No kidding on the absences! And add in the days when we get off schedule for whatever reason. If you plan to see kids every day, you know you’re going to get those kids who are missing in action every single time that they do show up.
Even three minutes, if it's daily! Practicing something daily for three minutes gets a much better yield than twice a week for 15 minutes. For this reason, I try to see every student for about seven minutes during small group time instead of 15 minutes twice a week. Especially at this age because a lot of what we teach can be practiced quickly!
Totally agree - if we are only seeing students 2x/week for 15 minutes, what happens when a student is absent? Frequent, shorter sessions are the best way to go.
Thank you for this!! It helps me so much to hear the details about how to set up this time of the day. I feel more confident now about getting this going in my own classroom!
Of all the new routines I learned from you last school year, this is the one I am most excited to implement this year - and our master schedule looks like it will fit in perfectly right after lunch for about 30 minutes - not as long as your 45 minute block, but I will make it work!
I am intrigued by your letter name picture clues and how they are not necessarily words that actually begin with the letter (picture of an elbow for the letter Ll, a picture of an envelope for the letter Nn). At first this seemed counterintuitive, but the more I thought about it, I realized that the focus is on the word we say for each letter in order to identify the letter's name. Was that your thinking? I am wondering also if at some point you begin focusing on letter sound with your intervention kids, and when you do that.
Is this intervention time also used for when you do your DIBELS testing with all students? I seem to recall some other assessments you shared videos of with all of your students - was it whole word reading? Or do I remember some nonsense word assessing?
Thank you for the detailed explanation of how you return from lunch. 😍 It’s so true that with 25+ kindergartners, one needs a plan. I’m going to make my map!
I love it when you show up and start asking questions! So, at first, starting on about the third day of school when students are fairly settled in their resting spots, interventions are all about letter names. Some researchers and teachers feel that letter names are not that important, at the beginning of the year, compared to letter sounds. They might say focus on letter sounds. But when I watch any video I make, I mentioning letter names all over the place and if these are not a part of students' vocabulary then they are going to miss a whole lot of what I'm saying. Letter names are important vocabulary in kindergarten! The pictures on my big alphabet cards are related to the SOUND of the letter, not the NAME of the letter. So the clues during intervention time need to be about the NAME of the letter since that is the focus. Also, it might help to think of it this way--some letter names that I'm teaching during whole group with this associated picture are not sticking with these kids so I'm going to try something different (tier two). Year after year, with my phonics scope and sequence and my letter name interventions, almost all students know almost all letter names by December. In January, I use intervention time for whatever is needed for each individual student. It might be letter names still, it might be sounds, it might be blending, it might be numbers, etc. But it is ALWAYS letter names August-December. (I suppose that if, miracle of all miracles, I only got five students who needed to learn their letters instead of the usual 15, I might do something besides letter names before December). Yes, I usually do DIBELS progress monitoring during this time once a week. Progress monitoring isn't about progress monitoring (I already know their progress), but more about teaching them how to do each particular subtest. I present an item, they say it wrong, I mark it wrong, and THEN I QUICKLY TEACH THEM WHAT THE ANSWER SHOULD BE. I also teach them to be brave enough to answer and to answer quickly and to not talk to me at all during this time (the clock is running, as you know). They eventually get it and when mid-year testing comes along they know how to do each subtest because we practiced them once a week the past three months. Yes, I do their actual mid-year testing during this time since the room is fairly quiet and students know not to bother me during this time. I let them--and encourage them--to bother me, if need be, during centers. Yes, I definitely used this time to review CVC word reading prior to end-of-year testing and to practice whole word reading before end-of-year testing. So happy to hear that you got your intervention time into your schedule! We'll be in touch!
Hi Amy! So glad to hear it was helpful! I hope you give it a try and tweak it so that it works well for you and your students. Let me know how it goes.
No kidding on the absences! And add in the days when we get off schedule for whatever reason. If you plan to see kids every day, you know you’re going to get those kids who are missing in action every single time that they do show up.
