When you think about assessments, you probably think of a student sitting at a desk with a pencil filling in little bubbles on a test form. However, assessments in Kindergarten are a WHOLE different ballgame. If you’ve ever had to give Kindergarten students a “fill in the bubble” kind of
Do you give spelling tests in Kindergarten? While there are some benefits to spelling practice in Kindergarten, I don’t think spelling tests should be required in Kindergarten. Students are just learning how to segment words and make letter-sound connections. Spelling is an important skill, but there are some do’s and
As students are learning how to read, write and spell, word work activities are a great way to practice their phonics skills! Word work gives students an opportunity to play with words, and develop into better readers and spellers. During my ELA center rotations, one of my go-to centers was
Which phonics skill do you teach after letter recognition and letter sounds? My answer is phoneme isolation, also known as identifying the beginning, middle, or ending sound (phoneme) in a CVC word. While this is a phonemic awareness skill, I’ve found great success with tying phonemic awareness into my daily
We all know those tricky letters that students confuse with one another. Usually “b” is confused with “d”, “p” gets switched with “q” or even the number “9”, and “n” and “u” always trip up your students. Even “m” and “w” or “z” and “s” can be challenging. Next thing
When you think of Kindergarten, you probably think of learning the alphabet. It is one of the first skills you will teach. It is also a stepping stone for so many phonemic awareness and phonics skills. However, you may be wondering, “How do I teach letter recognition?” Today, I am
My favorite part of the morning was always our morning meeting! This was where I really got to know my students and everyone had a voice in my classroom. It always started my day off on a positive note and I know my students loved it too. If you are
It’s back-to-school season again and chances are you’re looking for some back-to-school read-alouds for Kindergarten. The two main books that may be popping up everywhere are The Kissing Hand and First Day Jitters. While they are great books, I wanted to find some different options for that first week of
Do you know the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics instruction? To be completely honest, I did not realize these two were different until my second year teaching Kindergarten. I thought the two terms were interchangeable. Let’s talk about the difference between phonemic awareness vs phonics instruction and HOW we
