Intervention... Ready, Set, GO!

Wow, what a great week it has been so far! I may be getting ahead of myself since it is only Tuesday, but my kiddos have been so on top of things the past two days! They are such busy bees! Right now, I am sitting here enjoying my cappuccino, listening to Gladys Knight/Ella Fitzgerald Pandora Radio (LOVE), and I am totally ready to blog about my adventures in intervention that I have going on this week!

Let's start with MATH!!

So this year as we put RTI in place, the first grade classrooms switch kids for about 25 minutes a day for "intervention time." I have the small group of math intervention students in my room and the support of an aide, which is FABULOUS! Even within the math intervention group, I have one student who needs more significant one-on-one math intervention and luckily, this is one of my own students so I know his needs pretty well. I always start the intervention time with a mini lesson for the whole group, about 5 minutes or less. The majority of the intervention group then completes an independent activity or a partner game as my support staff monitors their progress and helps out. I pull my student who is in need of more significant intervention separately and we are still working on some basic number sense skills. I keep racking my brains for more ways of practicing skills to keep him motivated and engaged... and this week, I am really happy with what we are trying.

Intervention #1:

Identifying, ordering, before/after numbers in the TEENS.

I saw a picture of this idea on Pinterest, but I cannot track down the exact pin. I wrote numbers 9-21 on small plastic SOLO cups. I began this intervention by having my student put the cups in order.

After we had the cups in order, we practiced turning some of the cups backwards and figuring out what number was on it by looking at the numbers that we COULD see. We practiced before and after numbers in the teens.

This kiddo loved using the cups to practice numbers and it really got him up and moving. I think he stood next to the table during the whole intervention, moving around, flipping cups around as fast as he could... It was so fun and he was using such great number sense skills without even realizing it!!

Intervention #2:

Crossing the Decade

One of the skills that my intervention kiddos struggle with is crossing the decade when counting, especially when you get up into the higher two-digits numbers. For example, during a progress monitoring assessment where students have to just rote count to 100, one of my kiddos started counting 67, 68, 69, 30, 31, 32... Yikes! I realized that there are a few other kids in my intervention group that need to work on that skill as well. Tomorrow, we are going to play "Crossing the Decade Concentration."

Students have to find "matches" with the crossing the decade numbers. Therefore, 19 and 20 would be a match. We are going to use laminated number grids with the cards so that students can figure out what numbers they need to make a match.

I'm hoping that this game is a fun way to make those connections between decades when counting! Grab your freebie of the game cards here!!

Finally, one quick FLUENCY INTERVENTION!

I recently downloaded Cara Carroll's Rock Your Fluency Pack and it is fabulous! I am currently using it with my firsties who are in Title 1 reading intervention for extra sight word and fluency practice with their Dolch words!! Got my basket of fluency rings ready to go! Everyday, they grab a new ring of fluency phrases to practice during Read to Self. When they are finished they can choose to grab another set or they can go on to reading other independent books in their book bins. LOVE these cute little cards... and so do my intervention friends!

That's all for tonight! Time to catch up on the Real Housewives (I know I shouldn't be, but I'm addicted). Oops! 

 

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!