Singing Songs and Beginning Reading!

The other day when I was cleaning out some old binders of materials, I found these reading sheets I made using Writing With Symbols by Mayer-Johnson (the same people as Boardmaker) back when I taught 1st and 2nd graders.  This program is awesome.  You literally type whatever you want, and pictures pop up above the words.  This is great for social stories, but can also be used for academic activities as well!

We used these during our reading group.  We would practice singing the songs while pointing at the words.  Not only did this help with one-to-one correspondence, increasing reading skills, and reading fluency, but it kept all my little hands busy.  We had a real issue with keeping our hands to ourselves or even being able to sit at all without something in front of each student to keep them occupied.  These were very helpful!  I also gave a copy of these to the music teacher to use with my kids!

Now that I teach 3-4 graders, singing these songs are not quite as age appropriate.  I haven't been using them with these grades, however, I do also have some holiday songs like Jingle Bells which are still appropriate!  I think my kids would enjoy these every once in a while.  It may help them understand what they are singing in some songs as well!