can take off from there as needed in small group.
I know these little critters and reading strategies are nothing new, but one of our teamies had not heard of them so I am going to show them to you just in case you had not seen them before either!
I start with these…
Then quickly move to these…
These friends come next…
I think I am missing the kangaroo! Gasp!
Look through your big books until you find one that has a mixture of simple sight words and more difficult words to try the strategies on! We will start with this one.
At first I just take one beanie friend and we talk about how these animal friends will help us remember what to do when we come across words we can’t read! For lips the fish I show the first letter. This way they can use the strategy of get your lips ready. I move the post it slowly to the right.
This is a lot for one page but this is what it will look like towards the end of this week when we get to this point. The words covered are bee and buzz. Great for lips the fish, eagle eye, or chunky monkey! The great thing is that you can model using more than one strategy and check for accuracy.
A little hint is to put the post it with the sticky side on the bottom so the flap faces up. Students sitting in front of you on the rug can’t peek up at the word. I didn’t remember this until later….sigh….
Here’s another book I pulled for this week.
We are going to work on expository books this week, so this one will be perfect for that!
Chunky monkey helped us find a chunk we know in the word brown!
Something that will come up is that students will guess incorrectly using lips and fish! It’s absolutely perfect when that happens because lips the fish isn’t the best strategy! It can help us sometimes, but we always need to check for accuracy!
Students will say grass for this mystery word….
We can then check the sounds in the word and reread the sentence to see if our guess matches up. If not we can try a different strategy.
When I want my students to see two strategies, sometimes I will give them a little icon to help. First, stretch the sounds and then check the picture with your eagle eye to see if it is correct!
Later down the road, skippy frog comes out to play. He is allowing students to skip the word stalks after they tried 3 strategies and were unsuccessful. I don’t keep skippy post its on the book. I make them as needed. Once we finish the sentence we go back and read it again to see if we can pop the word out with all the other words that we now know. I personally like this skip a word strategy because sometimes students get stuck on a
timed test and if they just used skippy frog they could move on and
still be successful!
Like anything else, if you stop using it, your students will forget and stop using it too. About once a week, throw a sentence at your students like this one we used above, and keep it out of context! You don’t have to do a whole big book lesson, but just a good sentence full of strategies. Here’s the same sentence all covered up again.
What else am I teaching this week?!?!
Here’s a peek!
We have been adding to our word wall every week and love reviewing with our word wall centers! These 4 words will be added this week.
What about the writing center?
The writing center has been a popular place with our engaging writing activities!
Students love the mixture of hands on and pencil paper!
Five senses writing went perfectly with our five senses activities in science! Adding details is easy!
Last week we wrote a Did you ever sentence with the rhyming cards! Oh so fun! We practiced capitals and question marks too!
I am pulling from all sorts of places for our math whole group, small group, and independent activities!
Various Math Centers
OH.MY.GOODNESS. I am totally wiped out and the week hasn’t begun! What are you doing this week? How do you teach the strategies?!? I would love to know!
Visual Plans and Highlights
10 Lessons for Teaching Reading
Guided Reading Phonics Posters
Balance-Updates-and Lesson Plans
Great post, Reagan! When I was in first grade I loved teaching reading strategies using big books and sticky notes as well…the kids were so engaged and loved practicing their strategies. 🙂
LOVE THIS! I just moved to first grade and we also have Treasures but they didn't purchase the big books 🙁 I have been trying to find resources on teaching the word attack strategies so this post came at the perfect time. Was wondering if you could put it all into a document or pdf so I can access it when I begin planning?? Thanks so much! ashleyaevans@hotmail.com
Random question – What is the metal thing holding your classroom signs, such as Math Canter?
In an earlier post she said they were table number holders. You find them at some restaurants. I think she bought them online. Hope this helps.
Yes you can get them on amazon! They are restaurant table place holders! 🙂
Love this post, Reagan! I love that you showed how you used the animals with the books. You are amazing!
Thanks so much for the shout out! I use these posters every day and the children love saying the names and showing off when they use a strategy that was already introduced. I think the catchy names and cute little animals really help to drum up the excitement of trying them out. Great post!
Wonderful post. I love the posters thanks for the link. I hope your week is wonderful.
Love this post Reagan! These little posters were new to me last year so I'm looking forward to using them more this year. Fingers crossed my mom has all of the beanie babies…she is a "collector" (not hoarder). 😉
Your timing is perfect. I'll tell you what I'm doing this week- reading strategies with big books! Love it! {Jana}
We use Lori's strategy posters, too…love, love, love the idea of the post-its with icons! Brilliant! Thanks for sharing.
Andrea
Thanks for this post! I use the beanie babies, too – so effective! I'm going to use your ideas for the sticky notes next – thanks 🙂 Jen
Thank you for being so specific and showing examples of your reading strategies. I teach kindergarten, but these are great resources for later in the year!
For some reason, I can't get to Lori's FB page and I didn't find those strategies on her blog either. Am I the only one? If so, it must be the Atlantic ocean between us that makes things complicated… Can you help me there? Thank you (or MERCI from a french teacher)
You are a GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!! Covering big book words with post-its!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO!!!!! Brilliant!
What are you doing with the sight words that are inside of the black pocket chart?
I enjoyed reading the feature article about you in the TpT newsletter. Congrats on your success! Julie Green Apple Lessons
I have been on the hunt for these beanie babies all week! I can't wait to use the strategies in my classroom next week. I was just wondering what you used the Kangaroo for? I couldn't find a poster for it but I noticed you said you forgot it in your blog.
Thank you so much for sharing! I am absolutely addicted and amazed with your blog!
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I love the fix it sentences that you laminated! Where can I find them?
I want to know too! Wonderful blog and wonderful teacher!