Let’s talk about the Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog reading strategies. I like to talk about these two strategies together because they go hand-in-hand. Keep reading to find out what I mean.

What is the Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog Reading Strategy?

Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog reading strategies are for children who have mastered the other Beanie Baby strategies. Sometimes children can try every strategy and still struggle to figure out the word. That is where Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog come in. 

Tryin’ Lion tells us to try a word. Ask yourself, “does this make sense?”

Skippy Frog tells us to say the first sound and then skip over the word. Hop back and read the sentence again.

Introducing the Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy

The reason for using Beanie Babies to help teach reading strategies is because children find it easier to remember the characters than just the name of a strategy. And with remembering the characters, children can then make the connection to the reading strategy. It’s a win-win!

I refer to each Beanie Baby as our “Reading Buddies.” Whenever I introduce a new reading buddy I follow this routine:

• Show students the actual Beanie Baby and introduce them by name.
• Explain the reading strategy that this particular Beanie Baby wants us to remember.
• Model using the strategy. I display an appropriately leveled text on our smartboard for this.
• Give children a reading buddy  “watch” to wear. This gets them excited and wanting to use their new strategy. You can see a picture of my son rocking the Eagle Eye watch below!

• Do a group activity that encourages children to try the new strategy.

Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy Activities

So now let’s talk about the kinds of activities we can do to help support the Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog reading strategies.  Here are some examples.

1. Using Context Clues to Complete the Sentence

Part of being able to “try a word that makes sense” is understanding context clues. With this activity, children read the sentence and then use the picture card that makes the most sense to complete it.

2. Fill in the Blank Activities

I love these sentence strips with one missing word. There is no one answer, so it allows children to think and be creative. The goal is to make sure that whatever word they write in the blank, makes sense within the sentence.

3. Hop the Word

This is a fun activity that gets kids up and moving while also working their brains! I place the lilly pads on the floor in a line to make a sentence. One word is covered by a frog. Children have to hop next to each word as they read it. When they get to the frog, they have to jump OVER it. Once they get to the end of the word they must go back and try to figure out the covered up word.

Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog Visuals

Providing visuals is a helpful tool for children. I like to hang up posters, provide desk plates, bookmarks, and more, to help children easily access our reading strategies.

Teaching Children to Use this Reading Strategy

When it comes time to start working on these strategies with your students, there are a few things you can do to guide them.

• Remind them to try all of their other strategies first
• Model getting stuck on the word and exhausting all other reading strategies
• Model trying a word and asking “does this make sense?”
• Use Skippy Frog to check your guess by reading to the end of the sentence and then going back to check your guess
• Do activities that help reinforce this new reading strategy

I typically follow the above at the start of our guided reading lessons. This provides an opportunity to remind children of important strategies, but it also gives me a chance to work closely with individual children.

2. Buddy Badges: When I catch students using their reading strategy, I give them a Buddy Badge. Buddy Badges go on a chain and they say “I was caught using Tryin’ Lion”. Children can wear these Buddy Badges during reading groups and reading time. Throughout the rest of the day, they have a place to hang them in our room.

3. Self-Checking Charts: Another way to incentivize students is by providing self-checking charts. These charts are to be completed and filled in by the students themselves. Whenever they catch themselves using a strategy, they color the reading buddy in.

What’s Next?

While working with children in small groups, make sure to collect data so you understand which children need more support, and which are ready to move forward.

It is imperative that you find a system to help you monitor and track reading and comprehension progress. This will help you determine the next steps and plan the appropriate reading lessons to help them grow.

Taking notes during one-on-one reading conferences doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be a matter of jotting down keywords or phrases.

For me, these are the main things I want to collect data on:

• The date, name, and level of the text they are reading at the time of the conference
• The strategies they are using independently (with or without success in deciphering the word).
• Specific decoding observations. Example: “Attempts to sound out words but struggling with blending the sounds.”
• Specific comprehension observations. Example: “Answers recall questions easily”
• Goals and next steps. Determine what you want to work on with this specific child in order to push them to the next reading level.

Here’s an example of the sheets I use to track this information.

The post Tryin’ Lion and Skippy Frog Reading Strategies appeared first on Mrs V's Chickadees.

Let’s talk about the Chunky Monkey reading strategy. Using Beanie Babies to help students remember key strategies is a great guided reading tool. Chunky Monkey teaches children how to break apart words to make them easier to decode. There’s a few ways to do this, so let’s get into it!

This is part five of a six-part blog series. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the other posts.

