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Friday, July 20, 2012

Decoding Strategies for PARENTS & more!

 I am pretty excited to share with you something I have been working on all summer!

As a first grade teacher, I have had parents tell me that they WANT to help their child learn to read but they just don't know HOW.  Most parents rely on saying, "Sound it out," or simply correcting the word for the student. One parent said to me last year, "I didn't go to school for this like you did. I don't even know what you mean by decoding."

So, I made a Decoding Strategy Quick-Reference Guide for the parents to keep at home. The parent of one of the boys I tutor tried it out for me this summer and she said it was SO helpful!  She comes in every day telling me which strategies she was able to suggest he try when he got stuck. Yea!!!
I will go over it at Back-to-School-Night and show them the hand gestures I use. For example, flipping my hand from palm up to palm down for "flip the sound." I also included a parent letter to send home.

I am also excited to have copies laminated to refer to when I am teaching or coaching students during Guided Reading. Copies will also be available for partner reading since I already teach the students to suggest a strategy rather than tell their partner the word.

I made matching icons to put on my CAFE board when I teach the strategy. If you don't use CAFE you could use these on anchor charts.
 I also made Flip the Sounds Posters for my phonics bulletin board. In the beginning of the year we review letter sounds and I make a BIG deal about the letters that can make 2 sounds and teach the "flip the sounds" strategy. I will refer to this poster and go over these OFTEN!! I am always shocked when I tutor 3rd graders who cannot accurately identify vowel sounds!!
I made a separate poster of the more complex sounds to introduce as we get to them.
I went with a simpler frame to save on ink and I backed it with scrapbook paper. I am a little obsessive about "framing" things like this. I can't stand laminating a plain white page and will often add a "frame" on a math game, etc for my own pleasure even though it totally isn't necessary. I know...it is a sickness.
So what do you think? I am feeling like this may really make a huge difference for my families.
You can start printing and laminating by grabbing your copies in my TpT store. As usual, I'd also like to give a copy to a loyal follower so enter my new giveaway below!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to Dana for winning one of my Common Core Assessment Packs in my giveaway that ended yesterday!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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47 comments:

  1. What a great idea

    Terri
    thefirstgradeprincess.blogspot.com

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  2. Wonderful JOB!!! Your parents are so blessed to have their child in your classroom! Sometimes I think many teachers assume that parents will know our vocabulary and speak our "teacher language," but most of them time they do not. We have wonderful families, we just need to give them tools like you created!!! WOW! (check out my Blog if you have not done so already) SMILES

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  3. This is a great idea! I always give strategies to the parents, but never go over them. I'm sure I have parents who don't know what some of the things are, but don't want to ask. If there is time I'll go over it at Open House, otherwise I guess I will do it at our first parent conference which is about the 5th week of school. Thanks so much!

    Kelly @ I'm Not Your Grandpa, I'm Your Teacher

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  4. A job well done!

    lsslak@yahoo.com

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  5. That frame in the decoding strategies doc is sooo cute! Where is it from!?

    Ginger Snaps

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  6. This is amazing!! I love it!! Thank you for working so hard on this!
    Nancy

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  7. I love this! Thanks for sharing!

    Miss Red Head
    http://missredheadandfirstgraders.blogspot.com/

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  8. If you ever need someone to "edit" your resources, I can do it. I do it for others since I can't create resources. I am very good at finding mistakes in print, though.
    susanlulu@yahoo.com

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  9. This looks wonderful!! What a beautifully put together resource with a wealth of information.

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  10. This is fantastic! I do something similar with my parents and they appreciate it. It's great because I get a lot of parent cooperation!

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  11. Look very well put together! Great job!

    ❤Mrs. McKown
    Little Literacy Learners

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  12. Great idea! I am adding it to my wish list:)

    I am having a birthday giveway on my blog and would love for you to stop by!

    Tammy
    The Resourceful Apple

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  13. Just Blogged about this, I think it's great!
    jessica
    http://tales-of-a-first-grade-teacher.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. oh, by the way,I was wondering where you got that cute font on the cover page?

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    2. Jessica, that font is from KPM Doodles.

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  14. Jenn! This is a FANTASTIC idea! I work in a core school where my parents too are asking about how to read at home....and are surprised to hear us suggest they read to their children at night! Geez...Anyways, thanks for the great resource, hope I win!

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  15. This is a great resource!! Thank you! Wish I could follow you on Pinterest! I don't see the link anywhere, unless I'm missing it. :) Thanks again!

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  16. This looks great! I want! judeeastman@gmail.com
    I'm in.

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  17. Parents are always asking how they can help their child when reading at home, so this is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!

    Angi
    ★ First-Graders from Outer Space ★

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  18. Oh my gosh, I love this decoding pack!!! I am so keeping my fingers crossed for this!! :)
    Lisa
    Learning Is Something to Treasure

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  19. What an awesome idea to put everything in one place. That would be so helpful for my parents to have. Thank you so much for making this. I'm pinning it and adding this to my wish list right now.

