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Welcome to At the River News
May / June 2018

 
Happy Summer!  

In North Carolina, it's beach time. At the River has just the story to help you bring a little bit of the beach into your classroom. 

This month, I'll share ideas for working with the story "The Beach" from At the River Unit 6. "The Beach" features plenty of decodable short vowel words but also a handful of useful sight words. It's a stress free story that showcases an important part of American culture. It also helps students practice fluency and decoding while learning some new verbs like sit, play and swim. Even if your students live far from the beach, it's easy to relate the story to the lakeshore. 

The lesson plan below shows how to use one simple text in many different ways. This approach saves prep time for you, while allowing your literacy students the practice they need for fluency and comprehension. You can apply these teaching techniques to any story in At the River, especially the longer stories in Units 6-10. See the link for free reproducible worksheets to use with the story. 

Feel free to forward this newsletter. New subscribers: send me an email and I'll add you to the mailing list. You can find previous newsletters in the archives:  http://www.emergentreaders.org/newsletter-archives.html. You can unsubscribe anytime.

Contact me with questions, comments or suggestions.

Shelley Hale Lee
Author, At the River and Other Stories for Adult Emergent Readers
attheriver@emergentreaders.org
www.emergentreaders.org
http://wayzgoosepress.com/shl.html
Start the lesson with plenty of visuals. Say, "Tell me about the picture." Then build on the words students already know to make simple sentences for speaking practice. Examples: Students say "children," "boy," "girl," "sit," "sand," "water," "run." Model and ask students to repeat: "The children are sitting. The children play on the sand. The boy is running. The boy is in the water. They are at the beach." 
Sources for pictures: magazines, Google Images, Oxford Picture Dictionary (black cover) p. 225. 
Lesson goals: 
SWBAT read the first half of "The Beach" fluently, with good pronunciation. Students will be able to demonstrate comprehension by referring to visuals and by answering yes/no questions. 
 
Prior knowledge: 
Letter sounds from Units 1-5 of At the River; Unit 6 phonics exercises pp 55-63; "The Shop" p. 66. Many words from "The Shop" are recycled in "The Beach." 
 
Materials needed: 
- Pictures: van, map, family, sand, water, chair, hat, cap, shirt, mat, play, swim, glad, sad. 
- At the River p. 68-69. 
- White board, markers, tape
- Index cards for sight words: have, has, go, beach, like, water, wear, shirt, chair, play. 
- Index cards for decodable words: Bob, Pam, van, map, kids, glad, go, cap, hat, mat, sand, swim, sad. 
Here's the board after teaching the first half of "The Beach." See literacy activities below. 
Lesson Plan, "The Beach" from
At the River
 
1. Warm up: Speaking. Look at pictures of the beach or lake. Ask students (ss) to tell you words they know in English. Ss listen as you describe the pictures in simple language. Ask ss to repeat simple sentences about the pictures. Display pictures on the board. 

2. Listening: Ss listen to story on p. 68 as the teacher reads it out loud twice. 

3. Echo reading: Tell ss, "Today, we are going to practice #1-7. Tomorrow, we will finish the whole story." Read #1-7 out loud again. Ss repeat each sentence after you. 
*Note: I found it helpful to teach the first half, then review it and teach the second half as the stories get longer. 

4. Students dictate to teacher: Stand at the board. Write the number 1 on the board and say, "Please read #1 for me." Wait until someone says the first word. After a student says it, write the word on the board. As ss say each word in the sentence, write it. If they get stuck, help as needed. When #1 is complete, say, "Read with me." Then point to each word, reading it aloud. Ss join you in a choral reading. Continue with #2-7. 

5. If needed: Do a choral reading of #1-7 straight through. 

6. Active posture: Ask ss to come stand in a semicircle at the board. It gets the blood flowing and helps them focus. 

7. Vocabulary: Hold up word cards for the pictures. Ss say the words as you lead/prompt. Hand out word cards. Ss match to pictures. Go over all of the words and pictures. If more practice is needed, mix the word cards and ask ss to match again. See board ledge in the photo above. 

8. Word recognition: Give each student a marker. Say, "Listen, and circle the word you hear. Pam." One student steps up to circle "Pam" each time it appears on the board. Focus on decodable words, and continue with Bob, Nan, Dan, van, sand, kids, can, hot, not, lot. 

9. Option: Instead of calling out single words, call out phrases like "in the van" or "Nan and Dan." 

10. Option: Instead of saying the word, segment it. Students blend the sounds, tell you the word, and then someone circles it. Example: "Listen to the sounds and give me the word. /P/…/a/…/m/." Ss: "Pam." Continue with decodable words. 

11. Visual discrimination: For ss who struggle to circle words independently, have them match a word card to the word on the board. See "Bob," "Pam," "map," and "hot" in the photo above. 

12. Students practice reading. Now it's time for ss to produce. It's important for the teacher to hear each student read without help from their peers.

Here are some options: a) ss stand at the board and read in pairs. As they finish, switch partners and read again. b) Ask for volunteers to read each sentence. Other ss follow with a choral reading. c) Call on ss to read each sentence. d) Ss go back to the table and read in pairs while you listen to each individual read. e) After reading at the table, ask for volunteers to read #1-7 for the class. 

13. Early finishers: Ask your quickest ss to read for you first, then put them in pairs for a dictation. One student reads a sentence from the story and their partner tries to write it. The partner sits with their back to the board so they can't see the story. 

14. Students who still struggle to read independently: Here are some options. a) You read a sentence, they repeat. b) Say a key word and ask them to point to it. c) You point to a key word, then ask them to repeat it and find it again in the story. d) Ask them to copy part of the story into their notebooks for writing practice. 
 
After Reading

Try these yes/no questions and cloze exercises after students read "The Beach." 
Find free photocopiable worksheets here: https://www.emergentreaders.org/resources.html
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