before joining the world of K-5 RtI Reading and Math Intervention. (Just typing that list feels exhausting!)

Though each move provided the challenge of learning sometime new, it also gave me the experience with learner needs across the grade levels. It is often easier for me to see the big picture because I have lived it as a teacher at some point along the way.

This helped me realize my goal is to share with you about my passions vs. my expertise. Having such a variety of experience can at times make it difficult to define what my niche or expertise might be. One might say it is my ability to quickly adapt to the different ages and ability levels I work with in RtI. My true passion however, is my love of incorporating useful small-group strategies and education technology in my classroom, as well as sharing current and relevant professional development tools with my teachers and staff.

One of my favorite tools to use for professional development is Twitter! I love joining in weekly Twitter chats related to reading and intervention teaching. Whatever your interest or grade level, there is probably a Twitter chat for you! I love hearing fresh and new ideas from teachers all over the world.  Their Tweets often help me get out of a planning or creativity rut.  For example, tonight I'll be joining the #Read4Fun chat all about Reading Resolutions hosted by ILA.  I find it difficult at times to keep up with the latest and greatest literature out there, and these chats are full of other teachers and library media specialists who always have great recommendations!

Some people may be hesitant to join in a Twitter chat. The first few times it can feel overwhelming, especially if it is a popular chat and the feed moves quickly.  Have no fear! Many chat hosts will "Storify" their chat, which is essentialy a slide show of all the tweets that used their chat hashtag that day. This is a great way to quickly read through ideas and information shared.  If you want to know more about using Twitter, I'll be sharing a tutorial and more details in the coming weeks.

How has Twitter helped me with RtI? When I first started this job, I felt very isolated. I didn't have much district-provided PD or support for something that was completely new to me. I turned to the power of the internet and social media for ideas. I was quickly able to find other intervention teachers sharing ideas on Twitter, which then led me to their blogs, other collaboration spaces such as Voxer, and even a mentor I would have never found were it not for the power of educators sharing their knowledge and ideas online!

I look forward to sharing more about RtI and professional development with you. Cheers to a new year for Literacy Land and to each of you who come here to read and learn!

See It. Hear It. Do It.

I am so honored to be blogging with Adventures in Literacy Land this year!  My name is Sarah from Simply Literacy.  Literacy Land is celebrating their 2nd birthday and this month is filled with new and old bloggers highlighting their expertise in teaching.  I am so excited to introduce myself!  

For the past 9 of my 11 years of teaching, I have been at the same district, teaching third grade reading....and I have LOVED every second of it.  But I have not always had a love for reading.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  In elementary school, I struggled so much in reading that I tried my hardest to avoid it at all costs.  Of course my parents and teachers did not let that happen.  Not only am I am a product of Reading Recovery, but I also received a lot of one-on-one support during the school day, plus a tutor in the evenings and on the weekends.   I disliked hated reading.   Luckily, all of the extra reading support helped me academically....but unfortunately it didn't change my feelings about reading.  My LOVE for reading didn't actually start until I went through my education classes in college.  After graduating, I entered the education world determined to help all students not only become successful, life-long readers, but I wanted to make sure I was able to help students build a love for reading.....especially the struggling ones.  I wanted students to change their minds from thinking reading is impossible to possible.

So.....how do I help my 3rd graders become successful readers? Each lesson I teach is thought out carefully.   Everyday I ask myself, "would the struggling-eight-year-old-Sarah from 25 years ago understand this lesson?"  I have found that it is as simple as incorporating learning styles that are appropriate for ALL students.

Let me show you how I include multi-sensory lessons in my teaching each day.  