1. Tracking Words
2. Eagle Eye
3. Lips the Fish
4. Stretchy Snake

What is the Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy?

The Chunky Monkey reading strategy helps children break apart larger words. They look for “chunks” that are easier to read individually and then blend it with the rest of the word. Here are some examples of different ways you can use the Chunky Monkey reading strategy.

Introducing the Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy

The reason for using Beanie Babies to help teach reading strategies is because children find it easier to remember the characters than just the name of a strategy. And with remembering the characters, children can then make the connection to the reading strategy. It’s a win-win!

I refer to each Beanie Baby as our “Reading Buddies.” Whenever I introduce a new reading buddy I follow this routine:

• Show students the actual Beanie Baby and introduce them by name.
• Explain the reading strategy that this particular Beanie Baby wants us to remember. It would sound like this:

This is Chunky Monkey. Sometimes there are big words that are hard to read. Chunky Monkey reminds us to look for chunks in the word. Chunks are smaller words hiding inside bigger words.

• Model using the strategy. I display an appropriately leveled text on our smartboard for this.
• Give children a Chunky Monkey reading strategy “watch” to wear. This gets them excited and wanting to use their new strategy. You can see a picture of my son rocking the Eagle Eye watch below!

• Do a group activity that encourages children to try the new strategy.

Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy Activities

So now let’s talk about the kinds of activities we can do to help support the Chunky Monkey reading strategy.  Here are some examples.

1. Finding Smaller Words Withing Large Words

With this activity, children have to find a smaller word within the original word. I laminate these boards so that they can use dry-erase markers. This allows us to use these over and over again, and with a variety of guided reading groups.

2. Consonant Blends and Chunk

I love these banana puzzles for our phonics centers. It allows children to work with consonant blends while also working on breaking up a word.

3. Chunk the Digraphs

These no-prep worksheets are a great way for children to practice breaking up words by separating the digraph from the rest of the word.

4. Compound Words

These cards are a perfect guided reading warm-up. We use these to practice breaking up compound words.

5. Word Endings

We use no-prep worksheets to help identify word endings. This helps children practice breaking up the word so that it is easier to decode.

Chunky Monkey Visuals

Providing visuals is a helpful tool for children. I like to hang up posters, provide desk plates, bookmarks, and more, to help children easily access our reading strategies.

Teaching Children to Use this Reading Strategy

When it comes time to start working on this strategy with your students, there are a few things you can do to guide them.

• Remind them that big words don’t have to be scary, because we can often find smaller chunks within them
• Model getting stuck on the word and using the Chunky Monkey reading strategy to decode it
• Have children ask themselves, “Does this word make sense?”
• Do activities that help reinforce this new reading strategy

I typically follow the above at the start of our guided reading lessons. This provides an opportunity to remind children of important strategies, but it also gives me a chance to work closely with individual children.

2. Buddy Badges: When I catch students using their reading strategy, I give them a Buddy Badge. Buddy Badges go on a chain and they say “I was caught using Chunky Monkey”. Children can wear these Buddy Badges during reading groups and reading time. Throughout the rest of the day, they have a place to hang them in our room.

3. Self-Checking Charts: Another way to incentivize students is by providing self-checking charts. These charts are to be completed and filled in by the students themselves. Whenever they catch themselves using a strategy, they color the reading buddy in.

What’s Next?

While working with children in small groups, make sure to collect data so you understand which children need more support, and which are ready to move forward.

It is imperative that you find a system to help you monitor and track reading and comprehension progress. This will help you determine the next steps and plan the appropriate reading lessons to help them grow.

Taking notes during one-on-one reading conferences doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be a matter of jotting down keywords or phrases.

For me, these are the main things I want to collect data on:

• The date, name, and level of the text they are reading at the time of the conference
• The strategies they are using independently (with or without success in deciphering the word).
• Specific decoding observations. Example: “Attempts to sound out words but struggling with blending the sounds.”
• Specific comprehension observations. Example: “Answers recall questions easily”
• Goals and next steps. Determine what you want to work on with this specific child in order to push them to the next reading level.

Here’s an example of the sheets I use to track this information.

The post Chunky Monkey Reading Strategy appeared first on Mrs V's Chickadees.

Let’s talk about the Lips the Fish reading strategy. Using Beanie Babies to help students remember key strategies is a great guided reading tool. Lips the Fish is a key strategy for your new(ish), readers. It involves teaching children to get their lips ready to make the first sound of the tricky word. Let’s get into it!

This is part three of a six-part blog series. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out parts 1 and 2.

