Education resources for parents and teachers
It's so much fun to explore different versions of familiar tales! They're also great for building the skills of comparing/contrasting. We've shared a variety of collections featuring familiar tales in our book lists. Today's list is a fun one ... Goldilocks and the Three Bears! Fun versions of Goldilocks & the Three Bears Have you seen our Reader's ... Read More
Last week I had the privilege of working with a small group of first graders who need help with basic phonics skills. Their teacher is teaching beginning blends to the class, but these children needed extra, focused help in a small group. I gave each of them a phonemic awareness assessment (the one included in my online course, Teaching Every Reader), and I learned that they struggle with hearing beginning ... Read More
Now that she knows all her letters and sounds and has other important pre-reading skills, I've been teaching my daughter (4 years, 9 months) to read short vowel words. I'm not going to tell you she's been jumping up and down about it. In fact, until recently, she didn't want to learn at all. What made the difference was teaching her to blend sounds using successive blending (I have a video here all about it if you ... Read More
When parents ask me for ways to teach colors to their toddler or preschooler, my first recommendation is to read books about colors. This list is a great place to start! There are a million books about colors out there, but for this post I wanted to focus on the ones that are best for teaching colors. If you have a toddler or preschooler who can't identify colors by name, try reading the books on this ... Read More
This post about blending sounds contains affiliate links. I'm currently teaching my younger daughter to read. She knows all her letters, most of her sounds, and has all the pre-reading skills I recommend before teaching a child to read. But we've been hitting a little bit of a wall with blending sounds. She'll see a word like this: wag, and she'll say the sounds /w/ /a/ /g/ ... "Pat?" Woah ... where ... Read More
Looking for some fun fall-themed read alouds? Check out my list of books about scarecrows! ... Read More
Children's literature can be a great way to introduce math concepts. Check out this list of books about multiplication! Today I'm sharing a big collection of books that you can use to introduce and reinforce multiplication. P.S. Find the mega list of books about math concepts at Imagination Soup! ... Read More
I'm teaching my daughter to read CVC words, so I created these simple worksheets as a way to get extra practice. Since she is only in preschool, she does these worksheets with me, and only after we've done a more hands-on blending activity. I cut out the words at the bottom of each page (of course, she could do this herself, but since I knew the activity would be challenging I wanted to conserve her energy - ... Read More
Looking for telling time activities? You'll love this bundle of monster math! Today I'm sharing a free activity that will help your learners practice telling time. Are you familiar with "Write the Room"? It's a fun way to get kids learning while also getting them out of their seats and moving. First, make sure you have a recording sheet for each student. Next, cut out the appropriate cards and post them around ... Read More
Teach students how to have fun with figurative language by reading aloud these books with alliteration! What is alliteration? Alliteration is the purposeful repetition of the intiial sound - most often a consonant or consonant cluster - in two or more words of a phrase. For example: He spluttered and splashed. Why is it important to teach our students about alliteration? Alliteration is important ... Read More
