Jump Start! What Teachers Need Now

Unpack a sentence to teach grammar and writing lessons! Hey everyone, welcome back. I am Kim Venegas, and I’m here to help you become a better teacher, faster! Finding a mentor is like a needle in a haystack. Finding the time to read a book on teaching? You don’t have the time. I’ll share tips each time you listen in. One idea you can use today. Pull a sentence from a story the students are reading. Post it on the board. Ask them: What do you notice? Some answers might be--I see a period. I see someone’s name. I see a comma in the middle of the sentence. This is interactive, a dialogue. “ Why is there a period? How do we know it’s a name? Why is that comma in the middle? What does it do? This works because the sentence is familiar. This works because it is multilevel and everyone can notice something. It works because the students are engaged, as if solving a puzzle. Hands waved all over the room wanting to notice something no one else did. My students became successful. Successful writers. Not necessarily proficient in state testing. No guarantees there! But they could write and they enjoyed it. Try it today! Download the free resource on TPT at whamphonics. Download and print. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

My Easy and Effective Writing Rubric is now listed as a FREE resource in my TPT store at WhamPhonics. I’ll talk through the details quickly. I used one-half sheet for the year. The type of writing didn’t matter-biography, creative writing, informational, or a science report. It can be used at any level. While we’re talking about journals, I prefer composition-style books-even if I had to buy them. The pages don’t tear out easily. They can use the left for following a mentor text lesson or sentence structure and use the right side for their own writing. Spirals just make too much of a mess for me! Are you a first-year teacher? I hear you! Use Donors Choose! Ask for what you need. MANY people want to support education. The rubric is not so cumbersome (of your time) and of parents’ understanding. Easy to snap a pic and share with families when students are showing great gains! Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

You are halfway through the school year. Students seem taller and perhaps a bit more mature than when they left only two short weeks ago. Upper grades are likely to focus on testing strategies. in my state, and maybe everywhere, that often includes the RACE strategy for writing. If you aren’t familiar, Restate the question Answer the question, Cite evidence from the text, and Explain how the evidence from the text answers the question. It isn’t the writing you always dreamed of teaching, but students must learn how to construct text-dependent answers. For the test. . Good writing instruction becomes good student writing in any form. Are certain formulas important? I believe so, especially in a testing grade. Teaching students how to answer those text-dependent questions using a strategy your team and your principal encourage. Students will feel more capable when faced with tough questions about their reading. But outside of the framework of answering questions, all kinds of possibilities await! You can teach students to use precise language as Cynthia Rylant did in Missing May. You can teach students different ways to begin a sentence as Codell did. You can teach students to use strong verbs rather than ‘got’ and 'did’ , you can teach students to begin each sentence differently. (Because OFTEN I’ve seen sentences begin with then…then… or so… so…You can teach students to use specific nouns-I always tell students I can’t imagine stuff or things in a closet or backpack -describe and let me see what’s in there! Teach them to write compound and complex sentences. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

In today's news-60 percent of Colorado's teachers are considering leaving the profession. Teachers are being hired during their practicum and student teaching. If teachers or principals have noticed you are knowledgeable and up to the challenge, they may offer you this opportunity. Be ready! From day one, be a professional. Be on time. Dress neatly. Attend all meetings. Keep your language civilized. Jump into teaching as soon as you can. Learn how to read the data. How to plan for lessons. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

When teachers are trying to problem-solve a situation, we often find a tip or strategy and apply it to all students. I want to encourage you to think it through, think about YOUR class of kiddos. Will it work with every student? Here’s my example: Cold calling. According to Doug Lemov of Teach Like a Champion and Paul Bambrick Santoyo of Get Better Faster-Cold calling is an action step designed to engage all students and to discourage students from tuning out Things to consider: Your relationship with each student. Students are easily embarrassed among peers when they can’t answer a question. I’ve seen students as young as five, shrink down in their seats when they can’t answer a question. Children read the room from a young age. They know where they fall in the range of high and low students. Those frantically waving their hand, and those sitting quietly trying to understand what was asked. A few too many questions given to re-engage a student who isn’t able to answer can slow down relationship building. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

When I created Whamphonics as an online screener, I too, wondered about the reasoning of English learners learning to sound out nonsense words. My thoughts were that they needed to make meaning AND learn how to sound out words. It took me time, as it took the reading community to come around to the idea that YES, our English learners need to learn the sound symbol correlation to the English language- nonsense or real words. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

