New Year, New Look

I am finally getting around to updating some of my older units. One of my goals this year has been to update all of my RTI units. Now......don't get excited! :) I've only done the letter Aa. I'm slowly but surely working on them. I'm almost embarrassed at how sad my first cover looked. I feel like I have really grown as a TPT seller and teacher. Check out the before and after!

  

I have used these in my classroom for 3 years now. At this point, we have learned all letters and sounds in my classroom and are working on short word families. As we all know, that won't work for everybody. I have one or two who need to slowly work through the alphabet. I am able to pull these units for classroom use, homework, or just extra review. I also have these units bundled. I hope to get these all done in the next month or so, but for now Aa is ready to go! :) 

Doesn't it just make you happy when your things get a makeover? They make me kind-of giddy! Have a great week!

 

Leave a Comment Tags: ABC's, interventions, makeover, teachers pay teachers

Share:

A Litte Extra Practice

I have to admit, I am little nervous to start back to school tomorrow. I LOVE my job (really I do) and never complain about going to work unless I've had a vacation. Don't get me wrong, I love a good vacation, but it is really hard for me to get back in the groove.
You are probably thinking...uh...you have been in school for 42 days and you are nervous. Yep. Here's why. Last year I posted about a great intervention kit called LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention). You can find that here.

Well, after much persuading and looking for funds ($3000 a pop), we got not 1, but 2 of these puppies. A few schools in our district have used it and SWEAR upon it. Well, after taking some time to get in the groove, MAP test, and get to know our kiddos we start this program tomorrow. Unfortunately, we are a very small rural school with not a lot of extra funding. We barely get Title I. While we don't have a lot of children in low poverty, we still have kiddos (quite a few) that are Tier 3. Since our funding is very small, Kindergarten does not get a lot of extra RTI time. Well, okay....none. We do have full time assistants so we have worked out a way to get this RTI time done with our kiddos.

I will begin using LLI with my 4 sweeties tomorrow while the other students are in the computer lab everyday with my assistants for 30 minutes. I have no idea why I am nervous but I am. It takes a little preparation but I got that finished before I left for break. I am PRAYING that I see wonders done with this program and my little babies shoot right on up and out of this Tier 3. Do you use LLI in your school? I would love to hear your feedback on it.

Speaking of those little babies, I have a few one who hasn't retained anything we have learned. For the most part, my kiddos are sounding out CVC words like a champ. I do have 3 (my other LLI kiddos) who are struggling, but for the most part I can use what I am using with the rest of the class and differentiate it for their needs. I had this same situation last year where I just needed a completely different activity for a few students who hadn't retained any of the first 6 letters and we were starting to double up so I had to pull back with them. I began creating simple worksheets to use with these kids. Each week, the worksheets looked the same so they knew what to expect and do. The only change was the letter, sound, and/or sight word. I used these along with TONS of hands on activities (Lakeshore alphabet tubs, magnetic letters, letter bean bags, picture cards, etc, etc, etc). After having these files sitting in a file on my computer I am slowly adding them to my TPT store. (I am having to change some clipart so that it is royalty free and add cutesy covers...you know...you can't put anything up for the public unless it is cute.) I have now added Mm and Aa. If you are interested, you can get them in my TPT store by clicking on the pictures below!

 

 

3 comments Tags: interventions, teachers pay teachers

Share:

Interventions

I am curious as to what you use for interventions for your Tier III and Tier II kiddos??? That is an area we are REALLY lacking on. We have a pretty good reading series and a GREAT 2 hour reading block (that I love so much), but I feel like we are really failing those Tier III and Tier II kids. We do our best to pull them for 30 minutes 4-5 times a week, but are seriously pulling random stuff from here, there, and everywhere to work with them. It is CRAZINESS and we all know those kiddos are the ones that need the most routine, predictable schedule. Well....I think we may have found it. I went yesterday and observed at a school in our district because I had heard they had an AWESOME intervention program. I have 1 word for what I saw...WOW!!!!! I was so impressed. It is by Fountas and Pinnell and is called Leveled Literacy Intervention.

It comes with EVERYTHING you need. Did you hear me? EVERYTHING. That is what I love. It is not extra work for me. Everything is laid out for you...you just follow the program. I love that it is repetitive. They do the same thing everyday/week so the kids know what to do. I swear. I watched a 30 minute lesson and these kiddos were ON TASK and WORKING HARD. You know...the kids who always say "I can't read." "I can't do it." Not these kiddos.....they can't say that because they WERE reading. They WERE and were proud. Each day they read a little reader. (It comes with 70 different books like this.) 

 Then every night, the students take home these cute bags with the same book in black and white (they are consumable so you don't have to worry about it not coming back), a very descriptive letter for parents on what to do, along with other activities. Can we say FABULOUS???

The teacher I observed said the CD that has the materials for you to print and copy is WONDERFUL and can create games, records, etc. Obviously I didn't see everything, but what I saw in 30 minutes MADE ME WANT IT!!! With that being said...it is NOT cheap. It is like $2000 per teacher. I went straight back to my principal and said "I don't care where you get it or how you get it, but I need $2000 for that program...PRONTO". We are meeting tomorrow (all of K) to discuss wants/needs/and I'm sure where are we gonna get the money. It was so worth every penny. I was so excited to finally find something that worked. How do I know it worked? Well, my friend from the school I observed sent an email that had these results in it:

I mean, really? 50% gain...WOO HOO!
**All of this information and pictures came from http://www.heinemann.com/  I am in no way paid for saying any of this! I loved it THAT much. You must check it out if you are looking for a good intervention program for your K kiddos. So, I'm curious...what do you use for Tier III and Tier II kids. Do ya'll even call students below grade level that? I'll let ya know if when we purchase it.

7 comments Tags: interventions

Share: