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CHEX Daily: Use Children’s Books to Teach Social Issues

April 27, 2017 by Kate Winn | 0 comment
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Kate Winn

Kate Winn

Kate Winn is an Ontario teacher with 26 years of classroom experience, and a teacher educator who specializes in evidence-based literacy. As an author (Reading Assessment Done Right, Scholastic 2026), consultant, presenter, and host of IDA Ontario's Reading Road Trip podcast, she shares her passion for literacy practices that help all students reach reading and writing success.

 

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katethismomloves

👩🏻‍🏫 Teacher 🎤 Speaker 🎧 Host of IDA ON’s Reading Road Trip podcast 💻 Author: Reading Assessment Done Right from Scholastic, available now!
📚 Choral reading with decodable texts! 🎶✨ 💡 I’ve 📚 Choral reading with decodable texts! 🎶✨ 💡 I’ve heard from many teachers who find the UFLI passages challenging, and it’s important to remember that the intention was never to just print them off and send them home with the expectation that students read them independently on the first try. Educators should use these passages DURING lessons to help build students’ skills. 🧠📖 🗣️ This is a video of choral reading, which I do with our Year 2 Kindergarten students (16 were present today when I shot this clip). On the first read, we decode each sentence together, word for word (kind of like when I’m using the blending board), and then reread the sentence. 🔤 You can also circle the target letter/sound combo for the lesson. On the second read, it’s a choral read with my voice guiding slowly. 🎶 The video shows the third read, when students have built some confidence! 🙌 (With some groups in the past, I’ve even used echo reading to start, and may incorporate that again later in the year when we get to more challenging patterns and heart words.) ❤️ 👀 Establishing routines where students understand the importance of keeping their eyes on the words is really important for this! Both redirection (“If I say your name, that means eyes on the word”) and praise (“I noticed Gina’s eyes followed the pointer that whole time!”) have helped for us. 👏✨ 🏡 While I don’t send home the UFLI passages (we use SyllaSense decodables for our take-home reading program), after working with the text in this way, students would have more success when reading these to a parent/guardian. 📚💛 💬 How do you use connected text during foundational skills lessons? I’d love to hear what works in your classroom! 👇 #UFLIFoundations #ChoralReading #PhonicsInstruction #EarlyLiteracy #ReadingInstruction
My first time at researchED and I had the honour o My first time at researchED and I had the honour of presenting in the beautiful Nave at the Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto (bringing @readingscienceacademy along in spirit as I shared tips from our book). There was an incredible crowd of attendees today, there to learn from some fabulous speakers, and it was so nice to catch up with friends from PVNC Catholic, @idaontario (including some past Reading Road Trip guests), @onlit.social and beyond - and a special treat to meet some of my lovely Instagram followers (I’m always thrilled when you say hi and introduce yourselves!) And now my October presentations have come to an end, with just a couple left to go before the end of 2026! (Thanks @zsmith5223 for photos!)
NEW! 🎧 Stephanie and I were so thrilled to be gues NEW! 🎧 Stephanie and I were so thrilled to be guests on @literacypodcast with Melissa and Lori to chat about reading assessment, and you can find the new episode of Melissa & Lori Love Literacy wherever you listen to podcasts! We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Teachers - how do you feel about syntax? If you’re Teachers - how do you feel about syntax? If you’re like most of us, this isn’t an area you’re completely confident about - so I’m sharing some resources from @onlit.social & @idaontario in the post to help! #syntax #syntaxinstruction #scienceofreading #structuredliteracy
👀 If you teach Gr. 2-6 or 9, you don’t want to mis 👀 If you teach Gr. 2-6 or 9, you don’t want to miss the @onlit.social Learning Through Literacy Units (combining content area material with the Releasing Writers/thinkSRSD writing approach) - with units for Gr. 1, 7 and 8 coming soon! 🎉 There’s now a dedicated landing page to help you get started with these 🔥 resources - go to ONlit.org and search “Learning Through Literacy Getting Started”! 👩🏻‍💻 @thinksrsd #thinksrsd #releasingwriters #writinginstruction #evidencebasedinstruction
