Phase I

In our recent online workshop on Using the ESL Literacy Readers a lot of great ideas and classroom activities were shared.

Here’s a personalized bingo game for a Phase I class shared by Val, the workshop facilitator.

This term I am teaching Phase I learners. Learners at this phase are becoming aware of sound letter correspondence. They have a growing bank of sight words and are becoming more independent when reading these words. This Phase I Learner Profile will provide you with more information on learners at this Phase.

Do you know what Phase your learners are? This month we're blogging about the levels of ESL literacy. Every week an ESL literacy instructor will share about his/her experience teaching a particular ESL Literacy Phase.

I have discovered a great collections of resources that come from the Best of The Reader website. Best of the Reader is a series of e-books for adult literacy and English as a second language learners. The website has 14 e-books, a teachers’ guide, and a calendar of special days and holidays for 2013. The stories in the e-books are from The Westcoast Reader.

It is often very challenging to find good reading material for extended reading in a Phase I classroom. I am constantly on the look out for books that are visually appealing and have limited text on each page. Multicultural Minnesota has a list of some  publishers that have such books. Here are a few of them that look like they might just be fine in a classroom free reading library. 

Recently I came across this webpage which has a plethora of activities designed to develop alphabetic awareness: Mrs. Meacham's Classroom Snapshots. There is a pdf document, Alphabet Task Bins or Tubs Activiites, which explains the various activities. As well there is a video to see some of the activities used.

The start of the term is always exciting because it comes with fresh beginnings and opportunities to build routines. The best way to establish those routines is to start as early as possible and to keep consistency with them.

One of the ways I create routines in my Phase I Developing class is writing the date and a list of the day’s activities on the whiteboard.

I have just come across this great resource for ideas on using environmental print in the beginning ESL literacy class. This How to Kit published by the NWT Literacy Council is full of ready made memory and bingo games with visuals of all sorts of signs. I think this would be a great to do after taking learners on a walk to look at environmental print.

ESL literacy learners need many opportunities to hear new words. One activity I do with my Foundation and Phase I learners is what I call Sit Down If. I have everyone stand up. Then I say "Sit down if...

The Phase I Readers on the ESL Literacy Network have just been updated. In keeping with best practices for Phase I learners, we have enlarged the font on these readers.