Hi,
I'm going to be teaching Bilingual 3rd/4th this year. I've taught Bilingual K and ESL 3rd, but this is a little new. I love the Four Blocks Literacy approach and I just found "Formando Palabras" ("Making Words")--Yay!
But does anyone have any other resources they could recommend? (Specifically for literacy)
Muchas gracias
Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Re: Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish
Hellojl wrote:Hi,
I'm going to be teaching Bilingual 3rd/4th this year. I've taught Bilingual K and ESL 3rd, but this is a little new. I love the Four Blocks Literacy approach and I just found "Formando Palabras" ("Making Words")--Yay!
But does anyone have any other resources they could recommend? (Specifically for literacy)
Muchas gracias
I will be teaching bilingual kindergarten. Is there any advice or comments you could give me? Also, tell me about the "Formando Palabras" . Did you get it out of the Building Blocks book?
Thanks
Lety Solis
Bilingual Kinder
Hi Lety,
Gosh! I read your post the other night and was thinking about it later...there is so much I want to tell you! Is this your first teaching assignment? Or just a new grade level? Well...here goes...
Several other bilingual teachers and myself found that our kids really enjoyed “Cancionero”—Level A has songs for almost every letter that emphasis the letter sounds and are also cute and fun. I ordered the English equivalent, ( ), thinking that their songs might be fun for my ESL lessons, but most of those songs were cheesier than I could stand. I used the Elephant song when we had “E—el elephant” and the teddy bear song was the same as “O—El Osito” but that was about it.
http://www.hampton-brown.com/onlinecatalog/spanlit.asp
Joyful Learning in Kindergarten by Bobbi Fisher; Heinemann was also a really good book all around for first year Kindergarten teachers. Her classes were all English, maybe some ESL, but there are a lot of good foundations for K procedures, centers, whole language approach. (But keep in mind that Bobbi Fisher is to Kindergarten what Martha Stewart is to home making, so don’t let all those high ideals depress you either! You can’t do it ALL—especially your first year! So cut yourself a LOT of slack and give yourself credit for what you DO manage to do well the first year! This is just the beginning, it takes YEARS to achieve that kind of mastery! The important thing is you love the kids, and value their cultures and differences and are AIMING to do what is best for them and become a better teacher.)
I also learned a lot from my Cognitively Guided Instruction training and more from Growing Mathematical Ideas in Kindergarten by Linda Schulman Dacey and Rebekah Eston.
However, a few of the best things I discovered were my own stumbling into things that worked. I decided to set up an “Esta” and “No Esta” chart that each day the children would place their name card and their absent friends in the proper side. Also, if they needed to go to the bathroom, nurse, office, etc. I had a pocket on the wall that held the appropriate pass. They would then slip their name card in the pocket as they took out the pass. Then, at a glance, I could see who was where—like if there was a fire drill or something, you don’t have to remember instantly who you just said could go to the bathroom, etc. (This sounds stupid, but when you have five children trying to ask you something at the same time, you will understand.)
(I also did this with my third graders, but in their case they didn’t have to ask permission. The name card was notice enough. I told them I trusted their judgement, but if they “abused the privilege, they would lose it.” It wasn’t an issue.)
In K, I held their cards up every morning in circle time for the child to practice recognizing his/her name. At first I said their name, but then I did it silently for them to read. After a while, the other kids learned to read everyone elses’ names, and they learned more about letter-sound relationships by their names than ANY of the songs, poems, activities we did about letters!
I just finished reading Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish in the Bilingual Classroom and would highly recommend it. Looking back, I am not sure that Y Freeman and D Freeman would approve of our alphabet emphasis, but I did a lot of learning within context and “constructing meaning.” They do recommend Pan y Canela, the little books that are the next levels after K.
To answer your question though, “Building Words” is part of the Four Block approach, and is not appropriate for Kindergarten. I did read Building Blocks and found many of the activities successful—particularly the predictable charts that each child contributes a line. The cutting apart, reordering and illustrating their own sentence was great for the “Concepts of Print” that K is required to master, (At least in California and Arizona—but many others I imagine.)
But Making Words is a really great activity for 1st grade and beyond. My ESL third graders loved it! They all could be successful at the smaller words and liked to try the others. And everyone wants to figure out “the mystery word” that used all the letters given. “Formando Palabras” is by Carson-Dellosa, by the way. I haven’t found anything else in Spanish for 4 Blocks.
