Do you want new ideas to help you teach Reading in your Primary Classroom?

Reading instruction is so important in our classrooms. As teachers, we must meet the needs of all our children by providing enrichment and remediation.  Here are some of the tools I use in my classroom to make my job easier!

My very favorite, can't live without, and use everyday product is Reading With Strategies: Essential Strategies for Developing Independent Readers : Stage 1 I use these cards everyday and they are well worth their price in gold.  All of my fellow teachers come to my room to check them out and use them in their classroom.  These cards are great for not only teaching reading strategies, but writing, and interest provoking for the students.  If you buy only one thing for your classroom, GET THESE!

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is the most important predictor of success in learning to read.  Phonemic awareness is crucial to learning to read.  I have noticed that our children are struggling because they cannot hear sounds.  I have found a program that is FANTASTIC in teaching Phonemic Awareness skills!  The program is Phonemic Awareness:  The Skills That They Need To Help Them Succeed!  It is a 35 Week Curriculum of Daily Phonemic Awards Lesson Plans developed by Michael Heggerty, Ed.D.

I also love the Short and Long Vowel cards and CD by Reading  Manipulatives.  The cards are great Visuals for children.  They can make great associations between the sounds and the pictures.  The songs are also very fun and the children love them!

Another great resource is Phonics Faces.  This site offers posters and visuals with all of the letters of the alphabet.  It also gives a TON of information from the Speech Pathologists point of view on learning sounds and letters.  They also provide books written using visual cues for sounds.  Great for those children who have speech problems and are not auditory learners!

Fluency

While working this summer with a group of 24 first grade boys, I noticed the need for work on fluency in reading.  These boys needed help with reading fluently.  I did a lot of research and asked many people on skills to help with fluency.  The first thing I recommend is choral reading everything!  I also recommend recording books and letting children read with the tapes.  MODEL, MODEL, and MODEL some more!  I also found a program called GATE made by READ NATURALLY that gave my class amazing results with fluency and comprehension.  I highly recommend it to use in small groups.  The stories are non-fiction and highly engaging.

Phonics

Phonics is essential in developing early reading skills.  I believe we must teach decoding skills and phonics EARLY in an child's education process.  After 12 years of teaching, I personally believe that Direct Instruction/Reading Mastery by SRA, is the best way to teach Phonics in the classroom!  I believe that it works for all children and is by far superior to any other program.  I don't think it is the only way to teach reading skills, but it is the best program I have found to teach phonics.  Until I find something better, that is what I will use in my classroom.  I use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to tutor children who are struggling in reading.  It is an abridged version of the Reading Mastery Program.  I taught my 4 year old to read with the book, and he loved the lessons.