Beanie Baby Reading Strategies

Hey friends, I thought I’d take a little break from organizing (my leveled library is coming along slowly but surely) and show you guys how I use reading strategies in my classroom.

My amazing neighbor teacher, Heather told us about this strategy a few years ago, so we all jumped on board and started by reading this post.  It gave us the basic outline of the decoding word strategies.  I found most of my beanie babies at garage sales and the rest were donated by my class when I requested the ones we needed.  You can find these posters anywhere, but Oceans of First Grade Fun has a great set for free!

We start out with one beanie baby per week and talk about how this can help us decode words we see in books.

Here they are…

Eagle Eye - Look at the pictures! · Look at the picture for clues

Lips the Fish - Get your lips ready! · Say the first few sounds of the new word · Read to the end of sentence and say it again

Stretchy Snake - Stretch it out! · Stretch the word out slowly · Put the sounds together

Chunky Monkey - Chunk the Word! · Look for a chunk that you know (-at, -an) · Look for a word part (-ing, -er)

Skippy Frog - Skip It, Skip It! · Skip the word · Read to the end of the sentence · Hop back and READ IT, READ IT!

Tryin’ Lion - Try it again! · Try to reread the sentence · Try a word that makes sense

I have truly enjoyed using these in my classroom, they are so helpful and the kids refer to the bulletin throughout the ENTIRE the year. 

If you haven’t used this in your classroom, I strongly suggest trying it.  There is also a second set for comprehension that I am going to incorporate during the second part of the year. 

Check it out here.

Until next week which hopefully I will be done with this mess…

Yup, that’s the mess in my living room.  (My poor husband!)

I’m working on leveling now, and making cute labels for my baskets and stickers for the books! 

Do you have a leveled library?  If so, how do you organize it?