reading Archives - Whimsy Workshop Teaching

Sound Wall Quick Activities

August 14, 2021 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

This post answers the most common questions I have received about quick daily activities to use with a sound wall. I hope the answers in this quick guide are helpful to you!

Sound Wall Activities

Question: What are some quick activities to use with a sound wall?

Answer: Here are some quick ideas to reinforce phonemes:

Activity 1: Invite students to become Phoneme Detectives and hunt for focus phonemes in short books. This activity is particularly effective with a partner.

Activity 2: Make personal [Read More…]

Sound Wall: Teaching Tips

August 14, 2021 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

This post provides teaching tips to use with your sound wall. I hope the answers in this quick guide are helpful to you!

Teaching Tip 1: Take It Slow

Question: How should I introduce my sound wall?

Answer: Very slowly! A completed sound wall (especially with word cards) can be overwhelming for students. I like the idea of covering most of the posters with a “lock” picture, then revealing the phonemes as they are directly taught. Even after revealing the poster, you [Read More…]

Sound Wall Vowel Valley

August 13, 2021 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

This post answers common questions about arranging vowel posters in a vowel valley on a sound wall. I hope the answers are helpful to you!

PHONEMES & GRAPHEMES

Question: How are phonemes and graphemes represented on a sound wall?

Answer: A sound wall is visual reference for students where each of the 44 phonemes in the English language is represented by an anchor picture and graphemes connected to that sound.

VOWEL VALLEY

Question: Why are vowel posters in a V-Shape on the sound wall?

Answer: [Read More…]

Setting Up A Sound Wall

August 8, 2021 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Making Sense of Vowel Valley

When I first saw a sound wall I was …confused. After teaching reading intervention for 25 years, I didn’t understand why letters were posted in a V-Shape. I also wondered why there were pictures of mouths everywhere! Fast forward to the present time… I now view sound walls as an integral part of reading and writing instruction. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned so far.

PS: You can download a free quick guide [Read More…]

Stories To Teach Social Skills

August 16, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Stories are the perfect way to teach social skills and introduce new concepts. This post focuses on 16-Week Social Skills Program that features silly monsters who explore and illustrate essential social skills topics.

Each story has 5 lessons included, plus a printable version of the book for your classroom library! No need to hunt down the book to match the lessons – it’s all included in this engaging K-2 curriculum.

Monster Social Skills Stories

My students love everything about monsters, whether they [Read More…]

Phonics Center: Six Simple Ideas

April 17, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

When my students enjoy a particular phonics center, I want to keep using it even when we move on to a different phonics focus! This way I know students will be happily engaged, and I won’t have to spend time explaining a new activity every week. Below are some of the phonics centers I use through the entire year for centers, morning work, small group lessons and even take home work. I hope it inspires you with some new ideas! [Read More…]

Teaching Phonics With Simple Centers

April 4, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

How do you manage the rest of the class while you’re doing small group lessons? There are many ways to organize this situation, and I’ve tried them all! The most important part for my students is to make sure the centers are both engaging and easy to manage (so I don’t have to stop and explain directions over and over!)

FAMILIAR TASKS
When I find a task my students enjoy, I like to make different versions of that task for all of [Read More…]

Social Skills Stories

March 29, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Do you use social skills stories in your classroom? One of my favorite things about teaching is sharing books and stories with my students. Even better if students can learn about important topics while they enjoy the stories and characters!

Bunny And Bear Social Skills Stories

This post focuses on our series of books called Bunny and Bear. Bunny and Bear books are social stories which teach essential social skills to young children. My own students immediately fell in love with [Read More…]

Teaching Phonics With Centers

March 21, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Over the last few years I’ve spent more and more time during my reading block on small groups. This means I need to make sure the rest of the class is engaged and learning independently. My solution has been to fill up my literacy and writing centers with simple, effective and fun tasks that my students can complete independently.
SAME TASK, DIFFERENT SKILLS
One of the things that make planning easy for me is to create a task my students enjoy, and [Read More…]

Spelling Switcheroo – Word Building

January 10, 2020 by Whimsy Workshop Teaching Leave a Comment

Segmenting and blending sounds can be tricky when students are first learning to read. Reinforcing these skills, particularly with hands-on manipulation of letters, can be a great help for reading development.

Segmenting (separating sounds like /d/ /o/ /g/) and blending (combining sounds like /dog/) are core skills for phonological awareness, and necessary for learning to read.

Assessing Spelling Readiness

Are your students ready to blend and segment sounds? There is a general progression for most students: 1) identifying alliteration and rhyming words [Read More…]