Jayne worked hard this session. We began the lesson with a review of High Frequency words that she missed or had to self-correct on our previous assessment. She said each word, wrote it on a white erase board and then repeated the word again before moving on to the next word. She was directed to spell the word out loud as she wrote it to reinforce the spelling and help with automatic recall. Graphically similar words are tricky for first graders. For example – while reading they often mistake “run” for “ran” or “in” for “on”. In addition, reversals of “was” for “saw” are also fairly common. I am encouraging Jayne to slow down, point as she reads, and ask herself if the word “makes sense” or “sounds right”. She brought the word ring home for extra practice.

To further reinforce these HFW (High Frequency Words) we used our whiteboards to play tic tac toe. For example, I would use “in” to represent the X and she would use “on” to represent O and we played as you normally would in tic tac toe. This reinforced her HFW’s in a fun way! She really enjoyed this and asked to borrow the whiteboard so she could do this activity with her family.

We revisited the text, “Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type”. Jayne reread the text and then retold the story using key details. She then did a sequencing activity that included identifying missing punctuation.

A new book, “Puddle Pug”, was introduced. After reading, Jayne did a story retell with a graphic organizer. Much work in first grade centers around identifying characters, setting, and events using key details. Retelling a story with key details is an early measure of comprehension and first grade reading standards 1RL1.2, 1RL1.3 and 1RL3.7 all have to do with retelling and using key details. Jayne is a very quick study and did well.