I’ve just finished a week full of observations for my practicum students. In every observation, what I’ve seen is a burst of confidence in their teaching. They are no longer nervous when I slip into the room, they are using their content knowledge of math, literacy, science, and social studies to teach elementary-aged students what they need to learn and why it matters. Our future teachers are asking students how they know, how they solved a problem, and where is the evidence. What I believe has made the difference is the same as for our students., Time on task. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Hey everyone, welcome back to JumpStart. If you’ve been here before, you know I love watching documentaries, especially medical stories. Nursing was my number two choice of a career, but I knew the hours would make my family life difficult to impossible. I chose to teach. Both occupations have their heartbreaks and moments of joy. Lenox Hill is my favorite. Two incredible neurosurgeons solve people’s health issues, usually cancer. There’s a phrase, that teaching children to read is rocket science, not quite, but we are as involved in changing their brains. True, we can’t unzip them and see where the wires are crossed, where the green wire has joined with blue or black, creating havoc as children struggle to learn. While we aren’t getting under their skin literally, we are changing the connections in their brain every day. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

I’m here every Monday (or sometimes Tuesday) to mentor you, encourage you, and today, to tell you about a nurse's strike happening in several states. Nurses and teachers are the main support systems in the caring professions. Nurses hold up the hospital walls while teachers bring education to everyone Both are professions dedicated to caring for their clients, their patients, and our students. I am not advocating that teachers strike! My number one ask would be for behavior support. Why? I wanted all my students to learn. To be engaged with the lessons I planned.. But if Naughty Norman is flipping his desk or Sassy Sally is calling out swear words, they are a much more interesting show to watch. No one learns when Naughty Norman and Sassy Sally remain in the classroom. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

For younger children, it may be better to share the conference responsibilities rather than put all of the expectations on a 6 or 7-year-old. They may be very able to share their best work and tell why they chose it, but beyond that…some of my practicum students sat in on early grade conferences, and teacher-led went much smoother and more within the time limits of meeting with 25 families. Of course, each conference can be looked at individually as what will work best for the teacher and the student no matter their age. My students observed their MT soften the discussion when a student was struggling with grade-level content, without avoiding what needed to be said. If there was difficult news, around behavior or academic growth, Mentor Teachers began with something positive, spoke the truth in the middle, and ended the conference with something good to share. My granddaughter’s second-grade teacher provided a few reports that could be easily understood by families. (Most family members are overwhelmed with the amount of data we show them!) But more importantly, she provided a Glow and a Grow both in academics as well as how she does socially, and her behavior, including helpfulness, kindness, and so on. One of the report pages included photos of my granddaughter working in the classroom and playing with friends. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Watching a master teacher show 2nd graders how to separate words into syllables reminded me of the importance of going slow. She was asking them to tell her the vowels, she marked the vowels, and they went on to divide the words between the consonants. Sometimes between the twins, double consonants. Sometimes between the two consonants, unless there are three consonants, and then we divide after the last consonant in the previous syllable. And we ignore the silent e at the end of most words. It is simply a helper. Think of all the learning that had to come before. Children needed to know which letters were the vowels, how they sounded, and their purpose i the word. They need to know the other letters are consonants. That’s a big word in itself! They also have sounds, and when they are next door to another consonant like th sh ch- they make a completely different sound. They needed to know that each syllable must have a vowel-if we count the vowels, except for silent e, we know how many syllables there are in the word. (At this time, in this class, students were not reviewing words with two vowels together such as oi, au, ow, ea, etc. )Learning to read takes time, humans are not hard wired to read! Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Empathy can overwhelm and defeat us as teachers. Teachers, along with nurses, are right there on the front lines of caring for others. We drain our own resources trying to meet the emotional needs of our students. Compassion allows us to see the emotions of others, and then try to jump in to fix it, or alleviate some of the suffering. Compassion is action based. Doing for others, giving to others, creates positive emotions in the giver. Remember the movie Pay It Forward? It seemed to spark customers at Starbucks and other places to pay for the customer behind them. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

The title today, how does it fit with teaching? Great question! One of my online students gave me this definition of warm-blooded animals. His father taught him this. This student has knowledge that I didn’t have, and that I’d never considered. He brought something new to our classroom. All of our students will bring knowledge to the classroom. I think it’s important to acknowledge what they know. Many of our students today are entering classrooms without book knowledge, without school procedures, and sometimes without knowledge of modern conveniences, like toilets and sinks that work on sensors. Our country, our world, is dynamic, ever-changing. Our students will continue to come from places beyond our borders, our own worldview. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