I did find “Palabras y Vocabulario” which seems cool, (Imogene Fort) I have to study it more closely.
And to any older grade teachers listening in, “Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom” was really helpful too—for ANY class, because each class has so many different needs and strengths. It explains developing “Essential Questions” which tie together your whole year—better than themes—to provide cohesion.
There is so much more, especially if this is your first year. I will be starting only my fifth year, but I have known some great teachers and read every book I could lay my hands on that looked worthwhile or was recommended...so I'm not as ignorant as I could be! I could "talk" more with you...I guess I will risk posting my email--it isn't my real email, but I can connect more with you and answer any questions I can--or ask my friend who knows even more!
Take care!
[email protected]
Gosh! I read your post the other night and was thinking about it later...there is so much I want to tell you! Is this your first teaching assignment? Or just a new grade level? Well...here goes...
Several other bilingual teachers and myself found that our kids really enjoyed “Cancionero”—Level A has songs for almost every letter that emphasis the letter sounds and are also cute and fun. I ordered the English equivalent, ( ), thinking that their songs might be fun for my ESL lessons, but most of those songs were cheesier than I could stand. I used the Elephant song when we had “E—el elephant” and the teddy bear song was the same as “O—El Osito” but that was about it.
http://www.hampton-brown.com/onlinecatalog/spanlit.asp
Joyful Learning in Kindergarten by Bobbi Fisher; Heinemann was also a really good book all around for first year Kindergarten teachers. Her classes were all English, maybe some ESL, but there are a lot of good foundations for K procedures, centers, whole language approach. (But keep in mind that Bobbi Fisher is to Kindergarten what Martha Stewart is to home making, so don’t let all those high ideals depress you either! You can’t do it ALL—especially your first year! So cut yourself a LOT of slack and give yourself credit for what you DO manage to do well the first year! This is just the beginning, it takes YEARS to achieve that kind of mastery! The important thing is you love the kids, and value their cultures and differences and are AIMING to do what is best for them and become a better teacher.)
I also learned a lot from my Cognitively Guided Instruction training and more from Growing Mathematical Ideas in Kindergarten by Linda Schulman Dacey and Rebekah Eston.
However, a few of the best things I discovered were my own stumbling into things that worked. I decided to set up an “Esta” and “No Esta” chart that each day the children would place their name card and their absent friends in the proper side. Also, if they needed to go to the bathroom, nurse, office, etc. I had a pocket on the wall that held the appropriate pass. They would then slip their name card in the pocket as they took out the pass. Then, at a glance, I could see who was where—like if there was a fire drill or something, you don’t have to remember instantly who you just said could go to the bathroom, etc. (This sounds stupid, but when you have five children trying to ask you something at the same time, you will understand.)
(I also did this with my third graders, but in their case they didn’t have to ask permission. The name card was notice enough. I told them I trusted their judgement, but if they “abused the privilege, they would lose it.” It wasn’t an issue.)
In K, I held their cards up every morning in circle time for the child to practice recognizing his/her name. At first I said their name, but then I did it silently for them to read. After a while, the other kids learned to read everyone elses’ names, and they learned more about letter-sound relationships by their names than ANY of the songs, poems, activities we did about letters!
I just finished reading Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish in the Bilingual Classroom and would highly recommend it. Looking back, I am not sure that Y Freeman and D Freeman would approve of our alphabet emphasis, but I did a lot of learning within context and “constructing meaning.” They do recommend Pan y Canela, the little books that are the next levels after K.
To answer your question though, “Building Words” is part of the Four Block approach, and is not appropriate for Kindergarten. I did read Building Blocks and found many of the activities successful—particularly the predictable charts that each child contributes a line. The cutting apart, reordering and illustrating their own sentence was great for the “Concepts of Print” that K is required to master, (At least in California and Arizona—but many others I imagine.)
But Making Words is a really great activity for 1st grade and beyond. My ESL third graders loved it! They all could be successful at the smaller words and liked to try the others. And everyone wants to figure out “the mystery word” that used all the letters given. “Formando Palabras” is by Carson-Dellosa, by the way. I haven’t found anything else in Spanish for 4 Blocks.
I did find “Palabras y Vocabulario” which seems cool, (Imogene Fort) I have to study it more closely.
