This Week In Intervention: Spanish Reading Fluency Ladders and Bingo
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Print
Whew! This past week felt like it was never going to end! In addition to trying to get things together for the holidays, I’ve been busy making some new materials for my students. I recently finished up a syllable fluency reading program for Spanish reading fluency and started using it with my 2nd graders. They are loving it! To give some background, I have three second grade boys who were non-readers at the beginning of the school year. Even though Spanish is a language that has an extremely strong letter-sound correspondence (meaning it doesn’t have all the weird spelling nuances that English does), decoding is still extremely challenging for these three boys. They do lots of reading and writing activities with me each day, but I found that they still really needed to increase their fluency with reading all kinds of Spanish syllables – open, closed, with and without blends, and inverse syllables. So I created this:
This is a syllable and word reading program (in Spanish) that can be used to improve students’ decoding and fluency. Students practice reading and rereading syllable or word “ladders” that look like this:
The student starts reading at the bottom of the ladder and works her way up. The ladders have patterns to help students see connections between syllables and words – in the ladder above, one letter in the syllable changes each time the child moves up one rung on the ladder.
Once the child has mastered the syllables or words on the ladder (and can meet a timed goal when reading it to a teacher or other adult), she can color in one icon on her mastery sheet (the icon corresponds to the picture at the top of the ladder). Each mastery sheet has a theme, like dinosaurs:
Once a child has completed all of the ladders in one level, she moves on to the next level. Here are the skills included in each level:
Level A: Open, 2-letter syllables (sílabas abiertas con 2 letras)
Level B: 2-syllable words with open syllables (palabras con 2 sílabas abiertas)
Level C: 3-syllable words with open syllables (palabras con 3 sílabas abiertas)
Level D: Open syllables with blends (sílabas trabadas)
Level E: 2- and 3-syllable words with blends and open syllables (palabras con 2 o 3 sílabas trabadas y abiertas) Level F: Inverse and closed syllables (sílabas inversas y cerradas) Level G: 2- and 3-syllable words with open, closed, and inverse syllables, with and without blends (palabras con 2 o 3 sílabas abiertas, cerradas e inversas y algunas sílabas trabadas)
Included is a special certificate that you can give the student each time he/she completes a level. I also will be giving my boys a little prize after they complete each level.
These ladders make great homework assignments (a parent letter is included), intervention work, or small group work. They can also help you differentiate instruction, because students in your group or class can all work on different ladders at the same time. Before you begin using the program, there’s a quick little assessment you can give to each child. That assessment will help you determine what level you should start the child on. Students then work at their own pace through the levels. Eventually, they will get up to this level:
The hardest level in the series will have them reading 2- and 3-syllable words with open syllables, closed syllables, and syllables with blends.
So far my boys are really loving the challenge! They like being able to see their progress on the mastery sheet.
Next week, we will be playing some BINGO in small group!!
Here are BINGO sheets for Spanish letter sounds (sonidos), open syllables (sílabas abiertas), syllables with blends (sílabas trabadas), and inverse/closed syllables (sílabas inversas y cerradas). There’s 8 of each, so if you use them with the whole group instead of a small group, expect multiple winners! 🙂 You can download them for free with or without a holiday theme. Click on the pictures to download the sets. Enjoy!!
For some extra fun, you can have them color the pictures!
Hace tiempo vengo buscando algo estructurado que pueda ayudar a los estudiante que tienen mas dificultad. Me encantó lo que lei y vi. Gracias por tomarte el tiempo y ponerlo tan bonito.
I was wondering if you had the recording assessment sheet as an editable document. I purchased the product in the past and it is really hard to write in the small spaces with my handwriting?
I have been using the Fluency ladders for a couple of years now, and they have worked great! My students love every aspect of it, as well as my administration!! Thank you for the bingo game =)
I am a bilingual teacher new to kinder in need of resources.
Rocio
5 years ago
Hola! Gracias por compartir!! una vez que haces las evaluaciones como organizas las escaleras? un folder por estudiante? normalmente se lo llevan a su casa o lo dejan en el salon?
Hola Rocio! Yo tengo un binder para mis notas, pero ellos si tienen sus propios folders. Se lo llevan a casa si no tienen tiempo para practicar en clase. 🙂
Alison
Kyra
4 years ago
This is officially my first TPT purchase!! Thank you so much for making amazing resources! I love reading your blog. How do the levels in your fluency ladders compare to the Jan Richardson reading levels?
Congrats, Kyra on your first TPT purchase!! It truly is a great website for amazing teaching resources! 🙂
These fluency ladder levels are not correlated at all to the Jan Richardson reading levels – they are unique to my program. I hope this helps!
Rachel
3 years ago
This is wonderful! I teach at a dual language school and I’m the English immersion teacher. The Spanish immersion teacher for my grade levels (2/3) uses your fluency assessments. I was wondering if you had something similar to use with students whose native language is Spanish and they are learning English?
Hace tiempo vengo buscando algo estructurado que pueda ayudar a los estudiante que tienen mas dificultad. Me encantó lo que lei y vi. Gracias por tomarte el tiempo y ponerlo tan bonito.
De nada, Adele! Gracias por leer!
Alison
This is great!
About how many seconds should it take a student to read a ladder?
Thank you!
AF
Hey! It depends on the level, but 15-20 seconds for the beginning levels. 🙂
Alison
How can we download those bingo cards?
Thanks!
Hi Megan! Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4wn9SL4wEPfUW9qNGEzeEl0bjg/view
Alison
I was wondering if you had the recording assessment sheet as an editable document. I purchased the product in the past and it is really hard to write in the small spaces with my handwriting?
Hey Gabby! Please email me at Alison@learningattheprimarypond.com. 🙂
Alison
I have been using the Fluency ladders for a couple of years now, and they have worked great! My students love every aspect of it, as well as my administration!! Thank you for the bingo game =)
I’m so glad!!! 🙂
Alison
I am a bilingual teacher new to kinder in need of resources.
Hola! Gracias por compartir!! una vez que haces las evaluaciones como organizas las escaleras? un folder por estudiante? normalmente se lo llevan a su casa o lo dejan en el salon?
Hola Rocio! Yo tengo un binder para mis notas, pero ellos si tienen sus propios folders. Se lo llevan a casa si no tienen tiempo para practicar en clase. 🙂
Alison
This is officially my first TPT purchase!! Thank you so much for making amazing resources! I love reading your blog. How do the levels in your fluency ladders compare to the Jan Richardson reading levels?
Congrats, Kyra on your first TPT purchase!! It truly is a great website for amazing teaching resources! 🙂
These fluency ladder levels are not correlated at all to the Jan Richardson reading levels – they are unique to my program. I hope this helps!
This is wonderful! I teach at a dual language school and I’m the English immersion teacher. The Spanish immersion teacher for my grade levels (2/3) uses your fluency assessments. I was wondering if you had something similar to use with students whose native language is Spanish and they are learning English?
Right now, I don’t currently have something similar. Maybe a good idea for the future though!