Nov 102009
 

SayIt-RhymeIt-SpellIt-LogoEmergent Readers and Struggling Readers Have Fun Learning and Discover Reading Success

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It is an engaging game, made in two levels, that helps emerging readers and struggling readers become familiar with words that follow a consonant-vowel-consonant (c-v-c) pattern. The reproducible worksheets binder can be used in conjunction with the board game, as a stand-alone program or supplement to another reading program. Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It Software offers picture representations of words as well as words without pictures for visual learners and students with developmental disabilities to reinforce the foundation and skills needed to begin reading and strengthen the reading skill process.

 

Playing the interactive board game or software game helps struggling learners develop phonological awareness. Students begin to understand individual sounds apart from words, how sounds form words, how words begin and end, and how to recognize parts and patterns of words. Once students recognize the parts and patterns of words and associate them with the letters of the alphabet, they begin to equate sounds with symbols. This is the beginning of reading. By playing these games, students improve their phonological awareness and learn to recognize, identify, spell, and rhyme c-v-c words with the most common letter patterns.

 

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It 1 & 2 both consist of a game board and 150 draw cards. The game board features 28 squares. Each square has an icon to represent one of the possible tasks to complete during the game. As a student lands on a square, he or she selects a draw card from the appropriate stack and completes the designated task: saying a word, rhyming a word, or spelling a word. Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It 2 progresses in difficulty from the first board game by using c-v-c-c and c-c-v-c short vowel word patterns.

 

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It is appropriate for a wide variety of classrooms, including specialized reading programs, language arts, resource, inclusive, and ESL classrooms. These easy-to-play games help students learn to read c-v-c,  c-v-c-c and c-c-v-c short vowel word pattern words and establish the foundation or reinforcement of reading skills for emergent readers, struggling readers, and students with specials needs and learning differences.

 

To encourage parental involvement and reinforcement of emerging reading skills at home, reproducible activities and a parent letter are included. These take-home activities provide an easy way for students to practice saying, rhyming, and spelling words.

 

Product Developed and Authored by Rosie Simms

 

Oct 292009
 

Relevant Life Skills Lessons for Struggling Readers and Students with Learning Differences

StudentwNewspaperKeeping middle school and high school students with learning differences or that are struggling readers engaged in practicing reading and writing skills is a familiar challenge to teachers. Explore Your Newspaper was created to motivate and engage these students to reinforce reading comprehension and writing skills, as well as introducing or reviewing the newspaper concept and relating it to a basic academic skill.

This comprehensive program includes lesson plans and activity sheets to help students learn about each section of a newspaper while they practice basic skills. Because of the many types of information in newspapers, including articles, charts, graphs, photographs, comics, and schedules, readers must use a variety of academic skills from several subjects, including reading, writing, math, and geography.

Each worksheet in the lesson includes clear, simple directions along with a visual icon to help students who struggle with reading. Many of the exercises involve situations that middle and high schools students will encounter in the future, such as finding an apartment, interpreting advertisements, and determining what to wear based on weather forecasts. Activities cover specific sections of the newspaper and integrate basic skills, such as locating necessary information, identifying facts and opinions, following a sequence when writing, placing information into categories, and identifying the meanings of abbreviations in classified ads. Most activities require students to find or cut out information from a newspaper and use that text to complete an activity, adding a hands-on component to the program.

Explore Your Newspaper is a flexible program designed to use either as a complete newspaper exploration program or as a fun basic skills supplement to any unit. The sections and most of the lessons can be completed in any order. Several lessons are designed to build on each other and should be taught in the suggested order. An index of skills is provided so that teachers can easily locate lessons that reinforce specific skills.

Because this program was designed for students with learning differences and struggling readers, the materials are already modified to their level of understanding and age appropriateness. Explore Your Newspaper is relevant to everyday life making the articles and activities meaningful and the lessons applicable to building and retaining basic life skills.

Oct 152009
 

WeAreTeachers announces a new microgrant, “Special Education: Individual Attention, Collective Impact,” sponsored by PCI Education. 

 

Share how your work, project or idea can make a positive impact for special education students.  All of the grant submissions will be published online, where members of the WeAreTeachers community will vote for their favorite project.  The 10 submissions that receive the most community votes will be awarded a $200 cash microgrant and a Flip Videoä camera to share the project in action.  Your project will inspire other teachers who collectively can make a difference in the lives of more students with special needs.

 

PCI-WAT-Microgrant-BlogGrant submissions will be accepted through Oct. 31st.  To apply for this grant online, visit www.weareteachers.com.  Voting will begin Nov. 3rd, when the submitted projects will be posted online for community review, and winners will be announced Nov. 19th.

 

The microgrant is part of a new partnership between PCI Education and WeAreTeachers, an online network that brings together teachers, learners and content in the education industry.  The partnership provides the WeAreTeachers community with special education expertise, by offering teachers access to community support, idea sharing, product recommendations, and grant opportunities.

 

Through the PCI Education home page on WeAreTeachers, special education teachers can connect with one another, share best practices and interact with one another, as well as with PCI Education, to create a classroom culture that is up-to-date with the latest and best in teaching techniques and products.

 

In addition, WeAreTeachers offers members the opportunity to rate PCI Education products to help colleagues make informed purchase decisions.  Teachers can write and share reviews and implementation recommendations on products they are using in their classrooms.  Each review provides members with points that can be redeemed for charity contributions, gift cards or other classroom supplies.

 

 To access the online community, visit www.weareteachers.com/web/pcieducation.