First Aid for Kindergarteners: Literacy Interventions

Interventions...everyone is looking for them! My intervention session is always one of my highest attended conference sessions. This blog post shares some thoughts on intervention and shares a few of my favorites!
There are three simple questions to ask yourself when you are thinking about applying an intervention:

1. What do I want the kids to know?

These are the power standards. Not all standards need an intervention! Think about the most POWERFUL standards. Which standards are going to be built upon? Which standards are essential for success on future standards? These are the standards for which you plan an intervention!

2. How do you know if you kids have mastered the standards?

This means assessments! UGHHHH yet another test??????  Not really...formative assessments are ongoing! They are used to help you determine what you need to reteach, not teach, or think of another way! I wanted an easy way to keep up with all of this data! Wala! ESGI! You can do all of that right through ESGI!

For example, here is an easy way to assess the alphabet.  You simply use the ABC test! All you have to do is show the kids the screen on the device and ask them to name the letter. You simply click yes or no!

Then, it will give you information on individual children or on the WHOLE class! Good news! You can try it for free for TWO full months! What a great way to get all of you back to school assessments done quickly! Here's even better news... if you sign up for the FREE trial using promo code ADSIT, you are also entered to $50 Amazon Gift Card or the GRAND PRIZE of a $500 Amazon Gift Card! Just go here, use promo code ADSIT, and you will be registered to win!

3. What do you do if they don't master the standard?

This is where we plan the intervention! Here are a few easy to use interventions!

Love these alphabet intervention tub activities!

My friend Michele and I came up with 10 different activities for teaching the alphabet!

We made a folder for each child to hold their alphabet activity cards.

We collected the items they would need to complete the activities and placed them inside of a zipper pencil pouch.

Then, we made a 2 gallon bag to hold the folder and pencil pouch for each child. To decide which cards to put in the folder keep this in mind. The brain learns best when there is a 70/30 ration. This means that the student already knows 70% of the information and only 30% of the information is unknown. Therefore, the bag will hold activities for letters they already know AND for letters they are learning! (Just use your EGSI data to figure this out easy peasy!)

One of the kids favorites...Bend It! Here the kids use pipe cleaners to bend to form each letter!

Another favorite...Roll It! The kids use the playdough to roll the letters.  You can grab the playdough letters free in this blog post! The blog post also shares the other activities! These ideas are from our Interventions Bundle.

One of my favorite abc strategies is this alphabet book idea adapted from a Reading Recovery Strategy.  You can grab this book as a FREE FILE at the bottom of this blog post.  Use this cover to make an alphabet book for the child.

These are the pages that go inside of the book.

Invite the child to cut apart the pictures and put them inside a baggie.

Using your ESGI data, add pictures to the pages that contain the letters the child is able to identify! They don't have to know BOTH the capital and the lower case, just one or the other.  Once the pictures are added, it's time to add the new learning.  Select 3 more letters that you would like for the child to learn. Glue pictures on those three pages.

Now, it is time to read the book.  As the child reads the book, skip the pages without the pictures. When they get to a page with a picture, invite the child to point and name the capital and lower case letter and the picture. If a child doesn't know the letter, you model reading and have the child copy you.

As the child learns a letter, add another picture to one of the pages that do not contain a picture!

This strategy works best when the child reads you the book EVERY day!

 

Here's the most important part...who uses the book?  I mean, how do you decide for which children will this strategy be the most successful.

Some children, those knowing around 18 capital and 15 lower case (just an example), do not need to do this book.  They will learn the alphabet through your regular activities of songs, charting, games, etc!

Some children are not ready, yet! The children that do not understand there ARE letters and they have names, are not yet ready! They need time to just come to school.  They need to sing, hear stories and engage in printed text. However, this is often who we try strategies with! If a strategy isn't working, the child probably isn't ready for the strategy!

This intervention works best with the kids who know a few letters---maybe around 7! These children will learn the names of the letters quickly!