Skip to main content

ABOUT


Hi!  I'm Elena!
I'm a mom who loves to teach. I'm married to my best friend who is my partner in everything. We have 4 crazy kiddos, S Bug (11), L Bear (9), Little Miss (5), and Beanie Baby (3). We call them our circus! I love to play volleyball, eat chocolate, thrift shop for children's books, and spend time with family. Each day I rely on the strength I receive from a loving Heavenly Father.

I have a degree in elementary education, but have mostly used it as a stay-at-home mom, having many opportunities to teach my own children. I also had the adventure of teaching preschool in my home for a few years. I've discovered that in all of teaching, teaching reading is where my passion lies.

Over the years, as I've talked to friends and family members, I've realized that there are not enough resources to help parents help their own children on the road to reading. While teachers are amazing, so are parents! So why not work together to help our little ones develop a love for reading and set them up for success? Click here to get started!

Comments

  1. Margee MooreDecember 17, 2018 at 6:55 PM

    Hello Elena,
    We like your Pinterest Pins. We are dedicated to reading too. Would you be interested in reviewing our Learn-to-Read app developed for struggling readers? It works for advanced kiddos too. Here is our Learn-to-Read app, we would be thrilled if you would be among the first to review it: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/seewordreading-home-edition/id1440487495


    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 18, 2019 at 9:51 AM

    Hello!

    I love the Sequence to Read chart you have! May I ask how you formed the progression? I would love to share this with other teachers and tell them the rational behind each level, I agree with it! Thank you for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Things to Know About 3-Year-Olds

My youngest is now three. That means I have done this "having a three-year-old thing" three times already! (No wonder I'm tired!) Three seems to be a magic age, because it is when a child is ready to learn a lot of new things. As I look forward to teaching my baby, I find myself reflecting on what I have observed about threes over the years of teaching preschool and teaching my own children. Whether you are a preschool teacher, or a parent, I hope you find something helpful in these Things to Know About Three-Year-Olds.

THEY CAN CUT
I have found 3 to be a good age to start working on scissor use. These are the procedures I use for scissor use:
Talk about safe scissor use. (Only cut paper with scissors. How to hold them when we are walking. Watch out for your fingers.) Demonstrate how to hold the scissors. (Thumb in the little hole, fingers in the big). Thumb points up to the ceiling. (If child is having a hard time with this, I put a smiley sticker on thumbnail and tell…
3 comments
Read more

Why do we Teach Sight Words?

Sight words.  You've probably heard of them.  But what is the purpose of sight words, and why do we have our kiddos memorize them?
Sight Wordsare words that occur most frequently in print.  Some examples are: 
the, said, here, for, are, of, was

We encourage readers to memorize sight words because they encounter them all the time!  When a reader can recognize and say a sight word upon seeing it, she will improve in fluency, and she will be less frustrated as an early reader.  

Let's say your new reader was reading these sentences:



The blue words are sight words.  If your new reader did not know the, is, and, upon seeing them, think how much longer it would take her to read these three sentences!
When I listen to children read aloud and they get stuck on a word, I make sure to differentiate between sight words and sounding out words.  If a child gets stuck on a sight word, I will use the cue, "That's a sight word."  Their brain can then think, "Oh!  I've memoriz…
Post a Comment
Read more

6 Simple Ways to Practice Sight Words

Pinterest is loaded with fun sight word activities! Today I'll share the 6 simple sight word activities that I use the most. I have a master set of laminated sight word cards that I use for these activities. You can download them here.

#1:  SIGHT WORD SLAP
You've probably seen this easy game before, I first learned of it when I was going to college. Start by laying out the sight words you are working on. Give your child something to slap with, such as a clean fly swatter or a spatula. Call out a sight word and have your child identify the word by slapping it! Who doesn't love a chance to whack things?



#2:  ROLL THE SIGHT WORD
Use a changeable die or a dry-erase dice (from the Dollar Tree).  Fill the die with 6 sight words, then take turns rolling the die and saying the sight word.  To make it a little more interesting, we put a star sticker on one of the words and choose an action.  Whenever we roll the start word, we read the word and do our chosen action.  Some silly …
Post a Comment
Read more