After talking to the parents during report card pick up, I noticed that family involvement is a struggle for some students. Some parents shared that they work late and are unable to help their child with homework and reading on a nightly basis. I realized that something needed to be done. I work with four students in my RTI group every day. 3 out of 4 of these parents shared with me that they do not have the time or energy to work with their child more than having them complete the daily homework (sometimes). Everyday, students are given new words that they are to add to their baggies. These baggies go home where they are to practice reading them. The words that they are given are found in the books that they take home and practice reading. When listening to the students re-read the book that they were to go home and practice reading, I noticed that they were not decoding the words that I sent home in their baggies. After talking with their parents and thinking for myself, I decided that something needed to be done. I made a list of all of the words that we have learned up to that point. I made a chart with these words for each student. I made new flash cards with the words. The old words that they had were small pieces of paper, so I thought that by using real note cards, the words would be bigger and the word cards would be more durable. The next day during RTI, I assessed the students on these words. I checked off the words that they were able to say on spot and wrote down a different word that they may have said instead. Once they went through all of the words, I chose the first five words that they missed, and put them in a paper clip. I put the words that they knew on sight in a bag. I also put the words in the paper clip in the bag. I typed out a short note to their parent saying what I was doing, and how their child is doing with sight words. I explained that each day, their child will come home with 5 new sight words in the paper clip. Their child is to practice their old words that are in the baggie, but focus on the new words in the paper clip. If the student is able to read the words back to me the next day, they earn a star. After five stars, the students will earn a prize. I made sure to tell the students how important it is to learn to read these words so when we read them in stories, we can focus on what is happening in the story. Before I gave them their baggies with new words, I asked, "who wants to be a better reader?!" They were all excited and couldn't wait to open their baggies up to start practicing. Hopefully this will instill an internal motivation in my students for wanting to become better readers.
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