Free Websites for Nonfiction Texts

I am always looking for nonfiction texts for my students. We have a nice book room at school, but it still seems like there are never enough nonfiction texts. At times, I may not have a large amount of time to start a leveled reader, so a nonfiction reading passage is perfect! Reading shorter articles helps students to increase their fluency, gain confidence, and keep their interest.
I have found three wonderful websites that are FREE and loaded with nonfiction texts.

My absolute favorite website for this is Read Works.  It has reading comprehension lessons and texts, which come with questions for Common Core. The best part, (other than being free!) is that you can download the question sets, even editing them if you desire! They have them organized by grade level, a skill/strategy, and a Lexile level. Pick an article, which you can search for by title, subject, level, or skill/strategy, and print away....


Another site that I love is Reading and Writing Project. It comes from Columbia College. Most of these articles are for 5th - 8th grade, however there are ones for younger grades. These are perfect for integrating with social studies and science. Also great for those kids who need to be challenged and those who are self-motivated. :)

The Smithsonian has a wonderful website where you can set up an account for your class and they can read nonfiction information for FREE! It is called the Tween TribuneThe pictures are amazing and will have the students wanting to find out more about the subjects they read. There are twice a day news articles that are Lexile leveled for K-12. Critical thinking questions are self-scoring, weekly lesson plans and a weekly video. Amazing. I want to read to get on this website and explore! It is THAT good!
Enjoy!!

What's the Difference...Phonics vs. Phonemic Awareness

Over the course of my time in education, I have run into an issue for many teaching reading. Many people do not know there is a difference between phonics and phonemic awareness, thinking they are the same. They are not, there is a difference in the two. Students need both parts in order to have a solid foundation in reading.  Many people get the phonics part and how to break it down for students. However, the phonemic awareness part is what is confusing for some.

What is the difference?

Phonics

What is it?

Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds. It involves how speech sounds correspond to written letters or letter combinations.  ***Phonics involves the ears and eyes.***

Why is phonics important?
The majority of the information conveyed by letters concerns sounds. Children need to be able to connect letter sounds and blends together in order to make a word. Reading fluently is so important for all students in order to be successful readers. Fluency cannot take place until children are able to read accurately, and this depends on the accurate use of the information conveyed by letters. Skilled, fluent readers do not guess, they read.

How should phonics be taught?
Phonics instruction should begin by teaching students to convert letters to sounds, then blending the sounds into words. As the children progress, pairs or groups of letters are then taught, then blending those sounds into words. Finally, being taught the rules and their exceptions ("special" rules: e.g., Silent e, Vowel Team, etc.) should be taught. Although, as you are teaching the children blends, you may find that you are already teaching them a few rules.

Phonemic Awareness

What is it?

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words and understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds. Phonemic awareness does not involve words in print. ***Phonemic awareness involves the ears.***

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made up of phonemes or individual units of sound that influence the meaning of the word. What is a phoneme? It is a single "unit" of sound that has a meaning in any language. Phonemes are the basic building blocks for spoken words. In English, there are an infinite number of possible words, but there are only 44 phonemes. To make new words, we simply delete or rearrange the phonemes - pat becomes sat when the phoneme /p/ is replaced with the phoneme /s/, and deleting the phoneme /t/ from tan leaves you with the word an.

Why is phonemic awareness important?
Phonemic awareness improves students' word reading and comprehension. It also helps students to learn to spell. Instruction most benefits children in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade. Strong phonemic awareness, when used to segment and blend words helps children to increase their abilities to decode and comprehend what they are reading.

How should phonemic awareness be taught?
When beginning to teach phonemic awareness, it is very important for students to understand that this is not phonics. Beginning at the meta-cognitive level (thinking about one's thinking) the students will be counting the sounds, not the letters, in a word. (What is meta-cognitive? It is the thinking about one's thinking. The processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one's understanding and performance.) When working with a visual learner, it is extremely helpful for the student to use some type of manipulative (e.g., blending card, colored blocks, boxes, etc.) to visually represent words, syllables, or phonemes. For students who are more hands on, kinesthetic learner, tapping, clapping, jumping, hand motions (moving hands together for blending, moving hands apart for segmenting.) can be extremely beneficial for the student.

It is very important for the instruction to be age appropriate and on the level of the child (Tier 3 older students may need to be taught phonemic awareness.)

New Blog!

