Fun, standards-based and age-appropriate activities and resources to help you plan smart for your guided reading groups.
Work on letter identification and visual discrimination with these alphabet sheets. Here is a set of free letter worksheets for students to highlight the letter and name it. I would use these letter sheets whenever a student was really struggling to name a specific letter. Most often, it was a quick activity we did during…
Work on naming letters with a simple alphabet game for kindergarten. Print this free pirate-themed treasure quest card game to practice naming the letters of the alphabet. Since I like to play games in my small groups during guided reading time, this one is definitely in the rotation when it comes to working on recognizing…
Go on an alphabet search and play I-Spy. Here is a free naming letters activity for kindergarten that encourages students to find and name letters in the alphabet. Playing I spy is fun and can be adapted for the classroom. This printable activity has students use a magnifying glass to look for miniscule letters on…
My students need to know sight words. They are a key step in the reading process. They aren’t the end-all-be-all, but they do play an important role in learning how to read in kindergarten. Here is one mini-lesson I do – I call it a warm-up activity – with my guided reading groups. Let me…
Learning to read CVC words is key to reading success in kindergarten. Learning to rhyme in addition to blending onsets and rime plays a key role in learning to read too. Here are some quick tools I’ve developed to work on these skills in my small group teaching sessions. I made these rhyming books to…
Looking through favorite games I’ve used in my guided reading groups, I found this free race car reading activity. I should totally add it to this list of games you can play in the classroom using race cars! Normally I would use this nonsense words activity with my groups once they were able to blend cvc…
Use simple hand motions and a basic office supply tool to help teach kindergarteners how to sound out words. You’ll be surprised just how well they learn to both segment and blend sounds on their own with practice. When it comes to growing readers and writers, and growing up writers who will attempt to sound…
Work on beginning reading skills with a fun building block activity. This free onset and rime activity is perfect for kindergartners to build CVC words using word families and mini Jenga-style building blocks. To build strong readers in kindergarten, we need to ditch the worksheets. We need to actively learn how to read by: reading…
Let’s teach how to rhyme with these rhyming activities for kindergarten. Here are 8 free rhyming activities you can use with your kindergarten students in guided reading groups so they can learn how to hear and identify rhyming words. Teaching kindergartners to hear rhyming words I once thought that rhyming was just something that kinders…
Do you find yourself needing more time to teach everything we’re supposed to? Yeah, me too. One of the ways I felt better about using my time (and was able to be more productive) was to teach in small groups. I didn’t just teach the same lesson to multiple groups – while that would’ve saved…
Learning how to read means learning lots of intertwining skills – like beginning sounds. Here is my list of my top teaching printables and favorite free resources that I used this year in my guided reading groups. Let me share why I use them and how you can use them in your classroom too. How and why I use these…
Keeping higher readers in kindergarten challenged appropriately doesn’t mean more work, or even more {{uuugh}} worksheets. Far from it! In our classroom it means working on the next level of skills or working more in-depth. Here is one example of a game we played in our guided reading groups to help higher readers stay challenged….
Keep fun reading tools on hand to encourage kindergarten readers. Here are my must-have reading tools that are fun and were used regularly! Over the years I’ve changed what I’ve kept on hand in at my teacher table for guided reading. But, I’ve always liked to keep manipulatives we use regularly on hand as well…
I like working smart and one way I found to do that was by making sets of handy charts to use during guided groups. You can do this too – using your favorite materials! For my kindergarten classes – with a wide range of non-readers to second grade reading levels, that included working from the alphabet to learning…
When it comes to shopping at the Dollar Tree, I’m always looking for ways to keep the fun in standards-based kindergarten activities. Here are six activities that are perfect to use in kindergarten that makes it really inexpensive and still engaging to teach reading skills. These activities cover starting with the alphabet, to sight words to…
Simple is my style. So when you find a game or tool that is simple and can be used for many things – it’s a keeper in my book. One of my favorite examples is a game called “flashcard flash.” It only takes 3 colored pieces of craft foam or construction paper and you’re set…
Practice ending sounds while teaching kindergarten readers in small groups. Here are my favorite free ending sounds activities for kindergarten. During my guided reading sessions, I usually like to plan a warm-up activity that works on a skill my kindergartners need. Sometimes that’s working on alphabet identification, isolating beginning sounds, or even segmenting and blending…
Using fun phonics games and reading activities make guided reading groups easier. Here’s a new blending cvc words with short vowels activity I created to use to help prepare students for Dibels and become more fluid readers. Phonics games are more fun when they are interactive – how much more interactive can you get than…
Teaching reading skills through games now helps make up half of my guided reading group instruction time. This is a big shift in the way I’ve structured my reading group instruction, but it gives me the opportunity to practice individual skills through focused word work, for example, and then tie them into practical application the…
We teach so many different skills to develop young readers. Here is my list of my top teaching alphabet identification printables and favorite free resources used this year in my guided reading groups. These have helped me focus on specific skills to teach how to read and meet student needs. Alphabet identification in kindergarten I use…
Accomplish kindergarten word work Common Core standards with manipulative learning. Playdough, magnets, and dry erase markers give kindergarten students the repeated practice they need to get proficient at segmenting, blending and substituting sounds at any position in a cvc word. Word work won’t feel boring when you use manipulatives, it’ll feel more like play. In…