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Nice and knowledgable training. it was nice to be here, I ejoyed a lot. Efective instructional techniques and reviw for fundations.

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Very useful strategies. I'm implementing
some in my classroom.

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I have used two fingers under the digraph, vowel team, or blend to break the word apart and then scooped under the whole word to put the sounds all together. This seems to help the kids hear the sounds and then put them together to read the word.

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It was very helpful to learn some of the games such as using stuffed animals for students to name the first sound of the animal to cross the bridge.

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Using different techniques to make two syllables words.

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I have implemented the blending activities with fidelity and am excited about seeing progress. I am excited about implementing the different strategies and practices in my kindergarten classroom. Ana Sandoval-Montoya

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I have implemented the blending activities with fidelity and am excited about seeing progress. I am excited about implementing the different strategies and practices in my kindergarten classroom. Ana Sandoval-Montoya

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Kindergarten Teacher
Reginald F. Chavez

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When we use Fundations, it covers silent e. I've always had a hard time to show kids that the e still is important and part of the word. I love that I now can blend it as we did on the first day of training. It makes more sense to them and they understand silent e.

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Using the blending techniques with CVC words has been helpful with my kindergarteners. I use it in whole group, but I really like to use it in a small group.
*Snow
Adobe Acres Elementary

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I am new to teaching and struggle with how to teach literacy because there is so much involved. This course gives you great resources, lessons, and strategies. It definitely helped clear up some of my confusion.

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As a third grade teacher, sometimes we are faced with trying to reach multiple levels of reading. For my low readers, it was nice refreshing my memory about how to teach phonemic awareness and phonics so that they could be successful.

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I found it helpful to be reminded about  the importance of explicit teaching.  It was very helpful to practice and see the blending routines modeled.  I was able to take these blending strategies back to my First Grade classroom and use them with my students.
F. Santillanes
Reginald Chavez Elementary

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It is interesting and exciting to see the techniques learned in training can be used for my spire lessons as well as fluency practice and confidence building as my students read.

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Once again I am reminded of the importance of the modeling first. For some reason, I blend that with the guided practice rather than making it separate. I have also been challenged to add more word work options to my students. For those who are struggling, using some of the blending routines has helped.
Thank you.

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As a first grade teacher, I look forward to Storytime from Fundations because it is an effective phrase-cued text to teach students how to read with fluency, especially with the scooping provided and the controlled text.  When students read with fluency, their reading comprehension increases.  The example below (The Skunk) is from Unit 10.  Not only do we practice reading with fluency and expression, we use the story to identify and review concepts such as digraphs, bonus letters, base words, suffixes, letter blends, closed syllables, and trick words.  Some of my first graders even "showed off" their reading fluency skills to their kindergarten teachers.  How exciting!
Thank you for offering this meaningful training!

Elizabeth (Libby) Baker
Seven Bar Elementary

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I loved the idea of the "doors" to practice open and closed syllables.  I teach 4th grade and I see students struggle to read multisyllabic words.  I feel that I have a better road map to help my students read multisyllabic words.  The lessons provided build on each other and I feel that I have a better tool to pinpoint what my students are missing.  Thank you for this training!  I am excited for day 3.
Emily Sanchez
Navajo Elementary

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I am using more syllable practice activities in my kindergarten classroom since the 2nd Core Literacy session.  I am also using more echo and choral reading both as a whole group and during my guided reading small groups.  This really helps students to practice their fluency in reading.
The syllable practice helps my kinder cuties to hear the parts of the work and helps to break apart big words to better help their reading!  Thank you for this awesome training!
The picture below is of a syllable activity I am doing with my guided reading groups!
Kristen Jarrett
Kindergarten Teacher
Chamiza Elementary

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I have found the assessments easy to use and very helpful for  planning my lessons

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I have found the assessments easy to use and very helpful for  planning my lessons

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It was a good reminder to use echo and choral reading with the students to build confidence, fluency, and motivation.  I have been adding both to the reading program in my class since the second CORE session.  The kindergarten students feel successful  when they echo read, since they can participate even if they aren't sure about the words, because I read first and they repeat.  This accomplishment makes them much more willing to join in the choral reading, which also has a built in "safety net" because the other students don't notice if someone has to stop reading and rejoin when they are able.  Each success motivates the students to continue to takes risks and improves their reading abilities.

Mary Kathryn Brudos
Chamiza Elementary

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I am excited to implement all the fluency building strategies and monitor the impacts they have on my students!

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Loved the assessments.

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I am excited that this goes hand in hand with the reading curriculum I am already using (SPIRE). We wirk with phonemes and or graphemes on a daily basis

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Learning about the different blending routines has had a huge impact within my classroom, especially the spelling- focused blending routine. My students are reading, sorting, and spelling long vowel words. This blending routine has helped them slow down and focus on the long vowel spelling patterns they are studying, which means their reading accuracy has improved!
Chris Nogan
First Grade Teacher
Marie Hughes

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As a first grade teacher, I am mindful of using systematic, explicit, multi-sensory instruction to teach reading.  During a recent Guided Reading lesson,  my students read Fish for Dinner (level D).  We began the lesson with a discussion of what great readers do.  They immediately replied, "Tap it out when you get stuck."  Yes, blending phonemes into words is one of the fundamental Core Literacy Strategies.  Not only did they use that strategy successfully,  they were also able to apply concepts they learned through Fundations instruction to identify digraphs, letter blends, suffixes, and closed syllables.  Through out the lesson, I asked questions to check their comprehension as well as provided corrective feedback when needed.  I also included reading decodable text in the lesson.  My students read Fred the Frog, a controlled text from Storytime  (Fundations).  They read it with fluency and confidence thus meeting the ultimate goal of automaticity, and.... Principal Montoya was there to see it in person!  Yay!  Thank you for offering this valuable training!