And to any older grade teachers listening in, “Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom” was really helpful too—for ANY class, because each class has so many different needs and strengths. It explains developing “Essential Questions” which tie together your whole year—better than themes—to provide cohesion.
There is so much more, especially if this is your first year. I will be starting only my fifth year, but I have known some great teachers and read every book I could lay my hands on that looked worthwhile or was recommended...so I'm not as ignorant as I could be! I could "talk" more with you...I guess I will risk posting my email--it isn't my real email, but I can connect more with you and answer any questions I can--or ask my friend who knows even more!
Take care!
[email protected]
Re: Bilingual Kinder
I really appreciate all your advice. I printed the page so I can have handy when I need to your ideas. I just graduated in May and will be starting my first year in Kindergarten. I am so excited about teaching and plan to learn so much. I will be keeping in touch and emailing you for any questions or comments.
Thanks
Lety
Thanks
Lety
jl wrote:Hi Lety,
Gosh! I read your post the other night and was thinking about it later...there is so much I want to tell you! Is this your first teaching assignment? Or just a new grade level? Well...here goes...
Several other bilingual teachers and myself found that our kids really enjoyed “Cancionero”—Level A has songs for almost every letter that emphasis the letter sounds and are also cute and fun. I ordered the English equivalent, ( ), thinking that their songs might be fun for my ESL lessons, but most of those songs were cheesier than I could stand. I used the Elephant song when we had “E—el elephant” and the teddy bear song was the same as “O—El Osito” but that was about it.
http://www.hampton-brown.com/onlinecatalog/spanlit.asp
Joyful Learning in Kindergarten by Bobbi Fisher; Heinemann was also a really good book all around for first year Kindergarten teachers. Her classes were all English, maybe some ESL, but there are a lot of good foundations for K procedures, centers, whole language approach. (But keep in mind that Bobbi Fisher is to Kindergarten what Martha Stewart is to home making, so don’t let all those high ideals depress you either! You can’t do it ALL—especially your first year! So cut yourself a LOT of slack and give yourself credit for what you DO manage to do well the first year! This is just the beginning, it takes YEARS to achieve that kind of mastery! The important thing is you love the kids, and value their cultures and differences and are AIMING to do what is best for them and become a better teacher.)
I also learned a lot from my Cognitively Guided Instruction training and more from Growing Mathematical Ideas in Kindergarten by Linda Schulman Dacey and Rebekah Eston.
However, a few of the best things I discovered were my own stumbling into things that worked. I decided to set up an “Esta” and “No Esta” chart that each day the children would place their name card and their absent friends in the proper side. Also, if they needed to go to the bathroom, nurse, office, etc. I had a pocket on the wall that held the appropriate pass. They would then slip their name card in the pocket as they took out the pass. Then, at a glance, I could see who was where—like if there was a fire drill or something, you don’t have to remember instantly who you just said could go to the bathroom, etc. (This sounds stupid, but when you have five children trying to ask you something at the same time, you will understand.)
(I also did this with my third graders, but in their case they didn’t have to ask permission. The name card was notice enough. I told them I trusted their judgement, but if they “abused the privilege, they would lose it.” It wasn’t an issue.)
In K, I held their cards up every morning in circle time for the child to practice recognizing his/her name. At first I said their name, but then I did it silently for them to read. After a while, the other kids learned to read everyone elses’ names, and they learned more about letter-sound relationships by their names than ANY of the songs, poems, activities we did about letters!
I just finished reading Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish in the Bilingual Classroom and would highly recommend it. Looking back, I am not sure that Y Freeman and D Freeman would approve of our alphabet emphasis, but I did a lot of learning within context and “constructing meaning.” They do recommend Pan y Canela, the little books that are the next levels after K.
To answer your question though, “Building Words” is part of the Four Block approach, and is not appropriate for Kindergarten. I did read Building Blocks and found many of the activities successful—particularly the predictable charts that each child contributes a line. The cutting apart, reordering and illustrating their own sentence was great for the “Concepts of Print” that K is required to master, (At least in California and Arizona—but many others I imagine.)
But Making Words is a really great activity for 1st grade and beyond. My ESL third graders loved it! They all could be successful at the smaller words and liked to try the others. And everyone wants to figure out “the mystery word” that used all the letters given. “Formando Palabras” is by Carson-Dellosa, by the way. I haven’t found anything else in Spanish for 4 Blocks.