• One to One Correspondence
• Eagle Eye: Using Picture Clues

What is the Lips the Fish Reading Strategy?

Lips the Fish reading strategy is about getting your lips ready to make the first sound. This reading strategy works really well with new readers who have a solid understanding of letter sounds. This works especially well when paired with the Eagle Eye reading strategy. Children should practice looking at the illustrations, and then the first letter of the word they are trying to decode. When paired with appropriately leveled texts, this can be very beneficial in figuring out the tricky word.

Here’s an example of a book I use with children when I first introduce the Lips the Fish reading strategy.

The combination of Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish can make decoding tricky words a breeze! With this introductory text, children have the Lips the Fish image above the word they should try to decode. In some cases, Eagle Eye is enough to help children read the word. However, there are instances where a picture can possibly represent more than one word. For example, looking at the images below, if children are only using picture clues, they may mistake the gorilla for a monkey. However, if they start to make the initial sound, they can self-check themselves and know that it is not a monkey.

Introducing the Lips the Fish Reading Strategy

The reason for using Beanie Babies to help teach reading strategies is because children find it easier to remember the characters than just the name of a strategy. And with remembering the characters, children can then make the connection to the reading strategy. It’s a win-win!

I refer to each Beanie Baby as our “Reading Buddies.” Whenever I introduce a new reading buddy I follow this routine:

• Show students the actual Beanie Baby and introduce them by name.
• Explain the reading strategy that this particular Beanie Baby wants us to remember. It sounds something like this:

“I want to introduce you to our next reading buddy. This is Lips the Fish. Lips the Fish reminds us to look at the first letter of the word we are trying to figure out so we can make that sound. She tells us to get our lips ready.”

• Model using the strategy. I display an appropriately leveled text on our smartboard for this.
• Give children a Lips the Fish reading strategy “watch” to wear. This gets them excited and wanting to use their new strategy. You can see a picture of my son rocking the Eagle Eye watch below!

• Do a group activity that encourages children to try the new strategy.

Lips the Fish Reading Strategy Activities

So now let’s talk about the kinds of activities we can do to help support the Lips the Fish reading strategy.  Here are some examples of Lips the Fish reading strategy activities.

1. Initial Sounds in Words with Pictures

Find pictures that could be perceived as two different words. For example, garbage or trash, jet or plane, bunny or rabbit.

If you haven’t taught children about Eagle Eye yet, make sure to check out this post before you go any further.

Below is an example of a guided reading warm-up that I use while teaching about Lips the Fish. Children have to look at the picture to help them figure out the word. However, the images on the cards can be perceived as something else, so it is imperative that they self-check by using the initial sound.

2. Using Lips the Fish in Sentences

Here is another Lips the Fish reading strategy activity that I like to use in small groups. It’s the same concept as the above activity, but slightly harder. Children will read a sentence and use both the picture clue and the initial sound to figure out the tricky word.

Lips the Fish Visuals

Providing visuals is a helpful tool for children. I like to hang up posters, provide desk plates, bookmarks, and more, to help children easily access our reading strategies.

Teaching Children to Use this Reading Strategy

When it comes time to start working on this reading strategy with your students, there are a few things you can do to guide them.

• Have children take a picture walk prior to reading
• Remind children to look for the pattern in the text
• Encourage them to track words on the page
• Review Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish
• Model getting stuck on the word that doesn’t match the pattern and using the illustrations to figure it out. Check your guess by now using the initial sound of the unknown word.
• Have children ask themselves, “Does this word make sense?”

I typically follow the above at the start of our guided reading lessons. This provides an opportunity to remind children of important strategies, but it also gives me a chance to work closely with individual children.

2. Buddy Badges: When I catch students using their reading strategy, I give them a Buddy Badge. Buddy Badges go on a chain and they say “I was caught using Lips the Fish”. Children can wear these Buddy Badges during reading groups and reading time. Throughout the rest of the day, they have a place to hang them in our room.

3. Self-Checking Charts: Another way to incentivize students is by providing self-checking charts. These charts are to be completed and filled in by the students themselves. Whenever they catch themselves using a strategy, they color the reading buddy in.

What’s Next?

While working with children in small groups, make sure to collect data so you understand which children need more support, and which are ready to move forward.

It is imperative that you find a system to help you monitor and track reading and comprehension progress. This will help you determine the next steps and plan the appropriate reading lessons to help them grow.

Taking notes during one-on-one reading conferences doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be a matter of jotting down keywords or phrases.

