Helpful Kangaroo (reading strategy for 1st grade)

For my literacy unit I taught accuracy strategies in readers workshop (one strategy per day). I taught:

• Wise Owl
• Eagle Eye
• Slippery snake
• Cross-checking cheetah
• Lips the Fish
• Chunky Monkey
• Running Rhino
• Tryin' Lion
• Helpful Kangaroo
• First Grade Forgetfuls

These are all strategies that readers can use to decode tricky words. Chunky Monkey is an accuracy strategy that reminds readers to look for chunks in a word that they may know, first in the beginning of the word, then in the middle or at the end of a word. Readers workshop in my classroom is identical to that of Katie Krinsky's considering our mentor teachers, Katie and I plan readers workshop together. We begin with a 5-7 minute lesson, which is structured into four different parts (these remain the same through the entire year for both readers and writers workshop). These are the parts:

• Connection: Make a connection to a recent readers workshop lesson and state what the students will now learn.
• Teach: explain teaching point and model an example.
• Active engagement: students will model objective
• Link to ongoing work:Remind them what they need to do "today and everyday"
• Share: Have students share if they have used this particular or any other strategies that we have taught.

During my readers workshop mini-lesson, I knew that my most of my students would recognize some chunks and endings such as -ed, -ing, and -s however, I wanted to emphasize this for any struggling students. I pretended to get stuck on the word "shouted" and then on the word playing, we talking about -ing and then I brought the chunk "ay" to their attention and had them think about what other words they know with "ay" in it. With magnetic letters I showed them "Kaylee" (a students name), this really interested them and ever since then, all of the students recognize "ay" in words.

As a part of of readers workshop we have a "share time" after our mini lesson, independent reading, and partner reading. During share time students were jumping at the opportunity to share tricky words that they figured out by using Chunky Monkey. There were also a lot of students who raised their hands to tell of other accuracy strategies that we have talked about which was really nice to see that they were remembering these!

I was already planning on teaching a second day of Chunky Monkey to reinforce this concept to students so by the second day, there was not one student who did not understand or use this strategy in their reading. Along with all of the other strategies, I assign them as weekly goals to students who would benefit from using them while I do daily individual reading conferences. I have the students repeat the specific strategy that I assigned to them before the end of conferences so that they remember what they are to do, this works very well for the students in my class!