Letter Name, Sound and Construction Practice

Some of our kindergartners continue to struggle with letter name, sound and construction concepts. We have been facilitating centers to provide our students with extra practice through hands on activities. Every 10 minutes the students rotate to a different center.


Letter Sound Station
Sand Search for Letter Tiles

        Each student was given the opportunity to scoop a letter from the sand. Once removed from the scoop, the student identified the letter they found and the sound that letter makes. The group would then graph that letter while looking for the picture that makes the same letter sound.

Letter Name Station
Bean Bag Grab

        Each student was asked to reach into a sack and grab a letter bean bag. Once retrieved, the student would tell the group which letter was on their bag. The students then placed a star on their alphabet mat to indicate that letter had been found.

Letter Construction Station

Alphabet Rub

        Students were given a sheet of computer paper, a crayon, and a raised letter flashcard. They were told to place the flashcard under the paper and rub the crayon on the sheet until their letter appeared. Afterwards the students wrote the letter with a pencil underneath the rubbing. When finished students were quizzed over which letters they had rubbed on their paper. 

Domino Math

3rd Grade Domino Math Center Game

The teacher made a deck of cards containing the labels: Add, Subtract, Multiply, Find the Sum, Find the Difference, and Find the Product.

The center group was broken into pairs. Students turned all the dominos face down. One student from the pair flips over one domino and one card.

Example:
If the student flipped this domino and a multiply card from the deck, the problem would be 6X6.

The first student to correctly answer the problem gets to keep the domino. When finished, the player with the most dominoes wins the game!

Websites and Tips to Remember

Websites
http://www.readworks.org
Read Works has full reading lessons on every concept. You can also download full reading passages on every reading level to assess different concepts.
http://www.interventioncentral.org
Intervention Central is a Response to Intervention website that features numerous assessment generators including Dolch Wordlist fluency, Letter Name fluency, Reading Fluency passages, and writing probes. School systems encourage teachers not to send AIMS Letter Naming home for additional practice. This website provides teachers with different invention central letter naming sheets to provide additional practice without an exact AIMS test.

Tips

• After students finish PALS, go back over the letter sounds section and have students pair to add a letter naming activity. Some students pick up the sounds quicker than letter names.
• When teaching letters/ letter sounds include a "Letter Toolbox" with 3D objects for each letter. (Apple for A, Banana for B, Ring for R) Have students identify/match letter cards to objects. When students have mastered the matching concept, begin building words using objects beginning sound.
• Lexia has full lessons with activities for specific phonetical lessons and rules. You can pull specific skills for students to work on or let the program generate data based lessons from pretest results. 
• After students have mastered multiplication flashcards, flip card over to answer side of the flashcard and cover the top number with your hand. Only show the bottom number and the answer. Have students decide what the top number is. Great way to create your own division flashcards for practice.

Digraphs and Blends

2nd and 3rd Grade Digraph and Blend Intervention Lesson

The teacher began by giving students the definition and examples of a digraph and blend.

A digraph is 2 consonants that make 1 sound.
       Examples: ch, sh, th, wh, ck
A blend is 2 consonants that make 2 sounds.
       Examples: sp, st, sl, cl, cr, gr, dr

The teacher then showed a few words on index cards that the students had to decide if they contained a blend or digraph.

The students were then given a cup of milk. The teacher went around and put a little chocolate syrup in every cup and asked the students to mix the two. When finished, the teacher asked if they could now seperate the chocolate from the milk. The teacher explained that the chocolate milk is a lot like a digraph. Once the two letters are together they become one, making only one sound. They cannot be broken apart to make two different sounds when they are beside each other.

Next, the teacher gave every child a cookie. She later went around to add sprinkles to every cookie. Afterwards she asked if every child would remove the sprinkles from the cookie. The teacher explained that the cookie and sprinkles were a lot like a blend. When the two are together they can be broken apart back to their original state. The 2 letters will still say their original sound just like the cookie and sprinkles could be broken apart and would remain the same.

The teacher then gave a quick whole group assessment of the students' knowledge of digraphs and blends. A few students were given a word and asked if it contained a digraph or blend. If it contained a digraph, the students drank a sip of chocolate milk. If it contained a blend, the students ate a bite of cookie with sprinkles.

The students were individually assessed afterwards with an index card with one word. Students had to decide which side of the graph the word went on, digraph or blend.

Perimeter

3rd Grade Introductory Lesson on Perimeter

The teacher began the lesson by giving the origin of the word perimeter so students would have a better understand of the definition. She explained that the word "peri" is Greek and means around. "Meter" is also Greek but means to measure. Then she asked students what they thought perimeter actually meant. The students decided that it was the distance around an object. After the teacher gave multiple examples  she split students into groups for perimeter centers.

Each center had shapes cut out of cardboard. In station 1, the students were given each side's measurement and just had to add up the sides to find the perimeter.

In station 2, the students were given every side but one. They were also given the perimeter. The students then had to find the missing side using the pieces they were given.

In station 3, the students practiced their measurement skills using a ruler. They had to measure each side and find the perimeter.

In station 4, the shapes were mixed. Some were missing a side, given all sides, or had to measure.

Each group worked as a team to find to perimeter or missing side of each shape before rotating to the next center. The students were required to record their group's answers.

PALS

24 September 2013

   The 1st grade class I assisted today was completing a 5 minute reading PALS activity. The students broke into pairs and completed Lesson 7 in their PALS folders. The students complimented each other at every star symbol throughout the lesson (examples given below). I had never seen PALS implemented in the classroom before, so I decided to do some research...

   PALS, or Peer Assisted Learning Strategies, is a version of classwide peer tutoring. PALS combines proven instructional principles and practices and peer mediation so that research-based reading and math activities are effective, feasible, and enjoyable. Teachers identify which children require help on specific skills and who the most appropriate children are to help other children learn those skills. Using this information, teachers pair students in the class, so that partners work simultaneously and productively on different activities that address the problems they are experiencing. Pairs are changed regularly and all students have the opportunity to be "coaches" and "players" over a period of time as students work on a variety of skills.

   PALS creates pairs in a classroom, each of which is geared to the individual student's needs, instead of a single, teacher-directed activity that may end up addressing the problems of only a few children. The strategy also creates opportunities for a teacher to circulate in the class, observe students, and provide individual remedial lessons.

1st Grade Reading Examples of PALS Activities 

1st Grade Math Examples of PALS Activity