Monday, March 19, 2012
I forgot to take a picture this week and I can't find a good example on the internet, bu I think everyone will know what I'm talking about. A literacy resource I see used in my kindergarten classroom is the alphabet border name tags where each child sits. It shows them the upper case and lower case versions of each letter of the alphabet, as well as a picture that helps them identify the sound made by each letter. I think this helps enhance student learning because they are still learning to write all of these letters and having them right there all the time is very useful when they are working on writing assignments. I think it also helps to just see the letters of the alphabet often and my MT has many different places around the classroom where they are displayed for everyone to see. I would definitely recommend it to others, its a simple thing that seriously comes in handy for the students. I'm sure they don't cost much and most of them will last throughout the whole year. I don't really think any modifications are necessary to this particular tool, but I would change my MT's classroom to have more literacy tools throughout it. Because there isn't much throughout his classroom it took me a very long time to think of a resource I could write about for this blog.
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One of the other classrooms that I have worked in used to use these! Ours didn't have a picture next to each letter though, so I really like that aspect of what you are describing. Having that extra support with the picture to place a sound to the letter would be very beneficial for many students. Many teachers have the alphabet listed on a wall in the classroom, but allowing each student to have one right in front of them would help to maintain focus on the assignment instead of looking all around the room trying to find a letter. Do you think you would allow your students to keep them for the entirety of the year on their desks? Or would you take them away as a scaffolding technique so that they don't become too reliant on having it directly in front of them? For the class I worked in this year, the students tended to try and use resources when they didn't need to, such as directly copying word wall words instead of sounding them out. I feel that some of my students may also have done this with the alphabet, but perhaps they would stop using it when they were truly confident.
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