For me, these are the main things I want to collect data on:

• The date, name, and level of the text they are reading at the time of the conference
• The strategies they are using independently (with or without success in deciphering the word).
• Specific decoding observations. Example: “Attempts to sound out words but struggling with blending the sounds.”
• Specific comprehension observations. Example: “Answers recall questions easily”
• Goals and next steps. Determine what you want to work on with this specific child in order to push them to the next reading level.

Here’s an example of the sheets I use to track this information.

The post Lips the Fish Reading Strategy: Using the Initial Sound appeared first on Mrs V's Chickadees.

Let’s talk about Eagle Eye as a reading strategy. Using Beanie Babies to help students remember key strategies is a great guided reading tool. Eagle Eye is a key strategy for your new readers. It involves teaching children to utilize picture clues when they can not decode a word. Let’s get into it!

This is part of a 6 part series. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out Part 1: How to Teach One to One Correspondance 

What is the Eagle Eye Reading Strategy?

The Eagle Eye reading strategy is about using picture clues to figure out the unknown word. This reading strategy works really well with new and non-readers because their texts allow for it. They typically have only a few words per page, made up of mostly sight words, and follow a pattern. Each page typically has one “tricky” word on it. That is where using the pictures comes in.

Here’s an example of two pages from a book where Eagle Eye would help children figure out the word that doesn’t match the pattern.

On each page of this book, it says “Get the (insert ingredient).” Both words “get” and “the” are sight words, but they also follow a pattern. Guided reading texts for new readers often follow a similar layout.

With the understanding of the pattern, and the ability to use picture clues, they can read this book. The picture clues help them to figure out the tricky words, such as “tomato” and “pepper.”

Introducing Eagle Eye Reading Strategy

The reason I love using Beanie Babies to help teach reading strategies is because children find it easier to remember the characters than just the name of a strategy. And with remembering the characters, children can then make the connection to the reading strategy. It’s a win-win!

I refer to each Beanie Baby as our “Reading Buddies.” Whenever I introduce a new reading buddy I follow this routine:

• Show students the actual Beanie Baby and introduce them by name.
• Explain the reading strategy that this particular Beanie Baby wants us to remember.  In this case, it would sound like this:
  • “I want to introduce you to one of my reading buddies, his name is Eagle Eye. Eagle Eye helps us remember to look at the pictures when we get stuck on a tricky word. He tells us to use our eyes to look at the illustrations.”
• Model using the strategy. I display an appropriately leveled text on our smartboard for this.
• Give children an Eagle Eye reading strategy “watch” to wear. This gets them excited and wanting to use their new strategy.

• Do a group activity that encourages children to try the new strategy.

Eagle Eye Reading Strategy Activities

So now let’s talk about the kinds of activities we can do to help support the Eagle Eye reading strategy. We want children to understand that illustrations are there for a reason. They help give meaning to the story. They can also help clarify words for us. Here are some examples of Eagle Eye reading strategy activities.

1. Picture Walks

Picture walks are when children flip through the book prior to reading and examine the illustrations. This is a helpful strategy for a few reasons. It helps to activate background knowledge. Children can become familiarized with the topic of the text prior to reading. It can also act as a way to engage and elicit excitement for the book.

2. Matching Pictures with Words

Any activities that have children practice matching pictures to words will help solidify the importance of picture clues.

3. Practice Sentences

Have children practice sentences where one word can be figured out by looking at a picture. This is a great warm-up activity idea for guided reading groups.

Visuals

Providing visuals is a helpful tool for children. I like to hang up posters, provide desk plates, bookmarks, and more, to help children easily access our reading strategies.

Teaching Children to Use the Reading Strategy

When it comes time to start working on this strategy with your students, there are a few things you can do to guide them.

• Teach children to recognize the pattern in the text
• Take picture walks
• Encourage them to track words on the page
• Model getting stuck on the word that doesn’t match the pattern and using the illustrations to figure it out
• Practice looking at words next to pictures

I typically follow the above at the start of our guided reading lessons. This provides an opportunity to remind children of important strategies, but it also gives me a chance to work closely with individual children.

2. Buddy Badges: When I catch students using their reading strategy, I give them a Buddy Badge. Buddy Badges go on a chain and they say “I was caught using Eagle Eye”. Children can wear these Buddy Badges during reading groups and reading time. Throughout the rest of the day, they have a place to hang them in our room.

3. Self-Checking Charts: Another way to incentivize students is by providing self-checking charts. These charts are to be completed and filled in by the students themselves. Whenever they catch themselves using a strategy, they color the reading buddy in.

