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Success Starts with Foundational Skills

By: Lori Furgerson

As many of you know my boys play basketball.

A lot of basketball!

They have played since they were 4 years old. We had them try all of the sports and basketball is the one they really love. So now they are on a club basketball team that travels and is really getting them ready to play very well at a higher level.

My older son Zac has been in the club since he was in 5th grade.  His coach was a former NBA player and his goal is to get his kids playing at the college level. This year they are all freshman and all go to different high schools around the valley. Out of the 15 kids he coaches, they all made the JV high school team.

Well, basketball season has ended for school ball and now the club ball is picking back up. However Zac’s high school is holding open gym times for kids who are interested in playing next season. The coach really wants them there so they can continue to work on the fundamentals.

There was a conflict with the first open gym – it was the same time Zac’s club ball was starting. So Zac went to the coach and told him that. The response of his coach was that he knew Zac’s club ball coach went over the fundamentals so it was fine that he didn’t come to open gym.

It made me think how similar that is to reading.  As long as students have the foundational reading skills in place, they are off to a great start, but without them they will never be a successful reader.

We cannot forget to not only teach these skills explicitly but also assess them to be sure our students have mastered the skills.

Our students must get the foundational skills they need to be successful in life. Just like a basketball player has to first learn how to dribble a ball before they become great, for a reader it all starts with phonemic awareness. No matter what way you look at it, children must be equipped with the tools they need to be successful in anything they do.

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Lori Furgerson has been in education for 18 years and has taught in three under performing schools with great success.  She has been a reading intervention teacher, instructional coach and national literacy consultant.  Lori works with teachers daily to improve students’ reading.  She has a true passion for seeing them succeed and become the best they can be.  She is on a mission to help teachers and parents meet the needs of struggling readers. Click here to learn how to bring your struggling reader to benchmark

 

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5 Alphabet Activities for Kids

by on February 14, 2013

5 Alphabet Activities for Kids

By: Lori Furgerson

We know that it is imperative to reading success that students learn the alphabet. Many move on out of kindergarten still struggling with identifying letters and sounds.

Here are 5 alphabet activities for kids that will get them learning their letters and having fun doing it!

1. Sing the “new” alphabet song.

We have all heard students sing the alphabet song jumbling together the letters “lmnop” into something they don’t even know! Introduce children to this new version sung to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb. It will keep them from slurring the letters.

A B C D E F G

H I J

K L M

N O P Q R S T

U V W X Y Z

2. Letter Stone Path Create a path of 26 stones from construction paper, labeling each stone with an upper case letter. Lay the path around the room. Have children walk the path as they say the letters that are on the stone.  This not only gets them moving but also helps them practice their letters.

3. Writing

As students are learning their letters, provide them with the opportunity to also practice writing them. There is a link to handwriting and basic reading and spelling success. In order for children to be successful with writing, they need to be explicitly taught how to form the letters. This should be a daily practice.

4. Read Alphabet Books

A great way to expose children to the alphabet is by reading alphabet books. There are tons of them out there on many different topics, such as butterflies and animals. Reading these books also are great ways for students to learn information about the topics they are reading about.

5. Alphabet Concentration Select about 10 upper and lower case letters your student has learned and play a game of alphabet concentration to help reinforce what they know. Have the students lay out the cards and turn two over at a time, trying to locate a match. If they make a match, they keep the cards. The game is over when there are no more cards. The player with the most cards wins.

Have fun with these alphabet activities for kids and start doing them TODAY!

 

Lori Furgerson has been in education for 18 years and has taught in three under performing schools with great success.  She has been a reading intervention teacher, instructional coach and national literacy consultant.  Lori works with teachers daily to improve students’ reading.  She has a true passion for seeing them succeed and become the best they can be.  She is on a mission to help teachers and parents meet the needs of struggling readers. Grab these two FREE assessments to see exactly where your student needs support.

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3 Easy Tips for Teaching the Alphabet

February 11, 2013

3 Easy Tips for Teaching the Alphabet By Lori Furgerson In today’s episode I want to give 3 easy tips for teaching the alphabet. Here is what we will be covering: * How to keep students from confusing letters of the alphabet. * What order to introduce letters to students. * The one thing all [...]

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How To Read Aloud to Children Incorporating the Common Core In 3 Simple Steps

February 5, 2013

How To Read Aloud To Children Incorporating the Common Core In 3 Simple Steps By: Lori Furgerson With the Common Core State Standards rolling out now, many teachers are asking me how to read aloud to children while focusing on the Common Core. That is a great question, because now more than ever, reading aloud [...]

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3 Differentiated Instruction Lessons I Learned From My Son

January 30, 2013

3 Differentiated Instruction Lessons I Learned From My Son By: Lori Furgerson So if you know me, you know I HATE to exercise and I am not athletic AT ALL!  So how in the word I have such athletic kids is beyond me! My son started high school this year and his sport is basketball. [...]

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Goal Setting for Kids in the New Year

January 6, 2013

Goal Setting for Kids in the New Year By: Lori Furgerson Instead of making a resolution for the New Year, let’s focus on goal setting for kids. We as adults always make resolutions for the New Year and I don’t know about you, but I ALWAYS have mine broken within a week or two…until I [...]

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Teaching the Common Core for Kindergarten

November 19, 2012

Teaching the Common Core for Kindergarten By: Lori Furgerson With teachers working on implementing the Common Core Standards, I wanted to focus this article on teaching the Common Core for Kindergarten.  There are many strands of the standards, but I would like to discuss Foundational Skills. It is so important that as the standards are [...]

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Thanksgiving Activities for Children

November 13, 2012

Thanksgiving Activities for Children By: Lori Furgerson With the holiday quickly approaching, I created a couple of Thanksgiving activities for children based on the Common Core Standards. This first activity falls under the Foundational Skills strand and addresses print concepts.  It addresses standard RF.K.1.d Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet. [...]

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3 Math Halloween Activities

October 29, 2012

3 Math Halloween Activities By: Lori Furgerson With Halloween a few days away, I have created 3 math Halloween activities based on the Common Core that you can do with your students this week. If you teach kindergarten, this activity is based on Counting and Cardinality.  It is standard K.CC.1 Count to 100 by ones [...]

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3 Characteristics of a Good Teacher

September 1, 2012

3 Characteristics of a Good Teacher By: Lori Furgerson As teachers everywhere are heading back into the classroom for the start of a new school year, I just wanted to share 3 characteristics of a good teacher: 1. A Great Manager of the Classroom I have been in hundreds of classrooms across the country and [...]

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