because we heart you!

It's hard to believe that schools starts here in the next couple weeks. We've been working this summer on making some updates to our TpT Store and for this week only…you can download our Basic Code Fluency Builders for FREE! If you have purchased these in the past, you'll notice the fonts have been jazzed up a bit (sorry, no more Comic Sans!)

 
We have also created additional resources to help your kiddos.

If you download them, please leave us some love and tell us what you think!

Reading Detectives

It never seems to fail that I forget my laptop when I come up with reading ideas for my kids. Translation: My school computer has a horrific font selection to choose from! 

I should be embarrassed to post this, but since I didn't use Times New Roman, I'll let it slide...

My kindergarten reading groups are coming right along...I have been extremely proud of the progress they've made since the beginning of the school year! Monster proud. Lately, they have been sounding out every single sound in a word even if they can automatically read the word. I've tried everything I can to get them to just read the word if they know it...including standing on the table as "Captain Read the Word".

So, we decided to become word detective readers! I placed 20 basic code words (with numbers) around my classroom (pink words were ones I knew they'd be able to read easily and purple words were ones that might present more of a challenge).

And each student was given a "Detective Reading Tracker" sheet (below) in which they drew pictures to indicate the word that was read. (Clearly, #4 is a crab!)

I told the kids if they sounded the words out, other detectives in the room would hear them! In order to complete their "reading mission" they had to read every word on their own! And they did.

I've attached a copy of the Word Doc I created to do this with them...feel free to use and change the words so they are appropriate for your kiddos! (If you jazz it up with better fonts, please share!)

B or D? That is the question!

Where have we been???? That's a good question...by now you've probably moved on and forgotten about us over here at TwoCanDoIt. (And well, we can't blame you!) 

Teaching lowercase "b" and "d" this year has been a challenge to say the least...Once I think they got it, they are back to using the guessing strategy! Back in the day I taught these two letters with my handy old "bed" chart, but later realized this technique was not appropriate for many struggling readers. I don't have them use the "give yourself two thumbs up trick" because that sometimes can get tricky if they are writing and have a pencil in one hand!

Because kids tend not to confuse the uppercase versions of the letters "B" and "D," using them to learn the lowercase "b" and "d" can be helpful. Here's how! When a child is unsure about whether the letter they are looking at is a "b" or a "d" have them write an uppercase "B". If you erase the top bubble off, you are left with a lowercase "b".

I keep a poster in my room as a visual if they need a reminder...as shown below.

When kids are reading and get stuck trying to determine which is which, I give them a little scrap of lamination that I have left over to place on top of the word. If they can draw a bubble on top of the letter, and it makes an uppercase "B"...Then they know they are dealing with a lowercase "b".

Over spring break I stumbled upon a new trick that I found on, none other than Pinterest! Common Core Connection has taken Matchbox bulldozers to show kids how you can only bulldoze the letter "b". If you try to bulldoze the letter "d" it won't stay in a straight line. So naturally, I went to the dollar store and snagged a few bulldozers to keep in my classroom! I made a quick poster (nothing fancy) that you can download here!

Keeping my fingers crossed that this does the trick! What ways do you have to teach these letter reversals?