Technology and Tutoring

I started this post last week but didn't get it finished because I ran into a couple of issues but I think I have it figured out now. Last week I had a great tutoring session with one of my kids and wanted to blog about it.
I tutor on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One boy on Tuesday and then 2 girls and 1 boy on Thursdays. They are mostly my ELL kids that need a little more small group instruction. Last week I cancelled both days because I wasn't feeling that great and it makes for a long day. Plus the student I tutor on Tuesdays wasn't all that great the last time we worked together. He just wanted to play the whole time. Now I try to make things fun but we still have some learning to do. But today he was great and I think that's because we were on the iPad almost the whole time. I let him play whatever he wants to on the iPad while I'm out at buses. There are all learning games on the iPad so he's learning. He likes to play the Super Why app and Grandpa's Workshop. I like both of them  for him. Grandpa's workshop is really for younger kids but it works well with his language. Super why is an expensive app to me. It costs $3.99. But it is a great app for kids that works on letters, words, and reading. Grandpa's Workshop costs $1.99. (I was lucky enough to get a grant from my PTA to purchase some apps to use)
We usually start out with a sight word game. All we do is turn over a sight word flashcard and if he knows it then he gets a skittle. I use this to give me some words to work on. So at this point, we go back to the iPad. I usually let him use one of two apps. Either Doodle Buddy or Magnetic ABCs.
He writes or builds the words and then we use them in sentences. He needs a lot of practice with the oral language component too. After we've practiced writing the words and using them in a sentence, I'll use the magnetic letters to scramble the letters in a word and he has to unscramble them.

This picture is from a while ago but it shows the kids using the Doodle Buddy App to write the sight word. Here's a screen shot of the magnetic letters with a scrambled word.

 Usually we put the iPad away and work on some other skills. But today I was noticing how he was making a few letters and I thought it was a good time to try out another app I had found, Letter School. This was the first time I worked on this app with a student. We both loved it. You can pick from uppercase, lowercase letters and numbers. We worked on both upper and lowercase letters. The app won't let him make the letter the wrong way. You have to start at the top and you have to follow the path it wants you to. You practice three different times and each time the app makes them a little more independent. It was a great and fun way to practice handwriting that kept him engaged. I forgot to take a screen shot of this app but I did take a screen shot from the app on the app store. This app costs $2.99 but I think it's worth it. Especially for kids who are forming the letter incorrectly.

With this particular student I work on math as well. He still needs some practice with one to one correspondence and numbers passed 14. So we opened up the doodle buddy app again and used the stamping feature. I let the student pick out which stamp he wanted me to use and then stamped a set of them on the screen. Then he counted them and wrote the number. It was good because I was able to work on these less fun skills in a fun way.

Then we worked a little on addition problems. I wasn't sure if I should work on the addition since we've not quite gotten numbers 11-20 yet. But that's what we're working on in class and I wanted him to have some strategies when we work on addition. I wrote a number sentence and then he used the stamps on Doodle Buddy as manipulatives to solve the problem.

I love having my iPad in my classroom and sometimes I bring in my personal iPad. I let the kids play on apps when we have time but I love finding ways to use the technology in a little more meaningful way. It can be a novel tool to help students with skills that can be a little boring.  I have had several people ask me about the apps that I'm using in the classroom. I hope to make a list soon of the apps and how I'm using them. I'm not sure what apps are available in droid or kindle apps but maybe some of them will be comparable. I would love to hear what kind of technology you have in your school and how you use it.
I'm linking up with Techie Tuesday over at the Technology Tailgate. Be sure to check the party out.

Technology Thursday on Saturday

So it's not Thursday. I started this post yesterday but didn't get very far with it. I just couldn't get my thoughts together. I even deleted what I had written. Here's an update on how the ipods are going in my classroom. They are definitely my kids favorite center. They want to play them during free center time as well. I've been really lenient and letting them have free reign with the apps they are using. All the apps are educational of some kind. They are obsessed with the math games. I am still trying to figure out how to share with you guys the different apps that they are working on. (Ok, so now it's Saturday and I still haven't finished this post.)
Their favorite math game seems to be the rocket math. You can check it out here.  I have a very boy heavy class so they seem to love anything to do with space or superheroes. In this app you answer math questions to make your rocket go. I had a hard time navigating it when I was playing with it but my students seem to be having no problem with it. It amazes me how easy they find technology.
An app that we're just starting to explore a little is the Doodle Buddy App. I'm pretty sure this one is free. I saw a review on it on someone's blog. Don't remember whose it was though. Whoops. I used this one this week during my tutoring time. I tutor 2 afternoons a week 2 different sets of kids.  We are working a lot on making words, blending them, and writing sentences. After using the white boards, I decided to break out the ipod. I wrote a message to my student. He had to read it and then he had write me a message back.

This was the first message I wrote. I used sight words and then tried to use cvc words with sounds they needed to work on. Then he wrote a message back to me. It was good practice for this student. He needs a lot of help writing sentences. Then we tried to build some words with it.  The first afternoon this worked out great. The next afternoon I tried it out with my other student I tutor. It didn't work out so great. He struggled with writing on the screen. I see some potential ideas of ways to use this with my small groups and activities for the kids to use together.
One of my projects this summer is going to be to make some I can charts to go with this center and some kind of screen shot similar to what Erica Boher made for computer centers.
What apps do you students like? How do you use technology in your classroom?