A note for parents: if your child is behind where A note for parents: if your child is behind where they should be in reading, providing them with alternate access to grade-level texts is really important, both so they can continue to build language comprehension, knowledge, and vocabulary at the same rate as their peers, and also for the social element of being able to talk about the latest hit book series with friends. 🎧 Reading aloud to your child, even as they begin to read independently, can help with this, as well as ensuring access to audiobooks. 📚 Also keep in mind that if standardized reading assessments allow text-to-speech, we aren’t getting a valid assessment of a student’s full reading skills, since the decoding/word reading element may be taken out of the equation. P.S. In terms of personal preference, I 100% need a hard copy of a book, though I will read on iPad if absolutely necessary. The one and only audiobook I’ve ever listened to was Jessica Simpson’s memoir, because I needed something to entertain and distract me during several days of sub-zero teacher-strike picketing back in 2020! (Pre-COVID and pre-cancer. 2020 was quite a year.) Funny enough, I absolutely love podcasts - I just don’t like to consume books the same way. #audiobooks #audiobookscount #audiobookscountasreading #literacyinstruction #readingintervention
Data Day! 🎉 #readinginstruction #readingscreener Data Day! 🎉 #readinginstruction #readingscreener #literacyinstruction #scienceofreading #databaseddecisions
🔥 new book alert! @readingscienceacademy @sebrown 🔥 new book alert! @readingscienceacademy @sebrown1230 @kellypowellsmith @madden.bethann #directinstruction #readinginstruction #explicitinstruction #scienceofreading #structuredliteracy
A new study looking at ❤️ words! Note: while we u A new study looking at ❤️ words! Note: while we used to call high-frequency words (sometimes with regular phonics patterns, sometimes with irregular) “sight words”, that term is actually used by researchers to describe words that have been orthographically mapped to the brain with letters, sounds, and meaning, which are recognized and read as soon as they’re seen. (Fun fact: once your brain maps a word, unless something happens like a brain injury, you will never forget how to read it!) #earlyliteracy #phonics #heartwords #scienceofreading #sightwords
Our parent/grandparent letter formation volunteer Our parent/grandparent letter formation volunteer program is well underway! Today we were lucky to have four adults pulling students 1:1 for printing assistance! ✍🏼 For all the details on how we approach letter formation in the classroom, including resources and exactly how the volunteer program works, go to the “Letter Formation” highlights on my profile and click through to see the posts! 👀 #LetterFormation #PrintingInstruction #StructuredLiteracy #PrintingLikeAPro #ParentVolunteers
➡️ A no-stress template for phonics work that you ➡️ A no-stress template for phonics work that you can quickly and easily leave for a supply/substitute teacher! I designed it to use with UFLI Foundations, but you can adapt for any program which incorporates word chains with manipulative letters. 🔡 You can find it at the link 🔗 in my bio, called “Supply Plan Template - UFLI Word Work”. Make a copy and edit to suit your context. 💻 #phonics #phonicsprogram #uflifoundations #earlyliteracy #literacyinstruction
What a great weekend in Calgary for the NetWORDing What a great weekend in Calgary for the NetWORDing conference! It was an honour to give the opening keynote - to almost 400 educators who gave up their Saturday to learn more about literacy - and it’s always fun to sign books and meet people I’ve only ever communicated with online (shoutout to Ariana for the lovely encounter that had us both tearing up! 🥹) Only one glitch: when the high school’s rotating monitor display overrode my keynote slides, and instead of the ORF data I was talking about, everyone was looking at an ad for an event involving Super Mario?! 😂 (It was fixed quickly!) A lovely happy hour at a (gorgeous) local home with other presenters, and then a delicious dinner at The Nash wrapped up the day! 🍔 (Somehow they just knew that I was the perfect patron to seat in front of the roaring 🔥!) It’s always such a privilege to travel ✈️ yet I’m always thankful to be heading home to my family, my own bed (😴} and my classroom. (I was considering adding 30 child emojis but decided to spare you!) Thanks to my travel buddy @unamalcolm for being my photographer too! #scienceofreading #structuredliteracy #earlyliteracy #readingassessment readingscreening
