Learning with Letters!

My Students

Letters have sounds. Together, letters make words, words make sentences, and sentences make paragraphs. This is the essential and most basic of lessons when teaching my 1st graders how to read. Please allow my students the opportunity to discover a lifelong love of learning through reading.

At the beginning of each school year, I imagine who will be sitting in the seats that I set at each table.

I think of the excitement of meeting 27 new faces and how I will be able to make this year a positive and encouraging learning environment for my new bunch. I think about the challenges, my personal and class goals, and how I can teach each student to love and appreciate reading. I have yet to meet my class for this upcoming school year, but I know that to develop and enhance reading skills, regardless of each individual student's abilities, the basics of reading must be learned first. I teach at a moderate poverty school in Utah. This is a wonderful school with dedicated and caring teachers and administration who know and care about each child in the school. We have a dedicated and supportive PTA that work constantly to assure the community, students, and teachers are working hand in hand to achieve progress and success.

My Project

These resources that I am requesting, magnetic letters and classroom pointers, are phenomenal! Magnetic letters are an essential part of every guided reading activity, group participation at the rug, spelling and phonics activities, and one-on-one instruction. An activity that I have used magnetic letters for are for introducing new spelling words or sight words during calendar time: the letters are color-coded for vowels and consonants. Students are able to use these magnetic letters to create new and familiar words, learn word family endings, and vowel combinations in a tactile way during guided reading groups, reading centers activities, and phonics activities. I use magnetic letters to teach ESL and special needs students new and familiar words. I use magnetic letters daily in group instruction by introducing new spelling words for the week. Students use magnetic letters daily throughout different literacy periods in the day.

When I was in 2nd grade, I remember getting in trouble for reading Nancy Drew books when I was supposed to be learning or listening to the teacher.

I just could not put those mystery books down! Although I could not fully understand most of those chapter books, I felt incredibly successful because I could read! I want my student to feel successful, independent, and good about themselves by knowing how to read well. I want my students to never want to stop reading an interesting book.