Tutoring and Intervention

I've been at a loss here lately about what to write about it. I started this blog to share what was going on in my classroom and other ideas that I had. I feel like lately I haven't been sharing a lot of ideas. It's been more about what we're doing. I enjoy reading about others' classrooms and the things they have going on. So I'm going to try a few posts where I share how I do something. 
At the beginning of February, I started after school tutoring with 4 of my kids. I meet with 2 on one afternoon and 2 on the other for about 30 minutes. I'm starting to see some improvement in them. I thought I would share what we do when we met.
The first group that meets has two students that are almost where they need to be. They started out just saying the sounds in words but not quite at the blending stage. They know their sounds and most of their sight words.
Here's our typical session:
1. We make words using word cards. We've worked on short a words first and now have moved onto short e and short i. I use the book Making words for kindergarten for word lists. I made a word mat and some word cards for valentine's day. We're still using those. (I have them for sale in my Teacher's Notebook store and will have a buggy for words unit up soon. )
Here are a couple of pictures of the kids using the mats. I laminated the word cards but just put the mats in page protectors. Then the word cards go in a ziplock baggie and I can keep it all together.  After a week or two and one of the students was still struggling a bit, I started bribing them with m and ms. Whoever blends the letters and gets the word fastest gets a m and m. It works miracles. They are getting it because they have to do it fast.

2. The next thing we do is use the words that we just built in sentence. These two can do a pretty good job of making up sentences. They use popcorn words and the words we built to write sentences on their white boards. 

 I use this time to talk a little about mechanics. Like putting a space between words, capital letters and periods. It gives them a chance to use the sounds they were working on rather than just reading it. One of these students was really struggling with writing. Well more like he just wouldn't do it. But now when he has to write in class, I don't have to pull it out of him as much. The other student is ELL so it's great for his language.
3. We then read a book together. Our reading series cam with a set of decodable books so I use those during this time. Usually this is a book they haven't read before. I saw on someone's blog and I don't remember where I read this but the idea of having one point to the words while the other one reads. I tried it last week and it worked so well. It kept them both engaged. They struggled with being engaged while the other was reading and I really wanted to hear one at a time read.
4. Last we play a game of some sort. We've played Bingo, hangman, and a hammer game that I made. My kids love the hammer game. These games also review sight words and cvc words that we've been working on. I have the hammer game in my Teacher's Notebook store. It has sight words, short a words, short e words and short i words. I'm working on a spring themed one called Splat that uses a fly swatter.

The second group that I meet with is a little below where I want them to be. They still need practice with sight words and sounds in context. We do similar activities to the group that meets the day before.
Instead of building all cvc words we work on building and reading sight words. One of these students has some language issues so instead of making up random sentences. I give them a sentence frame and they add their own part to use the sight word in a sentence. It wasn't until I was working with them one on one that I really noticed the difficulty they had with making up sentences. After talking to our wonderful speech therapist, she gave me some suggestions for working with sentence frames. (Side note: we have the best speech pathologist. She works on skills we're working on with her therapy and always has great suggestions.) We still read a book and play a game. I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of blending with them but they still struggle with sounds so we're working our way slowly through short a words.
I wish I had some kind of freebie for you but I'm not quite done with my packets yet. I hope to have some short e and short i bingo games ready soon.
Does anyone else do any after school tutoring? What do you do in your intervention time? I'm always looking for new ideas and I hope this helps someone. I would love to hear about your small groups.

After school tutoring?

So I had big plans to write this post on Sunday and a few more to get caught up for the week, but my sister called and told me my grandmother was visiting. So I spent the day in Knoxville with my grandmother, sister and adorable niece. I know I'm a little biased but my niece is definitely the cutest kid out there. She's 14 months old and I'm amazed at how much language she is acquiring. She's a little sponge. It also makes me see how those little ones I get in Kindergarten with no language really must never be talked to. Sophie is a lucky girl because my sister stays home with her and she has a kindergarten teacher aunt and a primary principal grammy. So she gets talked to and taught all the time. Anyway, back to my post (that I am writing at 7:23 in the morning instead of being at school because my car won't start and I'm waiting on my bf to come get me:( )
Friday for Veteran's day we had an inservice day. Those are really not my favorite. I would rather be teaching my kids. But my administration does try to provide us with professional development and time for collaboration. One of the things we were looking at Friday was our students who just missed being proficient on "the test" by a couple of questions and trying to target them to move them forward. This got me thinking of my kids that are on the cusp of getting it. They are almost reading but just need a little extra help that they don't seem to getting at home. Another topic of conversation for the day was our economically disadvantaged kids. (Such a great name right). These are the kids that seem to be struggling the most. Not that we needed a test to tell us that. I think most teachers know. It brought us to talking about language and how kids just don't seem to have the language they should. (which made me think of my brilliant niece :)) So all this talk got me thinking about doing some after school tutoring. I looked at my class and where they were and which ones could benefit from extra help. One group that stood out to me was my ELL kids. I have a few that are starting to put things together for reading and I think if they had a little extra help they might just get there. The other group that stood out were the ones that are so eager to learn but just need a little extra one on one time.
We don't have any kind of tutoring program at school. I was curious if anyone out there in my blogging friends did? I think eventually we're going to try to write grants for some funding for after school tutoring but until then I'd like to do some on my own. I would love to hear about any kind of programs others do. How do you help those kids that need just a little extra push?