Letterland

This school year I have been working collaboratively with my Occupational Therapist. We have been working on letter formation using Letterland. In this picture we made a mask from Eddy Elephant.

Letterland

Last year our school district adopted the Letterland series to teach phonics, spelling and reading to our Kindergarten and First Grade students. As a resource teacher we support Letterland by teaching the intervention strand. There are not many materials to support the intervention piece.

Letterland is an Orton-Gillingham based program. I know for my students (students with specific learning disabilities), they require practice, practice, and more practice. So I created Reading and Writing Sentence handouts to supplement the intervention strand lessons. Each handout correlates with the sentences introduced in the intervention sections. There are 4 sections, Set A, Set B, Set C, and Set D. I have created supplements for Set A, B and C. I am still working on Set D.

 I hope these help other special education teachers as they try to support Letterland instruction in their classroom. Teachers can purchase these handouts on my Teachers Pay Teachers website.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/I-Luv-Special-Ed

Nursery Rhymes

So I decided to make more cloze reading activities, but this time for my younger students. I decided to go with Nursery Rhymes. I chose five of my favorite Nursery Rhymes: Humpty Dumpty, Jack be Nimble, The Muffin Man, Little Miss Muffin, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (which happens to be my kids favorite). I also made some fun phonics activities to go with each Nursery Rhyme. I am so excited about using these in my classroom. I know my 1st graders will LOVE it!!

Multiculturalism

I recently took a course at ECU about Human Learning.

I found the following websites that have Lesson Plans, tips and tools to teach Multiculturalism in our classrooms.

1.      Critical Multicultural Pavilion

http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/index.html

This website was intriguing because it gives the reader access to many tools in order to discuss and better understand multiculturalism. I like the availability of their resources: Equity and Diversity quizzes, ideas for multicultural activities, printable handouts and Social Justice songs, quotes and speeches.  They also list additional websites that support and discuss multicultural issues in education.

2.       Teaching Tolerance

http://www.tolerance.org/

This website states that it is a place for educators to find thought-provoking news, conversation and support for those who care about diversity, equal opportunity and respect for differences in schools. I like that you can sign up for weekly newsletters. This way you can continue to have access to current information and conversations related to multicultural education.

3.       Institute for Humane Education

http://humaneeducation.org/

This website provides a Resource Center that provides suggestions for lesson plans & activities, books, websites, & more. They also have an online program to receive your M.Ed. or M.A. in Humane Education.

4.       Teaching for Change

http://www.teachingforchange.org/

This website states that by drawing direct connections to real world issues, Teaching for Change encourages teachers and students to question and re-think the world inside and outside their classrooms, build a more equitable, multicultural society, and become active global citizens.

5.       Rethinking Schools

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml

This website is interesting because it advertises new publications of books that teach history science and social history in a “multicultural” way. It also features articles about schools and issues around the country, who face, challenge and incorporate multicultural education.

 

Cloze Reading

This is FREE at my TPT Store

So recently my 4th grade students have been struggling with meeting their quarterly goals in Reading Comprehension. We assess using the DAZE assessment on Mclass.

 Well, I have been frantically looking for cloze passages and reading comprehension mazes for my students to practice. I found a few things, but nothing I felt was appropriate for them. My students are very fluent readers. They score well on fluency, and on their TRC's. But when it comes to a one-minute cloze reading passage, they drown.

So I decided to make some for myself. I am tracked out right now, but I can't wait to get back to school to try them with my students. I will keep you posted on how well they work! :)

Common Core Aligned