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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow! Can you give more info about your school/students? I'm a Title One school and we are busting our butts to get all kindergarten students to the end-of-year benchmark. Some students aren't going to make it no matter what we do. [/quote]
Hi, I'm the OP.  I'm in a lower income school where more than half my students are EL's.  I have had MANY years where no matter how many hours I put in or how hard I worked, some kids didn't get to grade level.  I think what happened this year that made a difference was a few things.  Our principal made sure every class had 15-30 minutes of support during "read to self" time, so that instead of one teacher and 20 kids, it was more like 3-4 adults to 20 kids during that time.  We stopped doing small groups and instead, just had kids reading.  The adult who listened to a kid would offer mini-tips to that kid as they read to them. 
Two, we increased the amount of time kids actually spent reading in school and the only homework we assign is reading.  We also use a math program with an online fluency program that compliments it.  Three, this year, the parents have really partnered with us.  Not that this doesn't happen other years, but it has happened MORE this year.  And truthfully, luck probably played a part too.  I typically have about 80-85% of students get to level, but this year it is all of them.

Don't get discouraged.  Most teachers I know are really laying it all on the line for their students' success.  Keep going and even if you can't get them to grade level, you might get them awfully close to it.  Thank you for what you do.  I know how hard you work and how much you care![/quote]

Thanks for sharing! What about the students who aren't reading yet? Did they look at picture books during that time? [/quote]

None of our students came in reading.  We taught them to look at books and enjoy them starting with 5 minute stretches, building up their stamina to 15 minute segments over time.  They looked at picture books and at repetitive books with sight words.  We'd start them out by reading the first two pages, then they'd "read" the rest by mimicking the pattern.  We did this so they would a) feel like they were readers b) learn 1:1 correspondence meaning one spoken word for each written word and then c) they got practice reading books repeatedly because they'd keep these books in a bin and read them daily for one week.  Then we'd give them new books the next week.  These books also had a lot of repeated sight words in them, so they'd also be learning those through repeated readings.  This is part of why having a few adults in the room helped.  Each adult could get a kid started on a book, then move to another kid.

We were also teaching sight words whole group at a different time, which helped kids to be able to read the patterned books.  Then, when kids could do that, we moved onto using initial consonants to read an unknown word at the end of the sentence that changed.  For example, I see the cow.  I see the horse.  I see the pig.  We stressed that while yes, they were just using the first letter and the picture now, that once they had that down, we would move them onto decoding the whole word.  First letter and picture cues, in my opinion has value at the very earliest stages of Kindergarten.  But then, we make sure they move on from that to full decoding all the letters in a word.

Once they can do that, we teach CVC decoding and short vowels with blends and digraphs.  Then long vowels.  And so on.  Our curriculum is heavily sight word based in K-1, and that has its shortcomings.  But we make sure to supplement that weak part with a very structured phonics component.  [/quote]

What phonics and reading curriculum do you use? We use Fundations and it is super slow so we don't get through the alphabet until early December. I do like that there is a lot of repetition since most of our students need it. We also use Wit and Wisdom which is awful for K-2 IMO. It takes up so much time and it's pretty dull. It's way over most students' heads too. It might work better in the upper grades where students are already able to read.[/quote]

We're actually using the ARC curriculum, which doesn't truly have a phonics component.  I know, its awful and imo the entire curriculum department should be fired.  WSo we teachers just supplement with our own stuff.  I start teaching one letter sound a day on day one.  and then we review, review, review for weeks after they have all been taught each sound.  If your curriculum is bad, you might have to make your own, supplement or just use bits and pieces.  It isn't fair and it isn't right, but that's what I recommend.  Kids have to start blending letters into CVC sounds as soon as they know 3 letters that make a word.  [/quote]

We had ARC before Fundations and I refused to teach it. It was "look at the first letter and guess from the picture clue." No thanks. That's what poor readers do. I refuse to teach students how t guess. It's an awful habit to undo. We are not allowed to stray from our curriculum. We have a pacing guide and have to have unit assessments in within a few day window. We have frequent walk-throughs so not a lot of opportunity to do anything else. I do start beldjing after we get to the first vowel or two but not the Fundations tapping way. There is research to show it doesn't work for many students.[/quote]

Parent here -- I have a third grader who learned how to read this way and when the teacher above says it's an awful habit to undo, she is NOT kidding. My third grader is really, really struggling and STILL just guesses instead of trying to sound out words that she is not familiar with. I feel like kindergarten ruined reading for her and despite having an OG tutor, I don't know how long it will take for her to get there. Our school switched to Fundations this year, so my current Kindergartener is actually learning how to read the right way, it's so much better.[/quote]

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