My role as a Special Education Resource Teacher has been one of my favourite educator roles so far. I pull students, in need of reading intervention, out of classrooms for 20 minutes to read and practice word work to reach their reading level based on Fountas & Pinell’s Instructional Level Expectations for Reading.

At first, I found that I did not have enough time to read and do word-work in the 20 minute time frame. By the time we read the book, discussed the book and answered comprehension questions, it was time for students to head back to class and for my next group to arrive.

I then decided to do reading and word work every other time I saw my groups. One session we would read and discuss the book, the next time we would play word games. I found many of my word games at this awesome website called Sight Words. This website is amazing and as many different sight word games that are editable and free to download!

We also practiced word families, rhyming and syllables from resources I found on Teachers Pay Teachers.

However, because many of my students still didn’t know their letter blends, playing words games wasn’t always as fun for them. Not knowing their letter blends made it difficult to practice their reading strategies.

It’s also ideal to be able to read a book as a group and practice word work in the same session. So, inspired by another educator who created Spelling Folders, I created my own Reading Folders.

This is where I got my idea, and some of the pages for my Reading Folders because this educator provided free downloads on her website!

https://thisreadingmama.com/spelling-folder-free-printables/

By using her alphabet pages, long and short vowel page, as well as a copy of the reading strategies, Fountas & Pinell sight words, and my resource on letter blends, this was my end result:

Materials I used:

• Laminator to protect the pages: Front cover, Back cover, Letter Blends, and Reading Strategies
• Plastic Sleeves (usually for binders) to protect high frequency sight words and to flip the pages to have sight words from A-Z
• Stapler and Staples
• 2 Folders for each Reading Folder

How I use my Reading Folders During Reading Intervention:

First, we read our levelled text from the Fountas and Pinell Reading kits and discuss the book: fiction or non fiction, tricky words, reading strategies, look for two-syllable words, look for rhyming words, ask comprehension questions, etc.

Then, I pull out the folders and ask students to flip to the Letter Blends page. I say a word with a beginning letter blend from the page and students search for the correct letter blend. When students have found the letter blend, I tell them to give me a thumbs up until everyone has found it and then they can all point to it together at the same time.

Because I have reading groups at different levels, I use the High Frequency Sight Words similar to the letter blends: I say a word and the students search for it in the lists. I strategically put my Reading Strategies page beside the High Frequency Sight words to remind students to sounds out letters as they practice their letter blends and word decoding.

By using the folders after reading, I can now have a full complete reading session with reading practice and word-work!

Let me know if you have any other ideas on how to use this resource! I would love to hear your ideas and about any resources you use with students to practice reading and/or word work!