Trix The Cat

Oliver and I have really been enjoying reading together this school year! Watching the excitement he has when he learns a new book is priceless. I have been spending some time learning how to teach an emergent reader because I have never done it before! I found a particularly helpful you tube video of a reading teacher instructing a small group of Kindergartners in a guided reading lesson. This along with some other phonics activities that I have acquired have been very helpful in establishing a reading routine with Oliver during our reading instruction time. I would like to share a fun reading lesson that we are working on this week! 

You Tube Instructional Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpsVODqPpro

I found the book Trix The Cat on a website offering a free book for emergent readers. The link includes the printable book and also some activities that could be used throughout the week. In this particular entry I will share how I used this lesson plan throughout the week and how I tailored it to meet Oliver's learning needs.

Kinderplans.com: The Trix the Cat Printable Book
https://www.kinderplans.com/p/43/kindergarten-reading

The great thing about this book was that Oliver was able to paste the main character into the book as he read each page! He was also able to color the book when he was finished learning to read it! 

Teaching Tip:
We keep all of the books that Oliver learns to read in a large zip lock bag. He knows that all of these books can be read independently and often reads them to his baby sister or to his younger brother or sister. We also open each reading session together by reading one of his books together. It is really important to offer many successful reading opportunities when kids are first beginning to read. This contributes to a real love for reading that turns into a life long love for learning! 


Day 1
On the first day reading Trix The Cat Oliver and I walked through the book and made predictions about the story. Then I put the book aside. On a white board next to the table I slowly started introducing some of the familiar words that Oliver would be reading in this story. I created flashcards with these words that we could use all week. By starting with the familiar words he was already confident that he could read the story without difficulty. On the top of the board we started going over some of the new words that he was going to encounter in the story. Then, we started coloring the strips of paper that had Trix The Cat on them (printed out from the website above) so that we could glue them into the story when we were ready.
I left the words taped to the white board all day and occasionally I would ask Oliver if he remembered some of the new words. By the end of the day he was reading them really well!

Day 2
On Tuesday I wrote out a handful of sentences from the story on sentence strip paper and displayed them in a pocket chart with pictures to match that I got from the web site above. Oliver and I reviewed the words from the white board that we had learned the day before. Then we read through each sentence on the board and color coded some special words.

In this story the focus words were "positional words." The three positional words he would be learning were by, on and under. We talked about how these words describe where Trix the cat is placed in the story. We took out each sentence strip and circled the positional word in blue. We also circled the tricky words at the end of each sentence in green. These "tricky words" corresponded with the picture next to the sentence. This was Olivers reminder that when he got to these words in the sentence he could use a "picture clue" to help him figure them out.

Teaching Tip: You may have noticed that I love color coding. Color coding different learning activities really helps the visual learner remember. It was helpful for Oliver to see the colors in the sentences to remind him that he was reading a new word or a picture clue word.  I have also color coded sight words that we are working on.

Day 3
On Wednesday we reviewed the sentence strips first. Then we were ready to read the story for the first time. We got out our colored cats and began reading through each page. Because he had already read most of the sentences with me on the strips he was very successful at reading through the story the first time. We circled the positional words in our book and then glued Trix the Cat onto each page. Oliver was very excited to have learned another book he could read on his own!

Day 4

On Thursday we read the book again and then played some word activities! I took out our sentence strips and cut the words apart. I spread all of the words out in front of Oliver and asked him to put the sentences back together. He knew the story really well and was able to see the words and construct a sentence that made sense. This was great for him because he couldn't completely rely on his memory. He had to read each word and place it in the correct order. Then he had to use his finger to read the sentence and ask himself if it made sense. We did this with several sentences.

I hope that this technique is useful for you. I have been using it on many different stories and have found that Oliver is really enjoying it! If he tells me that he loves to read and loves his school time...I know that we are on the right track! If your child is frustrated or doesn't enjoy your reading time it is perfectly o.k. to slow down or change gears altogether. The last thing you want to do is discourage them from reading. Reading is supposed to be fun! Enjoy this time with your little ones!