researching with firsties Archives

Research Writing First Grade Style

This week we focused on reading nonfiction texts and writing “research” papers. I’m not sure if I’m doing this right,…
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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

2 days ago

Can morphology be part of kindergarten instruction? Absolutely. Even before students are fully reading, they can begin developing morphological awareness, the ability to notice meaningful parts of words and how words relate to one another. In kindergarten, this often starts through oral language activities like exploring multiple-meaning words, building compound words, and talking about word families. These conversations help young learners grow their language in powerful ways.We can help students become aware that words can have more than one meaning, that they connect to other words, that they can combine to form new ideas, and that some words are made up of multiple meaning parts. As students begin noticing these patterns, they start building flexible word knowledge that supports vocabulary development, comprehension, and later reading and writing.We’re still adding to our K–2 course and curriculum, and we just released our first set of kindergarten activities focused on multiple-meaning words. These lessons are designed so there’s something for everyone. Much of the work can be oral, tapping into students’ current knowledge and helping them expand it. At the same time, print can be integrated at different levels to support differentiation.No matter where students are in their reading development, they can benefit from these lessons, growing vocabulary, strengthening language awareness, and making meaningful connections between words.Comment “K-2” to learn more!#logosliteracyacademy #morphology #kindergarten ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

5 days ago

Something I think is common (and I’ve definitely been guilty of it) is assigning a passage, having students read it, and then moving on. It becomes a race to just get through the text. But we miss so much when we do that.Is a first read valuable? Absolutely.But many of our beginning and struggling readers don’t just need decoding practice. They need to build fluency. They need automatic word recognition. They need repeated successful encounters with the same words in meaningful context.A “one and done” model doesn’t move the needle very far there.Research consistently shows that fluency and automaticity improve most when students engage in repeated, supported reading, not just one pass.A big challenge is getting students on board to reread. How many times have you heard the groan when you ask students to reread a passage. I get it! They finally got through something and now they’re being asked to do it again?! In many cases, we don’t need to reread the whole thing. Often in small groups, I’ll choose a section to reread. More often, I’ll find a purpose for that reread. It’s not just reread for the sake of rereading. So here’s my advice: instead of simply saying, “Reread it,” give them a reason to go back.Ask them to: • Show evidence • Scoop phrases • Reread to match a character’s feeling • Zoom in on one tricky sentence • Underline an answer • Find where the problem changesPlace that page in a plastic sleeve and give them a dry erase marker. Instead of just telling me the answer, go back and find it and underline it. The shift here is that the text is not the activity. Interaction with the text is the activity.I hope this is helpful! ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

2 weeks ago

Decodable practice doesn’t have to mean “read the list and move on.”Here’s how I make simple word lists more powerful:✨ Highlight the vowel soundHave students mark the letters that spell the vowel sound and say the sound as they highlight. Then go back and read the words. This keeps their attention on the grapheme–phoneme connection.🔦 Put a spotlight on a wordAfter one read-through, reinforce with a quick word hunt. This gets them rereading. You can simply say the word and have them find it or you can say a rhyming word or break it into sound parts. ⏳ Set a timer (but not for speed)Everyone reads the whole time. There’s no “I’m done.”Students work at their own pace. The goal is practice time, not how far they get.🧠 Connect to meaningGive a meaning clue.“Find something you can sit in and paddle.”Or try an oral fill-in-the-blank.We want decoding and comprehension working together.🧩 Incorporate morphology (orally)Say a word with a suffix (like peaches).Have students find the base word.Discuss what was added and why.Small shifts. Big payoff.Comment “decoding” for the link to these decoding pages.What did I forget? What do you like to do with your decoding practice? ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

2 weeks ago

During one of my school visits this week, I had a great conversation about this topic!A teacher asked, “If we’re not doing round robin reading… what should we be doing?”Here’s the shift:Round robin feels structured.It feels fair.But it gives very little actual reading practice.Only one student reads while everyone else waits.Fluency doesn’t grow from waiting.It grows from:• accurate word reading• repeated exposure• connected text reading• active engagementWhen every student reads at the same time (whether whisper reading or reading quietly in their heads) everyone gets real practice.The challenge or fear around trying this is often with management. (To that I say, they are much less likely to be bored when they are doing rather than sitting there)What if one person gets done way faster than the others? (Tell your students they are all reading for a certain amount of time. That might mean they read it twice. It might mean they don’t quite finish their practice read, but they’ll get it when we read together) How do I know they’re really reading? (I always bop around and listen to students as they read. I model what this time should look like. I engage with them if it seems like they aren’t really reading. But it’s like any other routine. You practice and they get it.)What about kids who can’t read i their heads and are super loud? (Practice whispering. Have them feel their throat to make sure they don’t feel any vibration. Whisper phones are often a hit as well.)If you’re looking for texts for beginning readers to practice, I’ve got you covered! Comment “read” if you’re interested. #ScienceOfReading #StructuredLiteracy ... See MoreSee Less

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Sarah's First Grade Snippets

3 weeks ago

One word. So many layers.With a simple base like love, we can:❤️ Build word relatives (loves, loved, loving, lovable, lovely, loveliest, unloved…) ❤️ Explore how each one functions in a sentence  ❤️ Reinforce suffixing conventions (drop the e, change y to i) while building words ❤️ Review phonics principles like why English words don’t end in <v>❤️ And yes, we can briefly mention that sometimes when the /ŭ/ sound comes before <v>, we see <o> instead of <u>.We see “Scribal <O>” mentioned a lot online, and while it’s real, it doesn’t explain every short /ŭ/ spelled with <o>. English has layers. Multiple reasons. Multiple histories.We can teach students something far more powerful: Be flexible. If /o/ doesn’t make sense, try /ŭ/.Morphology. Phonics. Grammar. History. All from one small word.Resources like this are included in our monthly freebies for Logos members. And this month in our Logos Live session, we’ll be looking into this and more! Want to learn more about morphology, orthography, and the history of English? Comment “LOVE” and we’ll send you the link. #ScienceOfReading #StructuredLiteracy #logosliteracyacademy ... See MoreSee Less

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