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Are You Ready To Win a $50 GC and...

Start Your New School Year Right? 

Well, I have just the thing that can change your life! 

This was me:

I needed a Super Hero!



I started using ESGI in my kindergarten classroom in 2008 and I immediately gained:
1.  Instant data on EVERY student's skill level.
2.  User-friendly reports for parents & admins.
3.  Students who begged to be tested! Really! :)
to get started!

And, if you sign up for a FREE 60-day trial (no credit card required), you also automatically qualify for $40 off of your 1st year, but you must enter the code:  KFUN 

AND:
Start your FREE trial 
and you will be automatically entered to win 
one of 10 Amazon Gift Cards!

So, let's get started:
and sign up for your FREE trial.
Remember to enter the code KFUN.

Then, enter the names of your students, 
their gender, & home language. 
(YES, ESGI will generate a letter for your parents in English or Spanish!)




What, You Aren't Using ESGI Yet?
You will love all of the built-in tests available on ESGI's website...

...but if you need to use specific assessments, just reproduce them using ESGI's built-in test builder. You can create your own unique tests! They even have built-in fonts and graphics to help you. Visit their site and check out their video tutorials and see how easy it is!

Let's Get To Testing:

Your students will beg you to test them so they can watch their data circles fill up and turn green! 
You can test on a desktop, a laptop, or even an iPad. 

My in-coming students LOVED testing with ESGI.
The teacher asks the question seen on the screen and then clicks "yes" or "no" based on the student's answer. Easy, breezy, lemon squeezy!


And Then There Is The Data:

Incredible data on each and every skill tested.


This is why I LOVE the bar graphs:
If you click on the grey part you see the names of the students who did not get that question correct! Can you spell RTI??? There it is for you!

ESGI also tracks each individual student's progress. The grey circles turn green as each student masters the skills on each test. Your students LOVE to see their circles turn green, so they will often beg you to test them! 


Click the chart for more info. 

Then, There Are The Flashcards:

Individualized flashcards for each student!
I called them "skill cards" because I stored each child's cards in a sandwich-sized ziplock bag to use as a reference as to which skills each child needed to work on. 

And Then, There Are The Parent Letters:

These are so much better than any report card, so I just stapled the parent letter to the front of the report card because it was easier to understand. 
They come in English or Spanish!
And there is so much more!
If your school or district decides to provide this for multiple teachers, there are even more discounts. Get started with the code KFUN, and contact ESGI for further multi-teacher discounts. 
CLICK HERE to get started!

ESGI saved me so much time, I was able to actually go home and take a break!
Start your FREE trial and you will be automatically entered to win one of 10 Amazon Gift Cards!







Book Study: Chapter 7 - Comprehension Strategies with a Freebie!

Hi guys! It's Cori from Mrs. B's Beehive, wrapping up our book study on Jan Richardson's newest guided reading book! I read the first version of this book almost 5 years ago, and I'm happy that I purchased and read this new addition.  As has been mentioned before, I love that it is spiral bound, and can easily sit on my desk as I teach small groups.  There is so much information in this book that it can be overwhelming! Having the book beside me as I teach will help me recall and utilize all of the important steps in a guided reading lesson.


Chapter 7 is all about comprehension.  Guided reading means nothing, if the students don't understand what they are reading.  In this chapter, Jan Richardson provides 12 comprehension strategies to use with the students.  For each comprehension strategy, she provides 1-3 lesson plans on how to teach that particular strategy.  Not all lesson plans are geared toward our little people, but I would argue that they could all be modified to fit our needs.

After reading this chapter, I felt overwhelmed again.  This book is packed with so much information, that it is hard to digest!  To make the comprehension piece a little easier, (and because I'm a very visual person) I put together this comprehension sheet for us to use.  My idea, is that you can laminate it, and keep it at your desk or in your guided reading binder. When you come to the comprehension section of the lesson, you can glance at this sheet to decide which strategy you would like to use to check for understanding.  As the students become more familiar with the strategies, you can even have them choose how they would like to share their learning!



If you would like a copy of this chart you can find it in the link below:


I hope you find this helpful, and thank you for following along with us on this book study.  Use the image below to pin this to Pinterest, if you would like to come back to this series at a later time.


Kinder Tribe Book Study: Chapter 5 The Transitional Reader

Hello Kinder Tribe friends. Heather here from Learning with Mrs. Langley and I am back to review the next chapter in Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading. 
This chapter is FULL of ideas for the transitional reader from kindergarten through middle school. Transitional readers are tricky because they all need something different! Some struggle with comprehension while others need work with fluency. Let's dive right in! 

Assessing students is probably the part I struggle with the most so I really focused in on this part of the chapter. I love the materials that Richardson has available in the Appendix to assess students word knowledge inventory and then additional materials for the reading conference. You don't have to create anything or find anything online because it's all right there in the book. 

Work Knowledge Inventory- This is given as a whole class (or with kinders just your high kiddos). It is a carefully designed list of words for students to spell. 

Reading Conference- The reading conference should consist of a running record where the teacher makes notes of self monitoring, rereading, decoding, self correcting, and fluency. The conference should also include an oral retell (checking for comprehension).  

Richardson provides the guided reading plan for transitional readers on page 313 of the book. Unlike the reading plan for early readers (discussed in chapter 4) the transitional reading plan includes 3 days of instruction rather than just 2. The third day includes a writing prompt with planning and writing time. She points out that the writing piece has two goals, extending and assessing comprehension and improving writing skills. So important! 

If you haven't already I encourage you to go through and watch all of the videos. I have watched most of them but not all so I have some time set aside this week to go back and watch the videos I missed. I will be taking some notes! 

What was your aha! moment in this chapter? This will sound silly but mine was the fact that word study is still included in the transitional reader lesson plan. I thought that by now I could skip those and focus more on comprehension but the word lists included in the chapter were very helpful for me to see that those are things I need to work. They will be very helpful when working with my high groups this year. 

If you would like to pin this post for later here you go!  

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Catch Me, If You Can! Live, From Vegas!

& Turn EVERY Child Into A Writer!

I'm so excited to be coming to you LIVE from the ESGI booth in Las Vegas! But wait, there is more...

For anyone who can't attend SDE's "I Teach K!" conference, you can catch my mini session live on Facebook! 
I'll be going live at 4:40 PM 
on Tuesday, July 11. 
So, tune in and find out how you can 
make writing FUN and easy for your
kindergarten and struggling 1st grade students!


I'll also be presenting all day on 
Wednesday, July 12
and 
Thursday, July 13
at SDE's I Teach K!
So catch me, if you can, at one of my sessions:
You can register by CLICKING HERE.

July 12:
9:00 AM-  Bring Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your K     
                 Classroom
10:45-  Emergent Reading: Climb Aboard The Literacy Train!
1:30-  Don't Wait! Early Intervention Strategies for Your 
           Littlest  Learners
3:15-  From Re-Telling Stories to Writing: Instant Success!

July 13:
9:00 AM-  Close Reading & the Idea of Digging Deeper.
10:45-  Integrating Curriculum: Teaching Smarter, Not Harder
1:30-  Developing Writing Skills in Kindergarten

So, whether you will be in Vegas, or not, 
I hope you can catch me at one of  my 
SDE sessions or 
at ESGI's Facebook Live!