Each week my students are growing and changing so much but this week was different for some reason. Each morning after breakfast we have baggie centers that are review games from things we’ve learned. I try to challenge the students with new bags of harder things to do. They’ve been very brave and tackled them with excitement. This week they started tapping out more words in the word bags and their excitement was contagious. They were reading words! In the past some could read the words but it was more a memorizing thing, not identifying the actual sounds as part of the word. But this week that all changed. They were master tappers of words and then racing over to tell my assistant and me the word. That memory will last with me a lifetime, the first time some of them realized they actually can read, without me there by their side coaching them, but instead they were coaching each other. Hopefully they will keeping growing and growing. First grade is around the corner!
(Ta’shae practicing the beginning sounds of words with a snowman match)

(Skei and Ar’quavious practicing finding rhyming pairs, these two students actually were looking at the letters to make sure they were the right family!)

Diamonte so proud he just read his word!

Goumana practicing syllable sound sorting. Finding which words have 1, 2,or 3 syllables.

Ke’Amoni tapping out the word yes. She’s an expert tapper!

Can’t you see the excitement for this one! Ar’quavious just tapped “had” and then yelled, “it’s HAD!” priceless!

Happy Friday!