Hi Guys!



It's Chantelle, from Miss Jacobs Little Learners and today I'm going to be sharing some of the books and teaching tools I like to use during my Read Aloud's to reinforce comprehension strategies.

 I teach at least 2 reading comprehension strategy lessons per week so I am always on the lookout for some new and exciting texts. When I introduce each comprehension strategy I use these posters which help explain what the strategy is in child-friendly language. I then leave them up on our Literacy Wall and they are referred to regularly.


These posters come in a variety of designs and are available HERE in my TPT store.

Books for Read Aloud's

Below you will find some of the books I have used and recommend for each comprehension strategy.

Visualising

   

Making Connections - Text To Self




Inferring

 













Hello everyone! This is Casey from Little Lifelong Learners. This week I am going to share some of my favourite ways to learn sight words in the early years classroom!


As we all know, learning to read is one of the biggest skills we develop during our time at school. It's a skill that we all use every single day so it's important we give our students a wonderful and positive foundation for early reading during their first years at school. 

Learning sight words is one of the first steps in learning how to read and there are so many fun ways we can encourage our students to learn these words. Today I'm going to share some of my very favourite activities that I've come across!

Crayon resist sight words - Write the words with a white crayon and paint over them with water colours.




















Type your words - grab some old keyboards and have students type their words.



Shaving Cream - I love this idea by Jem's Bright Buttons. She squirts shaving cream onto plates where her students can write their words over and over. It's so easy to clean up afterwards because you just wash the plate!



Scrabble Tiles - You can get these relatively cheaply from ebay and the kids just love arranging the letters into their words.



Whiteboard Words - Grab a set of whiteboards (you can get them very cheap at places like Daiso or the $2 shops) and have your students write their words with markers. Such a simple and effective idea from Paula's Place.



Tic Tac Toe - I came across this fantastic idea by Jacinta (@cintaandco) on Instagram and I thought it looked like so much fun! Write your sight words onto different coloured paper and use them as counters for the game.



Sight Word Fishing - Write the sight words onto fish and add staples or paperclips to the end. Use a magnetic rod so that students can 'catch' their words.

Salt Writing - Paula's Place shared this wonderful idea for sight word work - tracing words into a tray of salt. This would be a wonderful sensory experience for students as well!



Text it - Grab this free download from TPT, print and then laminate. This one was always super popular with my Prep students!



Bottle Cap Stacking - This fantastic idea from A Little Pinch of Perfect is a great way to review sight words! I love that she is recycling materials too - something I'm sure we all do as early years teachers!



Bead Words - Fine Motor and Sight Word development at it's finest! This is such a great idea from @kindergarten_adventures_ - she writes the words onto her blackboard table and has the students place beads over her writing. They are working on their words and important fine motor skills at the same time. Love it



For more fun sight word activities, check out some of my sight word posts on the Little Lifelong Learners blog!

Stephanie from Fishing for Education here with a blog post on one of our "not so favourite" tasks to complete as a teacher... Writing Reports!

It's that season for most of Australia where teachers spend endless amount of hours writing and editing reports.  Personally, it's not like I don't like writing them, I just am not a fan of the extra hours it takes to complete them.  I'm currently on weekend #2 of writing reports, but I'm nearly finish!  Woo hoo!  (I bet we all have a little celebration once they are done!)

This is something that is completely different than the way I used to write reports before I moved to Australia.  It took me forever the first time, but I think I'm getting the hang of it now. I figured out a way that is starting to work for me, as long as I stay organised.  However, I asked around for some tips and hopefully something can work for you too!


Tip #1 - Work Samples/Exit Slips

I couldn't used just workbooks for report writing.  They were too heavy to transport from home and school.  It took forever-r-r to look through them all for evidence.

So, this year I decided to do exit slips or work samples for each topic.  The students work independently to show how they perform on a particular learning goal.  This took a little more effort each week, but it helped me in the long run.  I've kept them simple, no more than 5 questions, and have often used Socrative.com to create them versus printing and making copies.

"I have tried many ways to write reports and by far the easiest way for me has been to collect all the work samples for one student and complete one student at a time." - Paula from Paula's Place 

For our use of Socrative.com, we have iPads in our class and use old/recycled iPhones to respond quickly, but can download them and print them if out devices aren't working.  (You can also use computers.)  Plus, this site marks the work for you and organises the information in an Excel spreadsheet!

For more information, check out the tutorial below:

Tip #2 - Filing System

We have certain assessments we have to do for each student.  After they're completed, marked and entered into our data system I place them in a filing system.  It's easy to stay organised this way and portable .  I hate to bring work home, but it's more comfortable to write my reports at home.  When I'm ready to write my reports on a student, I just grab their folder and start working one student at a time.

Check out this system from Staples:



Tip #3 - Using the iPad to Gather Work

This is a great tip from Paula!  Using your iPad is a great way to gather information and keep them with you.  We have teacher iPads at our school and I may need to snag this idea to be prepared for next semester.

"I have tried many ways to write reports and by far the easiest way for me has been to collect all the work samples for one student and complete one student at a time... Uploaded to See Saw and it is in the Maths feed - kinda like Instagram for kids. We can comment and give feedback, this way I can see a group task vey quickly..." - Paula from Paula's Place

Here are some of her examples:

Tip #4 - Don't Get Behind

"Whatever you do don't get behind on marking because there's nothing worse than marking when you should be writing reports!" - Sheri from Early Years with Sheri

Oh, how I know the pain of this!  At the end of every day this term I have made sure I spend at least 30 minutes marking workbooks.  I probably have more things to do, but it has to get done.  

Tip #5 - Brainstorm with Your Team


"The best thing I did this year was brainstorm comment ideas with my team, particularly as a new teacher to the year level." - Jem from Jem's Bright Buttons
I didn't realise this, but my team (one other teacher and myself) do this out of habit!  It's so great to be on the same page with your team.  No one gets left behind, it's a bit easier on everyone and there's no need to compare! 

Here are some sites that may help you out:



Do you have 

a tip for writing reports?


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