Every year, I focus a lot on teaching my students how to make inferences while reading.  I stress the fact that authors do not always give readers all the information and that good readers have to infer or draw conclusions in order to understand a text.  Before starting this skill with stories, I emphasize to my students how we make inferences in our daily lives without even realizing it.   I start with a crime scene in my classroom.  This activity is taken from Tanny McGregor's Comprehension Connections. This crime scene usually takes place at the beginning of the school year. The students walk into my room on a Monday morning and see this in our classroom library:

Of course I always use my best acting skills, and show how upset I am that someone would leave this mess in my classroom.  I explain that we were going to be detectives by using the clues and activate our schema (background knowledge) in order to solve this case.  Little do the students know....but they are learning all about making inferences!  As the year continues, I have the students dig deeper by teaching inference through some multi-sensory lessons below.

-Who are my neighbors?- I create a story about a new family that moved in next door to my house.  I ask my students to help me learn information about my new neighbors by digging through some of their trash. This activity is a twist on Tanny McGregor's lesson in Comprehension Connections.

-Flocabulary- Flocabulary is a website that creates educational hip-hop videos, interactive activities, and online assessments for students in grades k-12. My students love to sing and dance along to the hip-hop songs.  Flocabulary is a multi-sensory approach that uses music, rhythm, and rhyme to increase student engagement.  The songs are so catchy!

-Picture Books-There are so many picture books that I enjoy reading to my students to practice and increase inference skills.  Such books include Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens, Enemy Pie by Derek Munson, and Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett.  But my favorite books for inferring are wordless picture books such as Window by Jeannie Baker.

-Poems-"Impressive Inference" poems are great to use when teaching inferences.  When read aloud, poetry is rhythm, music, sounds, and beats which can be great for the kinesthetic learners.   This activity was found here.

Videos-  There are several short animated videos that I use to practice inference.  Check out my Pinterest board of videos here .

Comic Strips- The students love getting in groups and filling in the speech bubbles for certain comic strips.  This is a good activity for students to work together with peers and make inferences.   I took this lesson from Speech Room News.

Tic-Tac PowerPoint- I use this PowerPoint in several different ways.  Sometimes I will break the students up into two groups and we play as a class.  I've also played this game during small groups, intervention groups, and in partners.  I have a Tic Tac PowerPoint for almost every reading skill.

Games-Throughout the years, I have purchased a large number of board games that review reading skills.  These games are an exciting and engaging way for students to practice and apply reading skills.  My students really like to play Crack the Case! Inference Center.  In this game, they like to become detectives, piecing together clues to solve mysteries. 

The example lessons and activities listed above focus only on one reading skill.  I do my best to teach all my reading skills with this kind of variety.  Students rely heavily on their senses to process information when they are leaning.  I think a multi-sensory environment will increase my students' focus, attention, concentration, awaken their memories/schema, and possibly improve creativity.

I am so excited to be a part of this group and share more lessons with you this year!

Hello from Literacy Spark

Hi there!  This is Jessica from Literacy Spark.  I am so excited to have joined Adventures in Literacy Land as a blogger this year.  The blog is celebrating it's second birthday and this month will be spent introducing you to our bloggers, both old and new.  Make sure to check back in to get reacquainted as well as to pick up some tips and freebies.  There will also be a large birthday giveaway at the end of the month!

So here's a little bit about me...I've been teaching for nine years. All of this has been in first and second grade.  The first five years I taught in Connecticut and the last four were in Texas (where I live now).  Two.  Different.  Worlds.  

A little over a year ago, I had my daughter Gracie and we also moved about 45 minutes north of Houston.  So, I left the classroom and am a stay at home mom for the time being.  

But JUST before getting pregnant, I had completed my master's degree in reading and language arts and received my reading specialist and master reading teacher certificates. So...kind of sad they aren't getting use...but future dream when I go back to work is to be a reading specialist or literacy coach.  

Because my first job was in first grade (and in the inner city with English Language Learners), I had to learn how to teach reading really fast!  Well, it didn't happen that fast as I clearly had no clue when I started...but I got there and it really turned into my passion.  

When I moved to Texas, I taught second grade and entered a district without reading specialists or coaches (who had really taught me so much at my previous job).  There wasn't even a guided reading library...yep, no books!?!?  And I was in a state obsessed with grading and testing.  It was a challenge.  But I was determined to still teach my students to READ (rather than how to take tests), keep the FUN in learning, and try to convince some of the rest of the staff to join me.