For awhile now, I have wanted a blog that I was able to use. I tried so many times to do it myself, but the reality is, I got overwhelmed and frustrated. Then my friend Tracy Smith, from Smith's Safari Adventures in Teaching told me about Alexis from Laugh Eat Learn. She has a wonderful portfolio for you to look over and see what you like. Alexis is absolutely A-MAZ-ING!
I am so excited about using my blog more and finding out HOW to use it!  It will certainly be a learn as you go process! Follow me to see what we are working on. There is always something taking place in our room.  :)

Valentine's Day Math

It's hard to believe that Valentine's Day is right around the corner! It seems that we just had Christmas and now we are getting ready to celebrate this day with our students.  I mean, who doesn't love Valentine's Day?!?

Since I know kid's love the day at school, mainly for the candy, I made a little Valentine's Day math unit.

Valentine's Day Math Activities

Snow Day (Or Ice Day....Either Way It's a Day to Play!)

We had our first "snow" day today. Although, it was more like an ice day.  But, HEY!, I'll take a day off either way.  Knowing how crazy it can be when we go back, it is always nice to have a little writing activity for the children to do.  Here is a FREEBIE for you to grab and use!

Snow Day Writing FREEBIE!

Enjoy!  

Valentine's Day Math Unit and Freebie!

It's hard to believe that Valentine's Day is right around the corner! It can be such a fun day, IF you are organized and have enough to keep those students engaged. Our principal was always great about giving the students to have some time to exchange Valentine's with one another. To make it a fun DAY, I always tried to plan activities that were based on our learned skill. 

Word problems seem to be difficult for students, so what better way to gain more practice than to do a cute math lesson?! Better yet, this is FREE on my TPT store!
Valentine's Day Math FREEBIE!

 If you would like to purchase the unit, it is also on my TPT store:
Valentine's Day Math Unit

Greek and Latin Roots

One of my favorite skills to teach are Latin and Greek roots. After having my daughter take etymology, I wished that I had that when I was in school! Wow! My eyes were opened through studying with her.  

Fourth and fifth graders need to be taught Greek and Latin roots so they can build their understanding of words and the history of words. Students increase their ability to decipher unfamiliar words, improve their spelling capabilities, allowing for students to be better with vocabulary, have stronger word attack strategies and be stronger readers.

This is a graphic organizer booklet that I use for Latin, Greek, and Anglo Saxon roots. 

Students are usually familiar with Anglo Saxon roots, however often they do not know that they are Anglo Saxon. So, reviewing is a good way to start before jumping into Latin roots.  You can find this on my TPT store at A Southern Classroom.

Another way to teach these roots is to use index cards. Green cards for Greek, lavender for Latin, yellow for Anglo Saxon, and pink for Prefixes.

Anglo Saxon Prefixes

Latin Roots - A "L" is placed on the right side, with the definition of the word on the left.
Examples of words that have the root in it are then below.

Index cards on a ring for quick reference.

I do like this idea, however since I am working with Tier 3 students and have a very limited amount of time, I have found this to be a little more time consuming. Plus, it does take some organization. When you have limited space as I do in my "classroom", it is difficult to be organized. 

My little classroom.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! A three day weekend is around the corner!

My Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Back in the spring, I started a Teachers Pay Teachers store. I was doing great making new curriculum for the reading centers. However, with the move, I had to stop. There just was not enough time, or energy to keep up. Now that the holidays are over, there are not any more boxes to unpack, and it seems that the kids (and husband) are functioning and surviving, I am going to start my store back up.
Since I am now an instructional specialist, I have had to come up with a few forms to keep myself organized. Here is a sheet that I use for conferences with parents. It really helps keep all the information in one place, allowing me to not shuffle around during the conference. The best part is, it is FREE!!

RTI Conference Sheet


Check out my store at:
A Southern Classroom

New Beginnings

Hello! Welcome to my blog! I plan on sharing information that you can use in your classroom. As educators, we do not have time to search for good resources, so we need to share! If at any time you have something to share, post it.  Everyone will be very thankful!

I am an educator of 10 years, who has taught in Virginia and Tennessee, both west and middle. I currently went to from the classroom to being an interventionist, an uncharted territory for me. However, I absolutely love it! The school that I work at is amazing, the people who work there love their job and the children. God truly was looking out for me when he gave me this position. I only hope that I can be the educator that I am needed to be to the students that have been placed before me.