Welcome students and families to my page! This is my eighth year teaching at Michael F. Stokes Elementary School and my first year with the Kindergarten. I was a Reading Specialist for the past seven years.

Early Childhood Education and Reading are two areas I feel very strongly about. I hope this page is helpful to you! Check out the links to some great websites at the top of the page- have fun!

Reading is so important. We need it for everyday things like doing our work, cooking, getting places,and even reading directions to games!

Reading should not just be practiced in school. The only way to get good at something is to practice, practice, practice.

It is really important to have strong phonemic awareness skills. This means that we understand that there are sounds in words. These sounds can be different at the beginning, middle and endings of words. In school we learn which letters go with which sounds. We combine these letters and sounds to make words. Sight words are words that we cannot sound out. We have to learn them and know them "on sight". There is so much to learn in a school day, and that's just a part of reading! So what happens when we leave school at the end of the day?

Look at words all around you. Signs on stores and streets, menus, billboards and advertisements are all great examples!

Students and families can work together. Help to write grocery lists, write letters, type e-mails or keep a journal. All of these things improve reading and writing skills as well as comprehension. Here are some more fun ideas for strengthening our reading skills:

1. Try to read a little every night!
Reading can include so many things, not just books. Flip through a magazine or newspaper. Use environmental print like signs on the road, store names, shopping lists, cooking ingredients, and instructions.

2. Make a game of it!
Reading does not have to be tedious! Get creative.
-Write all the sight words down on index cards. Take turns picking one card at a time. Read what you see. If you do not know the word, put the card back in the pile at the bottom. If you get it right, you get to keep it. The person with the most cards at the end, wins!
-Take out a newspaper and higlighters. Be detectives and go on a hunt for either sight words or letters. When you spot one, highlight it!
-Use your sight word cards again for a memory/rhyming game! Pull out a bunch of pairs of words before you begin. Shuffle up the cards. Place them in rows upside down. Taking turns flip over 2 cards one at a time. Read them. If they rhyme, you have made a pair and you can take them and go again. If they do no rhyme, flip them back over and the next person goes.
-Play timeless favorites like Hangman, Scrabble and Boggle!

3. Get on the net!
Since we are in a technological age, use the computer as motivation! There are a lot of great sights that have stories you can read along to! Give the ones at the top of the page a try!