Circle Time Taking fifteen minutes at the end of the day to play a game and sing a song is the perfect opportunity to inject literacy into your program. A few of my students still need to play with rhyme so I went shopping at Balanced Literacy Diet, an internet site created by OISE in Ontario for Kindergarten teachers. It features short clips of Kindergarten teachers doing literacy activities with their students. I chose a fun interactive activity, The Corner Grocery Store, using Raffi's song, some food props from the house centre, a grocery bag and a shopping basket. We sang the song and then one student at a time pulled out an item from the grocery bag (I chose one syllable objects like: corn, rice, bread, meat...) and came up with a rhyme. Then we sang the song again using the new silly sentence. Nonsense rhymes were accepted. We sang these silly rhymes and at the end of the day, the kids were singing the rhymes as they went out the door. What do you do during...

Jolly Phonics I spent Valentines Day away from my Kinders attending a workshop on Jolly Phonics. It was a hard decision but I know how important it is to integrate a good phonics program into my play based program and my colleague Margie is having really good success with Jolly Phonics.  Friday was the only day that the program is offered on the island. When Niki and I arrived almost all of the participants were from Nanaimo. I guess that I am not the only Kindergarten teacher wanting to improve my practice.  This program provides a systematic approach to teaching letter sounds and names. It also uses the guided release model, which I fully believe is a critical instructional strategy. Students learn to read using clusters of letters planned in a specific sequence and tricky words as well as hand gestures. It requires explicit teaching and is intended to be  combined with a strong literacy program.  The company has created a lot of support resources; big books, s...

Yesterday during quiet play Fallon and I made up a new game called Mirror. We had the dry erase boards and decided to use the same rule as echo reading and apply it to drawing. She drew a sun and then I drew the same sun on my board. I added a ground line and she copied me. We continued taking turns until the picture was done. We had no idea what the end result would be and it was FUN! The  EXTRA SURPRISE  treat was that while we played a small group gathered nearby and started playing the game with a partner.    ...

Choral Reading Earlier this week I was asked to share a strategy with my Kindergarten colleagues, that I use to teach fluency. I chose choral reading because it is the most effective strategy in my literacy toolbox. I know how important it is to teach interactively, use the guided release model and inject fun into my students learning. Choral reading enables me to do all three! Choral reading always begins with an expressive read aloud the first day. On the second day I begin again with an expressive read aloud followed by the game Mirror. Another name for the game is My Turn, Your Turn. I read aloud the first sentence and all of the students echo. We continue through until the end of the passage. On the third reading we echo read one line at a time but then do two lines together. If they are ready we read the passage together. The objective is for the students to read without teacher support. We continue to read the story each day following up with a mini-lesson with ...

Shared Reading Our school district has been providing professional inservice on the five essential components in the development of reading and writing that primary teachers should ensure are included in their literacy programs. They are comprehension, fluency, phonological awareness, vocabulary and word work.  As I review my professional collection; Richard Allington, Anne Marie Franzen, Debbie Diller and Debbie Miller I decided to post about some of the strategies which they highly recommend and that I use in my daily practice. Canada Council recommends that Kindergarten teachers include at least five shared readings every day. Wow!! That is a lot of reading. But think about the learning potential; fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, phonological awareness and word work. Add to this enjoyment and a high level of teacher support. Those are just a few reasons to reflect on your program and look for opportunities to include 3-5 shared readings every day. In a Ki...