I did find “Palabras y Vocabulario” which seems cool, (Imogene Fort) I have to study it more closely.
And to any older grade teachers listening in, “Differentiating Instruction in the Regular Classroom” was really helpful too—for ANY class, because each class has so many different needs and strengths. It explains developing “Essential Questions” which tie together your whole year—better than themes—to provide cohesion.
There is so much more, especially if this is your first year. I will be starting only my fifth year, but I have known some great teachers and read every book I could lay my hands on that looked worthwhile or was recommended...so I'm not as ignorant as I could be! I could "talk" more with you...I guess I will risk posting my email--it isn't my real email, but I can connect more with you and answer any questions I can--or ask my friend who knows even more!
Take care!
[email protected]
You're welcome, Lety!
Hi, it's been a while since I've visited the site. I'm really glad you found my feedback helpful. If you email me your address, I can mail you some of the Spanish alphabet worksheets and letter pages I used. I try not to be "Worksheet Queen" but my school required homework for ALL grades, Mon-Thur. Also, we did a "Tactile Page" for each letter as I introduced it. We did one in English and Spanish. (I did teach the whole alphabet in our chants and writing our names, but then I taught a letter or two a week, around a theme.) For the tactile pages, I might have them glue pumpkin seeds or stick tiny pumpkin stickers, (The incentive chart stickers are tiny and have a lot in a packet) on letter "C" for "calabazas" in the fall. Then we glued "Candy corn" on the English letter page at the end of the week's ESL lesson. I had the undecorated pages stapled to the wall, and as we did each page, I chose one of the kid's to replace the blank one. (I tried to pick ones that were a fairly decent handwriting example, but also so that each kid would have at least one page displayed.) I had the row of English and Spanish letters. Under the Spanish, I stapled word cards as the kids would ask for a word to put in their journal stories. This sort of became our word wall then.
I also copied mini-emergent reading books for each week's theme and did a "guided reading" group as one of the centers they went to every week. This is when I gradually introduced each concept of print and we read together the book several times, pointing to the words. At the end of the week, everyone would have gone through the book in small group, and then I put them in their homework folders for Monday, which was always "reading log" homework. They were also encouraged to read other books with their families, but if they couldn't get other books, they at least had their mini-books. When the table was filled, they got to choose a book. (But don't make this promise unless your school gives you some money to send away for Scholastics cheap books--they have plenty of Spanish Clifford books, etc. Otherwise, you may have a hard time paying bills! Yikes.)
I have copies of the books I used. Most of them were from the Scholastic sets. They have translated most of their English sets and they are pretty cute. (Yes, I do some things that are "cute." What is the point of teaching younger students if you can't?)
I could really bore you and go on and ON about how I coordinated centers and the ideas I did for each week. I still have most of my lesson plans, because I did them on computer. (Yes, yes, some would use the words "anal-retentive" to describe me! My friends just say "very organized.")
Well, email me if you want to take me up on the mail or idea offers. Take care. I am trying not to let the first-day-of-school anxiety build up. Each year is new all over again and I am at ANOTHER new school! (I hope I don't move again next year.)
jl
I also copied mini-emergent reading books for each week's theme and did a "guided reading" group as one of the centers they went to every week. This is when I gradually introduced each concept of print and we read together the book several times, pointing to the words. At the end of the week, everyone would have gone through the book in small group, and then I put them in their homework folders for Monday, which was always "reading log" homework. They were also encouraged to read other books with their families, but if they couldn't get other books, they at least had their mini-books. When the table was filled, they got to choose a book. (But don't make this promise unless your school gives you some money to send away for Scholastics cheap books--they have plenty of Spanish Clifford books, etc. Otherwise, you may have a hard time paying bills! Yikes.)
I have copies of the books I used. Most of them were from the Scholastic sets. They have translated most of their English sets and they are pretty cute. (Yes, I do some things that are "cute." What is the point of teaching younger students if you can't?)
I could really bore you and go on and ON about how I coordinated centers and the ideas I did for each week. I still have most of my lesson plans, because I did them on computer. (Yes, yes, some would use the words "anal-retentive" to describe me! My friends just say "very organized.")
Well, email me if you want to take me up on the mail or idea offers. Take care. I am trying not to let the first-day-of-school anxiety build up. Each year is new all over again and I am at ANOTHER new school! (I hope I don't move again next year.)
jl