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Christmas Literacy Activities Ready to Go!

Happy (almost) Friday! I don’t know about you all but I still have an entire full week of school left…
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2 weeks ago

Spring has sprung… not springed 🌷Ever wonder why? English actually uses two main ways to show past tense:🌸 Add -ed (regular/“weak” verbs): walk → walked🌸 Change the vowel (often called irregular or “strong” verbs): run → ran These vowel-changing verbs go all the way back to Old English and many of them still follow patterns.In our teaching, we call these “power verbs” 💪 because they change from the inside instead of just adding -ed.We ntroduce Power Verbs right away with cvc words: run → ran, sit → satThen we revisit with -ng / -nk words:sing → sang → sungAfter that, reinforce as new phonics skills are introducedYou can even keep a running list or poster so students can see the pattern. If you want this done for you, we include explicit lessons + posters inside our K–2 curriculum.Comment POWER and I’ll send details!#logosliteracyacademy ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

2 weeks ago

Happy Schwa Day! Thanks to Yvette Manns for making this a day to celebrate. The schwa sound is one of the biggest challenges for our developing readers. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t give them tools to make it easier for them! Swipe to see some ideas. The biggest take away? We need our student to be aware of the schwa and then teach them to be flexible with those vowels sounds. Want to go deeper into how to teach this (with examples and routines you can use right away)? Obviously, today isn’t the only day to teach the schwa. It’s impossible to avoid the schwa so we want to teach it early and often! Comment “SCHWA” to get links to a blog post and some other resources. And visit then official website of National Schwa Day to snag some FREE resources created by Yvette Manns 🙌🏼 ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

3 weeks ago

BREAKING: English spelling is being completely simplified next year…Everything will finally match how it sounds. No more tricky patterns. No more confusing spellings.April Fools 😉 It seems like that would make things easier, BUT English was never designed to be purely phonetic. It carries meaning across words, even when pronunciation shifts.English isn’t broken… it’s built from meaningful parts and has a rich history. When we look beyond sound and start noticing structure, spelling starts to make sense. We want to guide you in seeing that structure, so you can help your students make sense of spelling in a deeper, more lasting way.Comment “learn” if you’re interested in joining our community to learn with us! ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

4 weeks ago

There is more to spelling than how a word sounds.We must train our students to always use meaning as an anchor. Because meaning can lead us to structure which can help with spelling. There are endless examples of this, but this one is an obvious one. Think about the word blocks. It sounds like “blox”. I remember years ago this realization set in when my whole small group of students spelled “rocks” like “rox” during dictation. We had been working on <ck> and they were nailing it… until I added in suffixes. One of my students made a great point, saying, “But it’s just like ‘box’!” I remember that I almost just gave them the answer, “But this has a suffix -s.” But instead we turned to meaning. Let’s go back to our example here. We need to make sure we use the word in a sentence so they can activate the meaning. When we say “blocks”, what do you picture? What are blocks? “More than one block”, right? Now we know what we’re trying to spell.That leads to:✔ the base: block✔ the structure: short vowel + /k/ → ck✔ the correct spelling: blocksSo here’s what you want to take away from this:Meaning leads to structure.Structure supports accurate spelling.Comment MEANING if you want to learn more about how to incorporate morphology into your curriculum. #logosliteracyacademy #scienceofreading #structuredliteracy ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

4 weeks ago

Punctuation is often taught as a rule to memorize…but it’s really about meaning.In this activity, students read each sentence and decide what punctuation belongs at the end.They have to think about what the sentence is doing:• telling• asking• showing strong feelingBut if you want to integrate thing with your phonics instruction— make the sentences are decodable.So while students are thinking about punctuation, they’re also:• practicing phonics patterns• decoding words• reading full sentences connected to your instructionIt’s not separate. It’s layered.You’re building understanding of how sentences work while reinforcing the skills that help students read them in the first place.You can keep it simple like this, or extend it:– Have students explain their thinking– Change the sentence type (statement → question)– Read it different ways and notice how meaning shifts– Write their own sentences to match each punctuation markSmall shift. Much stronger instruction. Keep in mind, if your students don’t need that extra phonics layer, you also connect to one of your content area focuses. Think science or SS content. Create a sentence based on what you’re studying. That way, you get to reinforce what you’re learning in a different way. You can create sentences related to a topic you’re studying. That way, they are working on punctuation and reinforcing information. I’m a big fan of integration! ... See MoreSee Less

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