After many requests, it’s finally here - link in b After many requests, it’s finally here - link in bio! 🎉 A free, editable resource to make report card writing just a little easier this season, with sample comments and home tips connected to the Acadience Reading K-6 screener skills. 💻 Even if you use a different screener, many measures are the same or similar, so it may still be of use to you. 👀 Make a copy, use what’s helpful, and please send me your questions, suggestions, and ideas for future updates, as this is a first draft and work in progress. 💬 🔗 Link in bio! #TeacherShortcuts #ReportCardComments #ScienceOfReading #AcadienceReading #TeacherTimeSavers
Our Birthday Book tradition! 🎉🎈📚 Thanks to the mo Our Birthday Book tradition! 🎉🎈📚 Thanks to the mom and grandma who did some thrifting to help us grow our collection! My Scholastic points have helped too! #readaloud #readalouds #birthdaytradition #birthdaybook #kindergarten
Sharing tips and ideas to support the skill of Fir Sharing tips and ideas to support the skill of First Sound Fluency! See link in bio for a doc full of further resources. 🗣️ In terms of sources for the activities I mention in the video, the roll and read was from TPT and I can’t find the exact same one anymore, but if you search “First Sound Roll and Say” there are some inexpensive options. The picture cards with clothespins were from The Measured Mom (now called Reach All Readers). The mats with objects were from a Lakeshore Learning Match-A-Sound kit I inherited when I came into kindergarten and I believe you can still purchase it through Wintergreen as well, and Hand2Mind also sent me a “Sort that Sound” activity set which I use - BUT you can work on this skill without purchasing anything - use any pictures or objects that you have around the classroom. 🧸 P.S. I know my data isn’t “research”, but I have never had to go back to the phonological sensitivity level (e.g., isolating/segmenting syllables) to help a student understand phoneme isolation/segmentation. I highly recommend working at the phoneme level. ✅ #firstsoundfluency #readingassessment #readingscreener #phonemicawareness #earlyliteracy
“I’m not Mrs. Young” comes out just ahead of “Fing “I’m not Mrs. Young” comes out just ahead of “Fingers out of noses” for my most frequent utterance at school… 😆 #teacherlife #kindergartenteacher #kindergartenclass #kindergartenclassroom
FREE! I’m excited to be co-presenting with Dr. Ste FREE! I’m excited to be co-presenting with Dr. Stephanie Stollar at @amplify.education Literacy Data and MTSS Webinar Week! Join us on Monday, October 5 at 4 p.m. ET for our presentation, “From Screening to Systems: Building a Sustainable, School-Wide MTSS.” We’ll explore how to move from screening data to instruction and results, creating a clear, sustainable pathway for every student. Save your spot today! Register here: https://go.info.amplify.com/fy26_elemlitsolutions_sorliteracydataandmtssweek_national_webinars_webinar-series_getintouchoption_optin #MTSS #ScienceOfReading #ReadingAssessment #ReadingInstruction
Show and share started this week! Each student has Show and share started this week! Each student has a day of the week, and their parent/guardian emails a photo for them to talk about. 🗣️ (A remnant of COVID protocols; photos allow a much bigger range of topics than small items brought to school.) Students follow the TIDE (topic, important details, end) paragraph-writing format from Releasing Writers/ @thinksrsd. 🧠 You can see my ECE partner moving the coloured rocket ship pieces on the magnetic board as the student checks off each step (watch to the end of the video to see a closeup of the board). 🚀 🟢 “This is my velociraptor.” 🟡 “It has some golden on it the way up the head.” 🟡 “He has red eyes.” 🟡 “And he has sharp claws up here and sharp fingernails.” 🟡 “And there are spikes.” 🟡 “And he’s all black.” 🔴 “And it was so cool to get…my velociraptor is so cool.” Just learning to form letters and spell words, yet these 3, 4, and 5 year-olds can orally compose a paragraph in front of their peers once a week. Building these skills in tandem is setting these students up for future writing success (on top of the great public speaking practice). ✍🏼 Always here for questions! ❓ (And as always, video is shared with permission!) #thinksrsd #showandshare #showandtell #orallanguage #earlywriting
It’s Code Pack day! 🎉 #phonicsinstruction #struct It’s Code Pack day! 🎉 #phonicsinstruction #structuredliteracy #scienceofreading #ontariokindergarten #earlyliteracy
As a classroom teacher, it can be hard to figure o As a classroom teacher, it can be hard to figure out where to begin when it comes to oral language supports. 🤔 This free tool has been helpful for me - and it was neat to see the progress this particular student made over time. 🗣️ Link to the assessment form is in my bio. #OralLanguage #OralLanguageAssessment #OralLanguageInstruction
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