Learning to Read
Funded Aug 22, 2022Thank you again for funding my project. My second graders are loving using the sand trays, tiles, and screens. By teaching phonemic awareness and phonics skills using these materials it is providing, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic cues to help students learn and retain these skills.
When teaching a new skill, we use the tiles to represent the sounds we hear. We use the sand to write sounds and/or words we are learning. The screens are put under their paper and using a crayon, they write sight words. They then trace over the "bumps" made from the screens to practice the words. If you think this sounds "crazy," I did too, until I saw the proof for myself! My students are learning to read!
When my students first saw the sand trays there were a lot of oohhhs and aahhhs! They had never used something like this before in reading. They ask everyday if they can use the sand trays and are beyond excited when I say yes!
The next steps will be to work on harder skills like 3 letter blends, trigraphs, vowel teams, etc... and get these students to read grade level text on their own without support.
I am truly humbled and grateful to each of you for donating to my students. Because of you, I am able to teach reading using the Orton Gilligham Method and make a difference!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Clary