Ready, Set, Spark!
Spark Reading Newsletter | May 2024
Hello Spark teachers!
Welcome to your May newsletter! This month, learn to use Bug Club Decodables for shared reading with the help of our guest contributor, Karen Filewych. Then, hear how a French Immersion teacher uses Spark in her classroom. Let's get to it!
Using Spark's Bug Club Decodable Books for Shared Reading
By Karen Filewych (educator, author, and literacy consultant)
Research has shown that phonics instruction is most effective when explicit and systematic. Your daily phonics lessons accomplish this. It is also essential that students practice their phonetics knowledge in many contexts. Spark reading can help!
- Choose a Bug Club Decodable Book from a set you have been teaching.
- Read the book through once with students, inviting them to read with you when they can.
- Choose the most recently taught grapheme or one that is trickiest for your students.
- Explain that you are going to read the book a second time, and they are going to watch for the chosen grapheme. Each time they see it, they will respond in the way that the class has decided on for that day: finger on nose, hands on head, stand up/sit down.
- When you read the book the second time through, watch to see that students are noticing the grapheme.
For extra practice, you may choose to assign that book (or another from the same set) to students for independent reading!
Spark in the French Immersion Classroom
French Immersion teacher and Vice Principal Katherine Burden has been teaching at Larond Elementary for over 15 years—Surrey, BC's only full French immersion school.
For more than four of those years, Spark Reading has been part of her students' daily learning in the classroom and at home. Read Katherine's success story to learn how she uses Spark for literacy, Math, and English Language Arts lessons.
CONTEST
Win a Free Year of Spark Reading!
Share a post on 𝕏 about how you use Spark Reading in your classroom, and you could win a free year of Spark Reading!!
Post about your Spark Reading classroom adventures using the hashtag #SparkReading, and tag us at @PearsonK12. Each post will earn you an entry in the draw.
Three lucky teachers will receive a free one-year extension of their Spark subscription!
Deadline to enter is June 21, 2024, so start sharing your Spark stories today!