Reality Check!

Do you ever feel like you get soooo caught up on one of your students and his/her progress? I have a little firstie this year who really struggles in both reading and math and things are HARD for him everyday. I breaks my heart to see him struggle through our work (which often results in behavior struggles as well). I try to modify our work as much as I can for him and I meet with him one-on-one daily in math, but I'm always feeling like I'm not doing enough.... and with 21 other firsties, I honestly just can't find the time! (Another quick reality check: I am so fortunate to have a small class size... I am reminded by my mom frequently, who works in a bigger school district, where the first grade classes have like 26-27 kiddos!) I met with our reading teacher this week who has this student in a Title reading intervention and we are seeing so many of the same things. We are starting to look at a referral for him for his own learning plan.. but here's a look at one of the new reading interventions that I am going to try with him starting this week.

For the first half of the school year, my first grade class studies short vowel word families for both reading and spelling. We are now onto long vowel word families and the tricks of the MAGIC E! However, I have about 3-4 students who are still struggling with using/reading the short vowel words interchangeably. They can often identify the short vowel words in isolation, but then struggle with reading the words in context.... (which is the point of all that practice.... READING THE WORDS IN THE CONTEXT OF A STORY)! This weekend, I started to put together fluency phrase cards for our word family words.

Now, these students can practice reading their word family words in isolation on the front of the card. When they turn the card over, they practice reading the word in the context of a sentence! I'm excited to try these out with my intervention firsties this week! (and am excited to have these for all of my students at the beginning of next school year...)

 

Grab a set of 89 WORD FAMILY FLUENCY CARDS from my TPT store!

Another Quick Word Family Idea:

I am always trying to find fun, new, interactive word work ideas during our Daily 5 block. I recently found this AMAZING bundle of Common Core Language Activities created by Susan Jones and I LOVE this short vowel game! Students roll a dice and cover a picture that corresponds to that short vowel sound. After they cover the picture, they must write the word for that picture on a recording sheet. Great review of our short vowel spelling patterns and my firsties love it! The game is part of a great bundle and is totally worth the investment!!

That's all for today, folks! We have our second round of parent-teacher conferences this week and I have LOTS to PREP! Aaand our apartment could use a good cleaning... never enough time in the day!