I look forward to blogging this year and bringing you the perspective of a classroom teacher but with the eye of a reading specialist.  I get it, really...the grades, the testing, the paperwork, the behavior, lack of materials, no interventionists...but we can still do the best we can!

We are supposed to be blogging about our "speciality" but I sort of feel like I'm in the middle of everything and nothing at the same time right now.  So for now I'm going to say my speciality is getting kids engaged, motivated, up and moving, and having fun while still learning concrete skills and strategies.

Since Monday is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I've got a related freebie for you.  It's a little mini reader with ten right there factual questions.  Seems simple, but it really is a challenge to get young readers to actually go back and find the answers.  So this just reinforces the skill in a fun way.  

The questions are on full sheets of paper for you to put around the room in a scavenger hunt format to get your kids up and moving around.  Trust me, it makes everything a lot more fun.  Just post the ten questions somewhere around the room.  Read the book together, in partners, small group...whatever works.  Then have the kids get up with their books and go around hunting for the questions.  As they find the questions, they should refer to the little text for the answers, and record them next to the appropriate number on the back of the book.  Easy to prep, fun, reinforces a skill, and teaches some content!  You can grab it from my TpT store here.

Happy Birthday Literacy Land!

It is hard to believe that it has only been 2 years since we started this blog.  I feel like I have known these wonderful ladies forever!

If you are new to our blog, let me introduce myself.  I am Jessica Hamilton from Hanging Out in First!  I actually teach Kindergarten this year but I taught the previous 6 years in first grade, as well as 2 years of second and 1 of fifth.  I live in small town Virginia with my husband and 3 boys.

Since I have taught so many years in primary grades, I have learned a lot about it.  I have learned how to take a child that has never seen a book or a letter before and not only get them to read but to love reading!

There are many aspects of emergent literacy that a teacher has to be aware of in order to effectively teach it.  They can be summarized into categories:

Phonemic Awareness
-Understanding sounds and how words are made of seperate sounds.
-Knowing how to separate sounds and then learning to manipulate those sounds.
-Understanding rhyming - matching rhyming words, knowing if 2 words rhyme, and being able to produce rhymes.
-Isolating sounds - matching the beg/medial/end sounds of words, separating onset and rime, and being able to manipulate the onset and rime.

Phonics
-Alphabet - recognizing letters by name and by sound
-Blending (we call it stretching) sounds into words

Concept of Print
-Knowing the parts of a book - front, back, first page, first word, pictures, words
-Reading left to right, top to bottom
-Concept of Word - one to one correspondence while reading
-Knowing the difference between a sound, a letter, a word, and a sentence
-Understanding that the words on the page need to match the picture on the page.

Writing
-Handwriting - learning to physically write the letters of the alphabet
-Segmenting each sound and encoding it
-Understanding how to write a sentence - more than one word, spaces in between words, must make sense, periods/capital letters
-Illustrating the sentence that you write correctly
-Not being afraid of spelling errors

Comprehension
-Retelling a story in the correct order
-Knowing what a character is
-Understanding that you have to think while you read
-Understanding feelings of characters
-Understanding that we can read for fun or read to learn
-Learning to love reading!

Fluency
-Becoming fluent with letter naming, letter sounds, phoneme segmenting, blending, sight words, simple sentences

Vocabulary
-Remembering that these guys are only 5 and they are new to so many of the words that are found in stories!  Exposing them to language and not being afraid to tell them to "illustrate" their picture rather than to "draw" it!


The interesting thing about emergent literacy is trying to teach all of these skills while still letting them play and be children.  It can be easy to forget when we have so many skills to teach and so much growth that must be made, but I promise you that it CAN be done!

Rule number one of teaching emergent literacy:

They are just little and we want to SPARK their love for reading..... If you do it now, it will last forever!