Elizabeth (Libby) Baker
Seven Bar Elementary

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As I sat in the training I was intrigued that everything seemed so familiar to me and was similar to many strategies and methods with which I already am accustomed. When I got home, I dug out my college books for teaching ELA and found the reason. I also have a reading instruction book that I find a little more handy (Research-Based Methods of Reading Instruction K-3 by Sharon Vaughn and Sylvia Linan-Thompson) which has many great activities to go with the text we are studying.

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I have been using leveled reading books with my kindergarten students.  However, the discussion on how helpful decodable readers are made an impression on me.  It is so important that young readers feel successful in their reading endeavors.  All the words in leveled books are not necessarily decodable even if the level of the book is appropriate for the student.   I have started using the leveled books in our class work, but sending decodable readers home for students to practice with families.  The students love them and can be completely successful because they can use their phonics skills to figure out unknown words.
(The picture is students pointing to the words "Decodable Reader" on their books.)

Mary Kathryn Brudos
Chamiza Elementary

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I have started using the sound by sound blending procedure with my SPIRE groups every day with 8-10 words.  Not being able to see the whole word before we start helps them concentrate on just the sounds they can see, slows them down, and keeps them from guessing.  During my decoding assessment todays, several students were using the technique on their own to help them sound out words.

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Even though we already do most activities we went through at the training, it was a good reminder to REALLY focus on the phonemic and phonological awareness. I use Tara West's Phonological Awareness packet on TpT. It is a daily exercise that takes just a couple of minutes each day and goes from really simple to more complex. I use different parts of the packet for the different levels of my students. They enjoy it a lot!

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After modeling the syllable segmentation and blending with the whole class, students practiced with their partners, while I was able to focus on the skills of a small group.  A third group was reading a text and looking for the spelling patters we were practicing, which included the j and g in Spanish.

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A focus this year at my school is fluency. Our Kindergarten team has designed a progress monitoring tool for LNF, SF and Blending and has been looking for easy to implement classroom activities. I was thrilled to share some of the games that we learned during session one. Looking forward to the next session.

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Although, I already do a lot of the strategies we went over, Day 1 was a great reminder and also gave me some different ideas (salad bowl, games).  My students are practically experts already on chunking!

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As a first year teacher I look for anything and everything to help guide me in the classroom. This training was very informative and gave me some valuable resources. I look forward to see what I will learn in the next class.

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I teach third grade and the content we covered on Day 1 of the training was a great refresher on interventions I can use with my students who are still struggling with phonics.  I have started using Elkonin boxes with one of my students who is reading at a kindergarten level.  This gave me a great starting place with him.  I'm looking forward to the next couple of days of training.

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I started using the blending strategies that we learned in the first training, especially the sound by sound blending (p. 181). I do it in the mornings before breakfast and before we start our literacy block in my kindergarten class to really focus on sounds and putting them together. I have found that it is really helping me see what certain students are struggling with and it is helping some of my higher students to slow down and really make sure they are blending words correctly. This has been really helpful for me as a teacher to work on that phonemic awareness with my kids throughout the entire day.

-Bonnie Dickson
Kindergarten Teacher
Governor Bent Elementary

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The first day of the core literacy training was so informative.  I have already learned many new tools and strategies that I can use in my kindergarten classroom.  It was a good reminder to myself to really emphasize the position of the mouth/tongue during Fundations when we are blending/segmenting.  Today during my small group guided reading time, I used the Odd One Out initial sounds game.  My students really enjoyed it, and it was a fun, hands on way to promote beginning sounds with my struggling cuties.   I have attached a picture of one of my students hard at work!
Kristen Jarrett
Kindergarten Teacher
Chamiza Elementary

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More to come! Check back later! :)

https://www.corelearn.com

CORE Specific Word Instruction
https://vimeo.com/140427135

CORE Combined Morphemic and Contextual Analysis: https://vimeo.com/138815258

Anita Archer Vocabulary Instruction: https://explicitinstruction.org/video-elementary/elementary-video-4/

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This was a great training. Reminds me a lot of spire. I appreciated the beginning breakdown of all the sounds. I learned that I needed to do more blending and segmenting.

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As a first year teacher in first grade I really need as many options as I can get to help my students.  I like  the detail breakdown of a skill I thought only had one avenue.  I really appreciated the examples and demonstrations of different ways to scaffold sounding words out.  If tapping doesn't work now I have a better idea of how to work with that student to sound out words.  I've already tried the different ways to blend sounds and sounding out words.  I'm looking forward to the next training!
Jim Butterbaugh
Chamiza Elementary

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It was great to remember some of the things I learned in linguistics that I had forgotten. It will help me be a better teacher. It was reassuring to hear that teaching my ELL, and all students, correct mouth/tongue placement is recommended. I am going to incorporate the continuous and spelling-focused blending instruction in class.

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As a third grade teacher, most of my students come to me already knowing how to read. However, given my (prior) lack of knowledge in reading instruction I offer little service to my students requiring interventions. This PD has better equipped me to implement effective reading strategies/instruction for ALL my students.  I'm looking forward to the next two sessions!
Monica Velasquez -- Chamiza ES