This is a collection of resources focussed on early learning for pre-school and kindergarten students.
Phonics charts and blends charts are a great way to teach difficult concepts to beginning readers. Keep them around the classroom (or accessible at home), and your students will be able to use them independently for increased confidence and learning!
A fantastic article for parents and teachers that discusses the power of just 20 minutes a day for reading at home.
This is the best gift you can give your child!
Making learning time as a family, fun time together.
The 6 minute video and accompanying document will show early years educators how to access resources and workshops using the Saskatchewan EdOnline site.
Although this free resource was developed with the state of Alaska in mind, it includes a tremendous amount of great information and strategies that apply to the teaching of reading universally. A definite must-have for your toolkit!
This playbook combines decades of nationwide research with examples and resources developed by educators in the state of Alaska. You’ll find an introduction to phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. You will also find links to valuable resources where you can continue to deepen your knowledge.
Beginning Reading Instruction (BRI)/Advanced Reading Instruction (ARI) is a highly researched, and simple reading program that helps children learn to decode.
A teaching guide, along with the three sets of books, and the booster set (extra practice) are all you need to begin teaching a child to read. Additional materials, such as tests to make sure a child has mastered the skills after they complete each set, and ways to keep track of progress are included.
Each book set offers a drop down menu featuring the book, suggestions for looking through and discussing the book and story questions.
It’s fun to be five! Here is our list of favorite kindergarten websites and activities that kids can enjoy at home with their families. We’ve gathered together learning links and fun activities that will help kids build skills in literacy, math, science, and social studies—plus some that are just for enjoyment.
This site offers free Research-Based, Teacher-Approved Texts for supporting decoding and beyond.
How it works:
- Beyond Decodables aim to support young readers success in reading by allowing children the chance to decode words in a meaningful context.
- Use the "Beyond Decodables Scope and Sequence" chart to pick the right text for your student(s).
- Most texts are available in digital editions (projectable PDFs) and printer-friendly editions.
Sets of texts:
- CVC Words
- Consonant Digraphs
- Consonant Blends
- Long Vowel Patterns
- CVCe Words
- Multisyllabic Words
You know that if you can foster a love of reading in your children at a young age, they’ll have skills and insights that will last them a lifetime. The good news is that there are so many fantastic options when it comes to children’s books, from old classics to new hits. That’s why we’re here.
Brain Builders is an animated video series you can share with your students to help them understand what the brain does in order to read–the first time the Science of Reading has been placed in the hands of students.
Join Minh on his journey as his babysitter, Tamara, helps him cultivate a love for reading and understanding the Science of Reading. Series includes 13 episodes you don’t want to miss!
This is a video recording of the lunch and learn session from October 21st, 2021 on how the brain learns to read. Session Description: Do you wonder how our students brains learn to read? Join this session for an overview of what the scientific field has discovered and uncovered about our brains and the process the brain goes through to learn how to read. This will have a significant impact on how we plan to teach reading, writing, and spelling in the future.
Helping Parents Grow Lifelong Readers with resources for 0 to 13+ years of age.
This lesson integrates language arts, music, and math. The children will listen to the story "Count on Bunnies". They will be given the opportunity to act out the story and solve bunny equations. After listening to the song "Five Young Rabbits," the children will take turns being rabbits and pantomiming the actions as the class sings. The children will combine the rabbits at the end of each verse to see how many rabbits have been added. Then they will work in pairs to create their own rabbit equations.
This is a whole language lesson for Speech Language Pathologists that incorporates food vocabulary, basic concepts of matching, color, and number, as well as the pragmatic skill of turn taking for language-delayed kindergarten students.
This lesson introduces, reviews, and reinforces letter recognition and letter sounds using the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. Kindergarten children will enjoy this activity! It is appropriate for all academic levels.
There are a series of videos for movement, brain breaks, yoga, and energizing breaks with younger kids!
There are videos for:
Movement & Yoga
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Energy
Brain Breaks
Dancing
Welcome to the UnboundEd Mathematics Guide series! These guides are designed to explain what new, high standards for mathematics say about what students should learn in each grade, and what they mean for curriculum and instruction. This guide, the first for Kindergarten, includes three parts. The first part gives a tour of the standards for Counting & Cardinality using freely available online resources that you can use or adapt for your class. The second part shows how Counting & Cardinality relate to classification of objects in Kindergarten (K.MD.B). And the third part explains where Counting & Cardinality is situated in the progression of learning in Grades K-2. Throughout all of our guides, we include a large number of sample math problems. We strongly suggest tackling these problems yourself to help best understand the methods and strategies were covering, and the potential challenges your students might face.
Inquiry in Lower Elementary
In the next part of our series from the Right Question Institute, we hear from two first-grade teachers on how they've created a culture of questioning. This blog takes us through the process of identifying the need, introducing and implementing the techniques, to the specific strategies used, and student reaction to the RQI method. What they've accomplished with their 6-7-year-old students is nothing short of inspiring.
There are some fabulous ideas in this article!
Our classrooms must be meaningful, relevant, and fun.
The Playful Classroom shows readers how to reconnect with students, parents, and your profession. In this mini course, join The Playful Classroom co-author Jed Dearybury as he takes you through some of the best take-aways from the book.
You'll see the research behind the power of play.
You'll see some real-life examples you can use right away.
You'll learn how to continue growing in your ability to create a playful classroom.
This FREE mini course includes an hour of video instruction from Jed himself as well as additional resources and a certificate of completion for ONE HOUR of professional development credit.
The accompanying book can be purchased at: https://theplayfulclassroom.com/
As this is a living free resource, you are required to enter your email so that you can receive updates as they happen.
When reviewing curricula for Tier I instruction, it is essential to ensure they do not include instructional practices that are not aligned with the scientific evidence base of how children learn to read.
The Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines are designed to highlight any non-aligned practices, or “red flags,” that may be present in the areas of:
- Word Recognition
- Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Writing
- Assessment