What’s Next?

While working with children in small groups, make sure to collect data so you understand which children need more support, and which are ready to move forward.

It is imperative that you find a system to help you monitor and track reading and comprehension progress. This will help you determine the next steps and plan the appropriate reading lessons to help them grow.

Taking notes during one-on-one reading conferences doesn’t have to be difficult. It can be a matter of jotting down keywords or phrases.

For me, these are the main things I want to collect data on:

• The date, name, and level of the text they are reading at the time of the conference
• The strategies they are using independently (with or without success in deciphering the word).
• Specific decoding observations. Example: “Attempts to sound out words but struggling with blending the sounds.”
• Specific comprehension observations. Example: “Answers recall questions easily”
• Goals and next steps. Determine what you want to work on with this specific child in order to push them to the next reading level.

Here’s an example of the sheets I use to track this information.

The post Eagle Eye Reading Strategy: Using Picture Clues appeared first on Mrs V's Chickadees.

Teaching students how to track words from left to right and use one-to-one correspondence is the first step in teaching them to read. By providing them with the ability to read the correct number of words on a page, we are preventing omissions and additions to sentences. This is the first step you should be taking with non-readers. Welcome to my Teaching Children How to Read Blog Series. This is your first stop!

When I first started teaching kindergarten, I quickly realized that I was the sole person responsible for teaching these children how to read. And that’s when the panic set in! Where do you even start? Where is my step-by-step manual? Guess what? There is none! So I buckled down and read every blog post, looked at every teaching manual, and worked my behind off to figure this all out. I’m putting everything I learned and put into practice into a series of blog posts. I’ll break down each strategy and show you how to teach it and examples of ways to practice it.

What is One to One Correspondence?

One to one correspondence is when children say the same number of words that are printed on the page. They understand that printed text and spoken word have a connection.

How Do We Teach Children About One to One Correspondence?

The best way to help our new readers practice tracking words is to have them touch or put a finger under each word as they say it.

To introduce this concept, we practice counting the words on the page. If there are 4 words on the page, then we should only be saying 4 words. Once children understand that connection, we practice touching each word as we say it.

One way to make this fun and engaging is to introduce “Reading Fingers.” Provide a prop to encourage them to track each word. I personally love to use witch fingers as a reminder to touch each word. Eyeball rings are another great option!

Practicing One to One Correspondence in Guided Reading Groups

Small groups and guided reading are a great time to practice tracking words. Using hands-on activities before you jump into reading is the perfect way to practice this skill. I love these Tracking Word Cards.

These cards come in sets that each follow a pattern. There are also picture clues for the words that are not sight words. This allows children to focus solely on practicing one to one correspondence, without having to worry about decoding unknown words. These cards work great for non-readers and children who are reading on a level AA-D.

The dots underneath each word are a great visual to help children with one to one correspondence. Watch as one of my students uses these cards during a guided reading warm-up.

This strategy should be taught first to your non-readers before any other strategy. You can (and should) teach this while teaching also teaching phonics skills (FREE Phonics Pacing Guide HERE).

If you’re looking for some activities to help with this strategy, make sure to grab this resource now!

Up Next-Using Picture Clues

The post How to Teach One to One Correspondence appeared first on Mrs V's Chickadees.

 Eagle Eye teaches students to look at the picture clues to help figure out the word. This skill is necessary for students with limited letter sound knowledge. It allows them to use illustrations to support their reading.

Lips the Fish teaches students to look at the first letter and get their lips ready to make the sound. This skill is great for children who have learned their letter sounds individually but aren’t quite ready to start blending them.
This is an important skill because it builds upon Eagle Eye. For example, if the tricky word is “plane” and they look at the picture to help them, they might say “airplane.” However, Lips the Fish encourages them to use the initial consonant to correctly decode the word.
If you’re looking for more ways to incorporate Lips the Fish into your groups, check this out.

Chunky Monkey teaches students to look for chunks in the word. This skill is great for students who are blending sounds in CVC words and showing an interest in sounding out longer words. For example, they may not know the word “small” but if they can read “all” and add the “sm” sound to the front, they can now read the word in its entirety. 

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The 10 Best Gingerbread Man Books

The Gingerbread Boy

The Library Gingerbread Man

The Gingerbread Cowboy

The Gingerbread Man Loose in School

The Gingerbread Pirates

The Gingerbread Bear 

The Gingerbread Man

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This blog post contains affiliate links. You can read my entire disclosure policy here.

 

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