This week I listened to a news report detailing a slower growth rate of children over the last year. You and I know all parts of a child grow more slowly when their body isn’t growing, including their brain. This is concerning. While Lady Liberty welcomes all, the streets are NOT paved with gold as my GErman grandparents were told, they are paved with the sweat of hard work and low wages. And for families with student loans? Ouch. Those payments will return. What can we do to advocate for better, and maybe more, food for our students? Ne er Enough--The author describes high achieving students ‘as 'at risk’. Students are pressured to participate in community service projects. Students enrolled in Advanced courses, perhaps through the community college. Students travel miles on the weekends to play competitive sports. The term ‘at risk’ took me by surprise. Seriously? What about the children living in poverty, who live with fewer resources than they need? What about students who witness violent acts or have insecure housing? If a child is in pain, the child is in pain. Emptiness, anxiety, and depression-- add in sadness and hopelessness. Let’s not forget the impact of social media. Will I be enough? According to the book, “students feel they only matter to the adults their lives, their peers, the larger community, if they are successful.” Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

We created Whamphonics during the Covid 19 summer of 2020. Schools use paper pencil assessments to determine students' phonics gaps. These are inefficient timewise, and ineffective because most often classroom teachers are not involved in the process. I wanted something better. Many of you know Dibels, but did you know it was once a paper/pencil assessment also? Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Let’s begin! These next 15 weeks are some of your greatest opportunities to o serve your mentor teacher, other teachers in the building, as well as beginning or continuing to interact with students. Once you begi student teaching, your time for observing will be limited. You will be focused on planning for each day’s instruction. If your mentor teacher is giving an assessment that doesn’t require you to be in the roo, has your MT for suggestions. Who teaches math well? Who is excellent with classroom management? Who does well with disruptive students? Can I watch small groups with the special education teacher? You will love and agree with some strategies, you will disagree and cringe sometimes. Example: I’ve heard experienced teachersmake derogatory remarks such as ‘his head is full of rocks, he doesn’t have a clue, The elevator doesn’t reach the top floor. Just walk away. Take it as something you will do better with. All kiddos have strengths. They may not be academic strengths, and I know. You’ll feel the pressure to make every student achieve. Sometimes a student’s achievement means they don’t need objects to count with anymore. It may mean they are using the bathroom on their own. It may mean they are learning to use a talking board. Success looks different for each one of them. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Perhaps this is week two of the school year. While week one was a whirlwind of activity and getting to know your students, week two is the time to tighten up those procedures and routines that aren’t working well. Resetting can take place as often as you need BEFORE things feel out of control. It is so valuable to reflect on how it’s going and which problems are in the way. In this episode, I’ll offer you a few solutions for the first weeks of school. Ways to begin or continue with good habits. As the weeks turn into months, it is so easy to fall back into old habits and ways of doing things. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

Welcome back! Students will be excited to see you. By the end of the day, they'll be dragging and so will you. Pace yourself through this week. When your district asks for input this year, tell them THURSDAY is a much better starting day for the first week of school. It will be exhausting for all of you. Plan for breaks, time outdoors, the most necessary routines, and getting to know your students. Learn to pronounce their names correctly. NEA offered this tip-when you mispronounce their name, THEY get a piece of candy. When YOU get it right, YOU get the candy. Names matter. YOU matter. THAN YOU for being a teacher today! Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics

To begin with, social-emotional learning isn’t new, it didn’t begin with the pandemic. Technology of many kinds has changed the ways we communicate with one another in all situations. Not just phones, not just the internet. While I used to knock on my friend’s door to see if she could play, many parents now schedule play dates. My friends and I would negotiate which game to play or whose house to play at. Most families have two parents working by necessity. Perhaps children aren’t allowed outside while parents are working. The most recent curriculum adoptions in schools involve quite a bit more solitary work answering questions on a laptop, without opportunities for students to work together. But here’s what I’ve noticed is lacking and what you can do to improve the relationships and climate in your classroom.. I promise, it’s simple, especially at the beginning of the year as you are getting to know students. I’ve noticed that the end of a lesson just falls flat, or it ends with a short video demonstrating the skill, or, I’m sorry, but worse still- a worksheet. INSTEAD Put students into small groups. The materials don’t matter. They can work on writing a short story together, they can stack blocks, they can separate legos into colors and sizes, they can organize the classroom library. Online phonics diagnostic @whamphonics.com Additional elementary resources @ https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Whamphonics