    ✰ Stacy

    Simpson Superstars

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  20. WOW I love your posters--great idea and if I don't win it I will buy it. It's so great to see a California teacher blogging with GREAT ideas, it seems like most of the teacher/bloggers are out of state. I teach in the Los Angeles area and you blogging teachers are an inspiration, and TeachersPayTeachers has become my number one go to for teaching ideas. I would love to see something like your decoding poster done with syllable types (open, closed, r-conrolled). Thanks for your dedication to the profession.
    Phylis Hoffman
    2nd grade teacher in LAUSD

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  21. Too cute! I added it to my wishlist.

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  22. This has been on my summer "to-do" list. You just saved me so much time. Thank you! Lauren
    Teacher Mom of 3

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  23. Oh my! I love this and I will definitely be sharing this with my parents this year. Thank you for working on this.
    Think all night…..Teach all day

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  24. Hi, Jen!
    I love your blog! I'm not sure if you've already received this award or not but I am nominating you for the Versatile Blogger award. Visit my blog to pick up your award. :)

    Alex

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  25. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! The decoding poster is great, and I love the idea of sharing it with parents, and keeping copies for partners and guided reading groups! Brilliant!

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  26. Hi there!

    I hope you can join me in my first ever Linky Party on "Preparing for School" over at {6th Grade} All-Stars

    Hope to see you there!

    Mrs. Crouse :)

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  27. I love the idea of sharing decoding strategies with parents!! I am going to use this!

    Spotted in First Grade

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  28. These look great Jenn! Now I can help my parents work with their students in a more concrete way. Thank you!
    Eileen
    Second Grade Sunshine

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  29. Ashley,

    I sent TpT an email so hopefully they will fix it soon. They are experiencing difficulties today.

    Thanks!

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  30. This is such a great resource!! Thanks for stopping by my blog! I have also given you an award..go to my blog to pick it up! :)

    I am also having a giveaway! If you want to enter, just stop on by! Thanks!!!

    Brigid
    Brigid's Daily Lesson Log

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  31. Hey Jen,
    I went to buy this using your link and it was
    Testing Product96O664p2TqI4 for 17.53 and had African Studies under it. It did have the correct picture though. Can you email me when it is corrected? I would like to purchase this. settle3@gmail.com
    Tara

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  32. Hi Tara,
    Yes, unfortunately when TpT did an upgrade they messed up my listing. They are working on getting it fixed. Thanks for your patience.
    Jenn

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  33. It is fixed now http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Decoding-Strategies-A-Quick-Reference-Guide-for-Parents-Guided-Reading
    Thanks!

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  34. Very cute, but DON'T teach children to skip the word or look at the picture and guess!!! Skipping the word cuts into comprehension. There will come a time when there are no pictures. Guessing is very apt to have them go with the wrong word. Have them attend to the decoding of the words!
    The two vowels go walking is only accurate 66percent of the time in the English language. Check with Louisa Moats.

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  35. Thanks for creating this Jenn and for the update Camille. I will look into Louisa Moats. As a mom of a 8 year old child with dyslexia and a 6 year old with apraxia of speech, I would suggest modifying the OO sound pictures. Book and boot sound very similar to children who are struggling with phonemes. I'd suggest book and root maybe? Just a different sound at the beginning could help those struggling to separate the phonemes more easily.

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  36. can you make a 'flip the sound' chart for wh, th, ai, ea, er, ir, ur and so on. Love these and going to use them tomoro!

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  37. I love this decoding poster. I'd print one out and make each child has one in their book box. I'm going to feature this tip in my blog http://wildrumpusschoolhouse.blogspot.com/ so other teachers and parents can see your cute ideas.

    I am in favor of using pictures and skipping words--these are essential tactice in teaching little ones to read. Especially if it's done right. The pictures help as long as they are also using the letters to help them figure out a word. A child with low self-confidence needs to feel successful. Pictures are in early readers for a reason. Covering them up causes stress and frustration.

    Skipping words is also a great tool, but it needs to be taught correctly. It encourages using context clues, which is a skill they need for the rest of their educational career. Just make sure they are going back and rereading the entire sentence once they figure out a word. That way comprehension is not compromised.

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  38. I love your posters. They are a great idea.
    One note, as a reading recovery teacher, we never teach our students the strategy to read on. Marie Clay says that for struggling readers meaning is lost at the point of error. She is not referring to independent or capable readers.

    Rhonda
    Classroom Fun

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  39. I found this blog post on pinterest a while back but never got a chance to check out your cute ideas! I love your posters and plan to use them in my kindergarten classroom. I have to admit that I'm also a border junkie...I read somewhere that a border helps children and adults solidify things into memory. So I have a border around just about everything...my sight words, spelling words, class posters, and I always put a border around my letters to my parents. From one border obsessed teacher to another...you're not along :o)

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  40. I love these decoding strategies! Thanks for sharing!

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  41. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  42. wow!!!
    the great blog.
    the strange and very innovative decoding techniques were discussed here.
    keep blogging.

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  43. WOW WONDERFUL BLOG.the blog is very informative thanks for sharing the information with people.

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  44. These are great! Except when two vowels go walking only 50% of the time does the first one do the talking. In "meat" ea says "e" in "steak" ea says "a" so I wouldn't ever tell parents to use that rule! I also work with kiddos with dyslexia and we don't teach them to skip words or use pictures, it won't be an effective strategy as reading gets more difficult. I absolutely LOVE your pictures and think they will be so helpful for some of my groups!

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  45. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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