Finally...... I finished it!!!!!!!

While I was working on my Masters several years ago, I came across some interesting research that made my life soon much easier.  At the time, I was teaching special ed. and my kiddos REALLY struggled with sight words.  Every day, we would work on the words and they would know them PERFECTLY, only to forget them the next day.  It was frustrating for me, but especially for them.  I kept thinking about what my good friend and mentor, Beth Jenkins used to say...

                             "We already work hard, we just need to learn to work smart",

and I just KNEW there had to be a way to make sight word study more productive.  Anywhoo, this research stated that the brain remembers pictures easier than words (duh) and that if pictures were incorporated with words, students retained them for a longer period of time.  Excited and inspired, I designed a set of dolch sight word flashcards and power points with pictures incorporated into the words that couldn't be decoded.  It was a lot harder than I thought and took a lot longer, but it was so worth it.  The kids loved them, I loved them and my sight word world was all sunshine, rainbows and bunnies!  I used them for years and life was good.  I put them on Teacher Pay Teacher and even made a little money!

 

Then, our district discarded the dolch word lists, and decided to adopt the Founts and Pinnell High Frequency Words.  Waaaaaahhhhhh!  So I continued to limp along with my poor dolch sight word cards, but it just didn't work as well.  I knew I needed to make a new set of cards, but who had the time during the school year?  I started working on them last summer, but the spirit just did not move me, and I decided to play with my grandkids instead.

I love my grandkids!

Aren't they adorable?

Well, this summer I WAS inspired and finished my (drum roll, please)

         New and Improved Fountas and Pinnell High Frequency Word Cards and Power Points!

                                                                       
This time, I made a picture for every word, not just the undecodable (is that a word??)  words.  And it only took about 3 weeks of grueling work in my recliner with laptop, binging seasons of Andy Griffith.

Each word has a picture and a motion or a phrase.  At first, I'll just show them the word with the picture and then say the phrase or make the motion.  That's all.  Very short and sweet.  You see, I want their sweet little brains to link the word, picture, and motion or phrase together into one nice package.  

 Eventually, with time and repetition, the kiddos will no longer need the picture or the phrase or motion and will remember the word.  Only with the pictures, it will be easier and faster for my kids. And who doesn't like faster and easier?

I put the new flash cards on my Teacher Pay Teacher store if you are interested....

And it's only mid July!!!  Plenty of time for Netflix and grandkids!!!!
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