January through May

[newto1st]

I am new to first grade and I've only been teaching for 2 years. I do not like our phonics/english curriculum because it offers no guidance as to what to teach and when to introduce things. I'm kind of on my own. Here are some phonics/english concepts I've already taught extensivly during the first 4 months of school:

-- short and long vowels extensively
-- beginning consonant blends and diagraphs.
-- words ending in diagraphs
-- word families (extensively)
-- punctuation periods and question marks - though some still have trouble knowing when to use a period when they write a lot
-- complete vs. incomplete sentences

I'm sure there's more but my main question is what kinds of things should I be focusing on for the remaining 4 months. I'm not quite sure because I taught 3rd grade last year. I will continue to do guided reading, but as for direct phonics or english instruction I am thinking about contractions, compound words, nouns and verbs (which we've talked about briefly), puncutuation practice - knowing when to use . ? ! and maybe words with silent letters such as the ight word family,
does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks for your help!

 

[MJay]

checking for mastery

You have covered a lot of material in a short span of time. Are your students transfering what they have had in phonics to their writing? We give a DSA test (developmental spelling assessment) in January to see just where we are on the phonics continum. We also administer the test at the beginning of school to tell us where to start. We are getting our information from the professional book, Word Journeys by Kathy Ganske. It has everything lined out and when to teach what. So far our teachers are pleased and students seem to be progressing. Our phonics program is called Phonetic Connections.
MJay