Education resources for parents and teachers
Need another way to build math fact fluency? Try these fun printable math games - they're free! Let's talk about basic math facts, shall we? Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. All math teachers agree that their learners need to develop fluency with these facts. What is math facts fluency? It's the quick and effortless recall of math facts. If kids have to think for a minute before telling you ... Read More
Do you have learners who sound out CVC words, but do it oooh sooo slowwwlly? Cat isn't "cat." It's "/k/ /ă/ /t/." Or maybe they mix up their middle vowels. Sip becomes "sap." I'm currently working with a group of sweet, bright first graders for about 20 minutes each morning before they start the school day. Before our first session, their teachers had told me that they needed help with basic reading ... Read More
Are you doing opposite activities with your preschooler? Be sure to read some picture books from this list of books about opposites! We love creating lists of our favorite children's books! In fact, we've shared hundreds of our favorites in our letter of the week book lists. And you'll find even more book lists in our collection of themed book lists. It's time for another list! These books about opposites ... Read More
This post contains affiliate links. Have you ever been part of a book club? A number of years ago (pre-kids and gray hair), my sister taught kindergarten and I taught first and second grade. Though both of us had started our careers with older learners, we loved our young students - and we constantly sought out ways to improve our teaching. But we also knew that our content knowledge was taking a hit. Most of ... Read More
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 The 3 Bears and Goldilocks, by Margaret Willey If you'd like a new perspective ... 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 list! When I ... 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! The Shy Scarecrow, by Mary Packard This is a sweet and simple early reader book about a scarecrow who feels he's too shy to do his job. When the farmer gives him a loud hat made of tin and cans, he finally frightens the crows away. Scarecrow, by Cynthia Rylant The illustrations are beautiful, and I enjoyed the meditative ... Read More
