As a special education teacher, there are literally NEVER enough minutes in the school day. I do my best to make the most of the precious minutes that I have with my students during their reading intervention groups, even if it’s only 30 minutes!
For my reading groups, I typically have thirty minutes on my daily schedule. Now, we all know that we never have a full thirty minutes. With transition time, I often have about 25 minutes or so to split between reading and spelling.
In the images below, you’ll find the breakdown of the amount of time I spend each day on each area of reading and spelling.
I introduce a new phoneme or phonemes to my students. That will be a focus for the entire week. Depending on the level of my students, we have 5 or 10 spelling words. Some of my kids could probably handle larger lists, but I have found that adds to the amount of time focusing on spelling rather than reading.
For reading, I utilize my reading intervention to help my students cover an array of reading skills in a short period of time. We also have words in our daily passages that review the new phoneme that was just introduced as well as review old phonemes.
On Tuesday, we use our letter tiles to spell our spelling words. I utilize my dry erase board to help my students fill in missing letters, stretch the words together, and provide a visual to organize the sounds as they hear them.
Using Day 2 of our weekly reading book, we practice the same phoneme, review high frequency words, read together orally, and work to better understand what we are reading.
On Wednesday, we take a practice test. I usually let my students use dry erase boards or Boogie Boards. It is a fun way to help them gauge their progress with the new phoneme. It also gives me a chance to see how they are doing.
In reading, we grab our leveled readers and work through our daily routine! They love to do fluency checks on Wednesdays. It is a fun way for them to measure their own progress.
We take our spelling test on Thursday. For a while, I was trying to do a spelling test on the same day as our reading and math tests. It just became too overwhelming for the kids…and ME! We were pushed for time, and I felt like I was constantly rushing them. I like that I can slow down and dedicate a fair amount of time to our spelling test.
After spelling, we switch to our reading books and continue reading. My students are able to check their fluency, review both past and current phonemes, and write a sentence that I dictate to them.
Friday is NOT my favorite day of the week, guys! I feel like all I get done is test, test, test. I pull my students a little differently on Fridays. Instead of pulling ability based groups, I usually pull them based on their homeroom on Friday. I helps if teachers in the same grade level aren’t on the same reading story or math lesson. Most of the time time they are, but there are always weeks where we are thrown off.
Did you notice that I referred to that leveled reader several times? Well, they’ve been a lifesaver for me. It helps me ensure that I’m doing all that I can for my students. It also saves me time when it comes to planning each week.
Can you describe your instructional model? Are you responsible for giving grades based on the work that you are doing or is the work you do based on what is going on in the gen ed classroom. In my district, I used to teach a true resource class, meaning I pulled my students out of their reading class and replaced their gen ed instruction in order to teach them at their level (I LOVE this model) but for the past 3 years resource looks a bit different. I pull small groups (according to their grade level) out of social studies for 30 minutes and do an intense phonics program with them. I then pull my 4th graders every day for a 45 minute tutorial to work on IEP goals. I am thinking your program would work there better but not every kid has spelling goals or phonics goals. Most of mine, by 4th grade, have comprehension or vocabulary goals. I love your reading program and ideas but I would just like to know in what way you use the program. I hope my question makes sense. It just seems that SPED teachers all do something different or at least we call it something different.
Hello. I was wondering what product in your store sells readers and are they leveled. And I liked your sight word assessments too. Wondering if I need the big bundle? I’m of course willing but those are the two things I’m looking for.
THis is great! It helps me to see how you do it like this. When do you work in the books and graphic organizers that you do?
I love the looks of this program:) Is there any way to get just one level… like the yellow?
Hello! They actually come in a bundle with other levels. Here is the link to the first 10 weeks: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Special-Education-Reading-Curriculum-Intervention-Digital-Learning-Files-5314398
Can you describe your instructional model? Are you responsible for giving grades based on the work that you are doing or is the work you do based on what is going on in the gen ed classroom. In my district, I used to teach a true resource class, meaning I pulled my students out of their reading class and replaced their gen ed instruction in order to teach them at their level (I LOVE this model) but for the past 3 years resource looks a bit different. I pull small groups (according to their grade level) out of social studies for 30 minutes and do an intense phonics program with them. I then pull my 4th graders every day for a 45 minute tutorial to work on IEP goals. I am thinking your program would work there better but not every kid has spelling goals or phonics goals. Most of mine, by 4th grade, have comprehension or vocabulary goals. I love your reading program and ideas but I would just like to know in what way you use the program. I hope my question makes sense. It just seems that SPED teachers all do something different or at least we call it something different.
Hello. I was wondering what product in your store sells readers and are they leveled. And I liked your sight word assessments too. Wondering if I need the big bundle? I’m of course willing but those are the two things I’m looking for.
Hello! The readers in the TPT store are leveled. Here is the link for those readers in the growing bundle: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Special-Education-Reading-Curriculum-Intervention-Bundle-5662433