How I Teach Reading

I will be honest, teaching reading is one of those things that I am constantly improving on. I am going to explain my journey with teaching reading and the resources I use to help the students learn how to read. 

When I went through my AMS Training, they had a language week, but they didn’t really talk about reading too, too much. It was mostly learning the letters using the Montessori sand paper letters and the moveable alphabet. That is mostly used in the Early Childhood classroom, though. Lots of reading is done through the cultural works, but it is those learning to read, that need the most practice. They also said to use the pink, blue, and green series, which I do use in my classroom. 

The first year I taught, there was a teacher in the classroom specifically for reading. That was really nice! They used textbook stories to read, which is not really Montessori, but it was a systematic way to get children to learn to read. 

Since the first three years of my teaching journey had a reading teacher, I just had to focus on the language works. We used the pink, blue, and green series in class for supplements, but if a child didn’t come in reading, it was hard for me to get them to read. Since there was a reading teacher, I was mostly focused on math and cultural and other language concepts. 

It wasn’t so helpful when I was learning to teach that I couldn’t teach reading, but after I changed schools I had to teach reading. 

I had first started at the next school as an Early Childhood/Kindergarten teacher. We used the BOB Books in order to have the kindergarten students, or other students that were ready to read, read. With that though, the amount of times that I had to repeat the word “the” was outrageous. I also went through the first 200 sight words with those students. We would also do the sand paper letters.

The next year when I opened the Lower Elementary at my current school, I was recommended  the reading series from FlyLeaf Publishing. I bought the whole reading series myself and printed all the follow up work from the internet for each book. This really helped students improve with their reading.

How I use the FlyLeaf Publishing reading series in my classroom: During silent reading time, the student reads the book they are currently on and then do one page of their reading work. In the early readers, there are 4 pages, but in the harder books, there are more days, typically about 5 days worth of work. That means most students finish one book/work set a week. Many read the book each time day, especially with the earlier reader. The “harder” set of books have many pages, so typically those students just read the book to me once. 

I didn’t do much with reading sounds besides pink (short vowel), blue (basic constant blends), and green series (vowel blends). I realized there were so many more combinations of letters in the English language (which I knew, but there weren’t direct works to do with that.) It wasn’t until I got the printable Waseca Reading Set, the colored cards, that I finally think that my “reading” curriculum is pretty set in stone. 

I really like the Waseca Reading Program because it truly isolates the sounds. The students do the paper work packet that comes with them. Each child completes one page a day. When they finish the packet, then they move to the next color. Most of the time the first graders come in with the knowledge of the red and orange drawers, and maybe even yellow-so they start on the green cards. They usually finish up to the gold in the middle of third grade. I like it because each child can go at their own pace with the leveled work. 

As for reading comprehension (besides the end of the day reading work with FlyLeaf Publishing), we do a reading group once or twice a week. I use the grade level reading pages from Super Teacher. The students read it aloud, taking turns reading one sentence at a time. Then, the students answer the questions as a group. The work also has a writing page at the end, so it is nice to have the extra writing practice. 

We also use RAZ Kids Reading from Reading A to Z. I have the students listen, read, and take the quiz of three books each day. This is good so that they can see bigger words and have the computer read to them. Then, the quizzes are good for the reading comprehension questions. 

I have also used SRA and SRA Skills at another school I worked at– not a fan of that at all. 

With the second and third year students, we also read chapter books and answer questions. I haven’t found any I would truly recommend, but I am trying to make a follow up packet that could be applied to any chapter book.

What I recommend for reading: 

FlyLeaf Publishing- It is great leveled reader that has many, many books. The follow up work actually gets super hard, but it is a great challenge. The books start simple and go through the whole alphabet as a review for the first years. 

Waseca Reading- The students complete one page daily and while it looks like just a work that is repetitive, it will drive home all of the sounds of the English language. 

I would enjoy hearing how you do reading in your classroom.