Many of my Kindergarten students missed the opportunity to attend preschool because of the pandemic and came to Kindergarten without letter name and sound recognition, which is at the very heart of learning to read! Having lots of opportunities to see, sort, write and manipulate the alphabet, connects phonemes to graphemes and is crucial to automatic recognition of the alphabet and ability to learn to read and write.
Magnetic white boards with handwriting lines provide lots of opportunities for segmenting words, building words with the magnetic letters, blending words, and writing the words which Kindergarteners needs extensive practice in daily! Paddle boards can be used during whole class instruction at our rug for an effective, quick check in dictation, handwriting, and comprehension in math. The magnetic alphabet letters will be used every year to practice learning the alphabet fluently, using lots of games and fun activities. After mastering the alphabet, they learn to build words, change simple CVC words into new words by manipulating one of the sounds (change "bat" into "bit"; now change "bit" into "big"), and eventually simple sentences. The gel boards provide another multi-sensory opportunity to write and finger trace letters and words, adding variety to instruction and keeps engagement high. We are currently using hand made laminated "boards", which are floppy (hard to use at our rug), don't erase well and can't be utilized with magnetic letters. It was the closest option I could afford.
It might seem like these materials are a small part of a classroom, but they are at the root of many good instructional practices as children needs hours of practice segmenting, building, blending, and writing words to make those words part of their memory forever as they learn to become fluent readers and writers.
About my class
Many of my Kindergarten students missed the opportunity to attend preschool because of the pandemic and came to Kindergarten without letter name and sound recognition, which is at the very heart of learning to read! Having lots of opportunities to see, sort, write and manipulate the alphabet, connects phonemes to graphemes and is crucial to automatic recognition of the alphabet and ability to learn to read and write.
Magnetic white boards with handwriting lines provide lots of opportunities for segmenting words, building words with the magnetic letters, blending words, and writing the words which Kindergarteners needs extensive practice in daily! Paddle boards can be used during whole class instruction at our rug for an effective, quick check in dictation, handwriting, and comprehension in math. The magnetic alphabet letters will be used every year to practice learning the alphabet fluently, using lots of games and fun activities. After mastering the alphabet, they learn to build words, change simple CVC words into new words by manipulating one of the sounds (change "bat" into "bit"; now change "bit" into "big"), and eventually simple sentences. The gel boards provide another multi-sensory opportunity to write and finger trace letters and words, adding variety to instruction and keeps engagement high. We are currently using hand made laminated "boards", which are floppy (hard to use at our rug), don't erase well and can't be utilized with magnetic letters. It was the closest option I could afford.
It might seem like these materials are a small part of a classroom, but they are at the root of many good instructional practices as children needs hours of practice segmenting, building, blending, and writing words to make those words part of their memory forever as they learn to become fluent readers and writers.
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