Hello everyone! Wellllll…..I am going to pull myself out of the depths of depression over that silly Superbowl game, sniff, sniff, and share a Tuesday’s Tip!
Do………you……….have……….kiddos………..with…………fluency…………issues? …………..Specifically……..
phrasing? Usually if a kiddle has had many years of listening to parents read bedtime stories, coupled with awesome, amazing, fabulous teachers like you reading aloud to them, then they can read with great fluency. Even if they need a little boost, some of your wonderful, fantastic lessons and a little extra practice usually does the trick, right? But what about the sweeties who, after all of these things, still struggle with it? We have one or two here at our school. It’s shocking, I know, but true. Specifically, these darlings just can’t seem to hear or see phrases, so they still read either word by word or at best very choppy. You model “George Washington was our first president!” They read “George…….Washington…….was………our…….first……..president.” Even when we divide sentences into phrases with pencil lines, they still have difficulty “seeing” the phrases. So here’s something that really works for me. It must be the magic fairy dust I sprinkle on the papers……or probably is really related to the way the brain learns…but I prefer to think it is magic fairy dust! (Hmmm…shoulda done some sprinkling of that stuff over the Seahawks on Sunday. But I’m not bitter or anything….) Anywho…..here is what I do.
Print out your favorite poem (this one is from nellieedge.com) or your favorite passage (here’s a sneak peek at our new President’s Day passages that will be ready by this weekend). Highlight every other phrase with yellow highlighter. (I know it sounds picky but yellow really does seem to work best…….brain research again.) Then, start at the END of the passage or poem and working back through the text read each phrase, both highlighted and not highlighted. WHAAAAATTTT? Yep! Because this way they are only focusing on reading the phrase….not on trying to read the story. THEN, start at the beginning and read the passage or poem through. From then on, they will always start at the beginning. But starting out the first time at the end, really gets them to focus on the phrasing and that focus usually *sticks* in their brain and continues. Well…..the yellow highlighter and fairy dust helps!!! One last thing……you don’t have time to highlight these for 25+ kiddos, right? So just do six…..and use them in reading groups. There ya go! Give it a try and don’t forget the fairy dust! (I’m off to send some to Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson right now! )
Have a great week everyone!
Smiles,
Kristin