Even three minutes, if it's daily! Practicing something daily for three minutes gets a much better yield than twice a week for 15 minutes. For this reason, I try to see every student for about seven minutes during small group time instead of 15 minutes twice a week. Especially at this age because a lot of what we teach can be practiced quickly!
Totally agree - if we are only seeing students 2x/week for 15 minutes, what happens when a student is absent? Frequent, shorter sessions are the best way to go.
Thank you for this!! It helps me so much to hear the details about how to set up this time of the day. I feel more confident now about getting this going in my own classroom!
Of all the new routines I learned from you last school year, this is the one I am most excited to implement this year - and our master schedule looks like it will fit in perfectly right after lunch for about 30 minutes - not as long as your 45 minute block, but I will make it work!
I am intrigued by your letter name picture clues and how they are not necessarily words that actually begin with the letter (picture of an elbow for the letter Ll, a picture of an envelope for the letter Nn). At first this seemed counterintuitive, but the more I thought about it, I realized that the focus is on the word we say for each letter in order to identify the letter's name. Was that your thinking? I am wondering also if at some point you begin focusing on letter sound with your intervention kids, and when you do that.
Is this intervention time also used for when you do your DIBELS testing with all students? I seem to recall some other assessments you shared videos of with all of your students - was it whole word reading? Or do I remember some nonsense word assessing?
Thank you for the detailed explanation of how you return from lunch. 😍 It’s so true that with 25+ kindergartners, one needs a plan. I’m going to make my map!
Helped me realize that even just five minutes of one on one can make a difference
I love it when you show up and start asking questions! So, at first, starting on about the third day of school when students are fairly settled in their resting spots, interventions are all about letter names. Some researchers and teachers feel that letter names are not that important, at the beginning of the year, compared to letter sounds. They might say focus on letter sounds. But when I watch any video I make, I mentioning letter names all over the place and if these are not a part of students' vocabulary then they are going to miss a whole lot of what I'm saying. Letter names are important vocabulary in kindergarten! The pictures on my big alphabet cards are related to the SOUND of the letter, not the NAME of the letter. So the clues during intervention time need to be about the NAME of the letter since that is the focus. Also, it might help to think of it this way--some letter names that I'm teaching during whole group with this associated picture are not sticking with these kids so I'm going to try something different (tier two). Year after year, with my phonics scope and sequence and my letter name interventions, almost all students know almost all letter names by December. In January, I use intervention time for whatever is needed for each individual student. It might be letter names still, it might be sounds, it might be blending, it might be numbers, etc. But it is ALWAYS letter names August-December. (I suppose that if, miracle of all miracles, I only got five students who needed to learn their letters instead of the usual 15, I might do something besides letter names before December). Yes, I usually do DIBELS progress monitoring during this time once a week. Progress monitoring isn't about progress monitoring (I already know their progress), but more about teaching them how to do each particular subtest. I present an item, they say it wrong, I mark it wrong, and THEN I QUICKLY TEACH THEM WHAT THE ANSWER SHOULD BE. I also teach them to be brave enough to answer and to answer quickly and to not talk to me at all during this time (the clock is running, as you know). They eventually get it and when mid-year testing comes along they know how to do each subtest because we practiced them once a week the past three months. Yes, I do their actual mid-year testing during this time since the room is fairly quiet and students know not to bother me during this time. I let them--and encourage them--to bother me, if need be, during centers. Yes, I definitely used this time to review CVC word reading prior to end-of-year testing and to practice whole word reading before end-of-year testing. So happy to hear that you got your intervention time into your schedule! We'll be in touch!
One year I didn’t have my map ready and hastily placed the kids. I paid the price and dealt with the ensuing issues for weeks.
Hi Amy! So glad to hear it was helpful! I hope you give it a try and tweak it so that it works well for you and your students. Let me know how it goes.