7 Easy Reading Lessons Using Mentor Texts As a teacher, one of my favorite things to do is teach students how to read. There is nothing quite like that moment when you see the ‘lightbulb’ go on and know that they get it! Along with this, I want my students to become lifelong readers, and […] The post 7 Reading Lessons Using Mentor Texts appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for new sites for read-alouds. I know that children need to be read to by a variety of sources. This develops: comprehension fluency expression vocabulary receptive language skills book to world connections reading interest and motivation love of reading Other Read-Aloud Sources I always try to […] The post Online Story Sites for Children appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

Technology in the Classroom: beyond games A guest blog post by Heather Betsworth Teachers are a lot like spiders: 1) We’re always on the web; 2) We have eyes everywhere; and 3) We can create glorious things out of something we pulled from our rears just moments before. That’s not to say we never plan […] The post Technology in the Classroom: beyond games appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

  Reading Difficulties? Phonological, and phonemic awareness skills are the foundations for competent readers. If students are memorizing text, reading without fluency, reading words incorrectly, it might be a sign that they are missing some foundations. These reading gaps can be addressed through a thorough approach to developing phonological and phonemic awareness skills.   To […] The post Phoneme Manipulation: Phonemic Awareness Skills appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

What is Phonics? Phonics development is next in the continuum after phonological and phonemic awareness. While phonemic awareness in it’s definition is the ability to hear and manipulate sound units, phonics is the ability to hear, and also read sounds represented as graphemes (letters). Both skills sets should be taught along side each other for […] The post Phonics Apps for K-2 Students appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

Rhyme is a critical phonological awareness skill in which children learn at a very young age. The ability to rhyme will help children form a strong reading and spelling foundation. Rhyme is the First Skill Domain in Phonology Download this freebie which overviews all phonological and phonemic awareness skills. This will be a great way to […] The post Rhyme Time appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

  Learning about long vowels helps children understand different letter-sound relationships. Thus preparing strong reading and spelling foundations. Teaching spelling generalizations via long vowel spelling patterns allows children to learn and remember that long vowels can be represented in different ways. By the way, there are so many different ways, oh my! Once children have […] The post Long Vowel Sorting Activities appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

Here’s an easy-peasy (to create) word work idea for your center activities. I created this super fun spelling activity to help students work on blending, adding and also deleting, and substituting phonemes to make new words, all while having loads of fun. These vital phonemic awareness skills are just some of the 34 skills that I […] The post Word Work Idea with Popsicles appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

Phonemic awareness skills are the foundation for competent readers. Students who have mastered these skills in the first two years of formal schooling often progress easily with their reading skills, as they have developed one of the essential reading foundations; phonemic awareness. For a more in depth look at phonological and phonemic awareness click here. […] The post Word Work: Blend, Add and Segment Phonemes appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more

It’s nice to have your word wall all set up and ready to go, because then it’s all done. You can check that off your list of 1,001 things you have to do. Right? Well don’t get me wrong, I have done this year in, year out. After a few years, I began to understand […] The post Word Wall Activities to Help Fluency and Comprehension appeared first on Clever Classroom Blog ..read more