There’s an elephant in your classroom.
And it’s huge.
You sweep by it every day in your classroom, several times in fact, and probably without ever even noticing. It’s most conspicuous during morning calendar time, as that’s its favorite time of day.
If you can’t see, watch this.
So now that you’ve spotted the elephant, it’s time to get rid of it!
Think of Secret Stories® as your “elephant-exterminator!” The Secrets are the logical explanations for letter sound behavior that learners’ brains crave! They are the reasons WHY letters “do what they do” when they don’t do what they should!
Giving Beginning Readers Easy Access to “High-Leverage” Phonics Skills
There is perhaps nowhere that elephant exterminator is needed more than on our morning calendar, especially when it comes to the letter Y!
It’s literally everywhere, and not once can it be found making the ONE sound that beginning grade learners are told to expect it to, which is “yuh!” as in: yellow, yes, you and yak.
Instead, it makes different sounds, one that seem belong to other letters, like in the words: January, February, May, July, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday…
Y is literally everywhere, yet not one time does it ever say, “yuh!”And the classroom calendar isn’t the only place these elephants like to roam.
We can see their tracks on the “boy’s” bathroom and in the books that we read “by” so and so author. They are even hiding in many of our favorite words, like: mommy, daddy, candy, etc…
It seems we have elephants running around everywhere!
Making Phonics Make Sense
When you don’t make sense, it’s time to tell a “Secret!”
Time to load-up on that “secret” elephant-spray so that we can make the sounds of Y make sense, and in doing so, give kids a much-needed reading and writing tool! (If you want to read more on this “elephant-extermination” process, read this article.)
That’s not Sneaky Y®! That’s ey/ay and they are just “too cool”…..like Fonzie! (And for those who are too young to remember who Fonzie is, this video clip should help!)
And now, there is a “new and improved” elephant spray in the form of a power-packed guided reader that’s all about Sneaky Y® and his sneaky shenanigans! It’s called Sneaky Y’s Secret and it explains how Sneaky Y® got to be so sneaky! (Special thanks to Susan Eklove for the adorable text and Poco & Pop for the beautiful illustrations!)
If you are subscribed to the Secret News Blast, you should have already received a free download link for the Sneaky Y® Guided Reader in your email. If not ,subscribe now and never miss a Secret!
In closing, remember this “cool dude” from the video up above?
He’s not really Fonzie, but a kindergarten teacher from Washington State, and I he’d sent me the following email, along with that adorable video clip….
My name is Daniel and I teach kindergarten in Washington State. Last year my school district adopted a new reading curriculum and when my team examined the leveled readers before the start of the school year, we were initially in shock. We had no idea how our students were expected to read the new complex text introduced so early in the curriculum. After our initial reaction started to subside we got very motivated to create and find innovating and engaging methods for teaching more advanced phonics skills.
Around November I stumbled across a pin on Pinterest with the Secret Story posters for the R-controlled vowels, etc… I had seen it before and I thought it was a neat idea, but I had never clicked on the link. When I clicked on it and found your website and realized the scope of how many secret stories there were, I got really excited and shared it with my teaching partners who shared in my enthusiasm. They were the perfect solution to our problem! We made up a few secret stories on our own before convincing our school to purchase them for our grade level, but by January we had them and made the full commitment to implement them.
By the end of the year, we had by far the most students reading the Beyond Leveled Readers in the district, and many students needed even more challenging text. By the summer I started presenting about the Secret Stories to other teachers in my district and adjacent ones, and ever since I have been trying to share this amazing resource with as many teachers as I can.
After last year’s success, we wanted to step it up a notch this year, so we decided to create a video where we acted out every Secret Story. It took us 2 months to complete, but we are proud of the result. We’ve had our students watch it many times and they are making even more connections to the stories. Sometimes it is a gesture that one of us did that resonates with them, or remembering who acted out the story that helps the students remember the sound. It has proven to have been a very useful project and new resource.
We had a lot of fun doing it, and we would be honored if you had some time in your schedule to watch it. Thank you so much for this amazing resource and inspiring us to want to be the best reading teachers for our students as possible!
Daniel M.
Kindergarten Teacher
Until Next Time,
Katie
PS The registration deadline for the week-long South Dakota Kindergarten Academy this summer is fast approaching, and the preK/Kinder days have sold out. For all those who were unable to get into the PK/K workshop, you are encouraged to sign up for the 1st/2nd grade workshop, as the strategies and content covered in both sessions are applicable across the primary grade levels!
For information on bringing Katie to your school or district for workshops, click here.
https://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/elephant-2Bin-2Bthe-2Broom.png496372Katie Garnerhttps://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Secret-Stories-Phonics-Method-Logo-1-copy.pngKatie Garner2017-04-22 03:00:002021-02-04 10:08:14How to Teach the Sounds of Y (a.k.a. Sneaky Y®) so kids just GET IT!
I love reading your blog! I’ve used your free Zoo Keeper Writing Strategies with my kinder class and the children really related, always showing me “how many animals (i.e. sounds) they caught” in their words!
I’ve taught both 1st and 2nd grades for years, and now am in my seventh year of teaching kindergarten. As many of your letter pattern stories are, of course, geared toward 1st and 2nd, I was wondering if you had some that were more geared more toward kinder?
Also, at what point would you begin introducing the Secret Stories in kinder… after the majority know most of their letters?
Before I answer it specifically, I want to prepare you for the paradigm shift we’re about to take when it comes to what kindergarten can do and when they can do it, and I think these links will help! So here are a couple of guest posts by kindergarten teacher, Kjersti Johnson (post 1 and post 2) along with a couple of eye-opening, kindergarten-related video clips here and here.
So let’s get started by opening up a can of worms about WHY we do WHAT we do WHEN we do it when it comes to the “code” that kids need for reading and writing!
If you really think about it, what are kids supposed to do with just bits and pieces of the reading and writing code? How can you read OR write about your pet mouse with only a third, or even two-thirds of the code? And that’s all most early grade level learners have to work with, given that it takes multiple grade level years to teach it all…. and that’s if they’re on grade level! The individual letter sounds (which kindergartners spend an entire year learning) provide very little bang for the buck when it comes to using them to reading and writing, as they are actually the least likely sounds that the letters will make when they get together in real words! This makes the brain’s job as a “pattern-making” machine extremely difficult, as it seems that letters are never actually doing what they’re supposed to!
And simply adding the blends and a few digraphs to the mix in first grade doesn’t help all that much, which is why kindergartners and first graders can barely read or write anything! At least not anything that hasn’t been “memorized” (ENTER SIGHT WORDS, STAGE RIGHT!)
And the sight word “parade” begins…
Sight words help compensate for the gross lack of phonics skills at the beginning grade levels, and are often taught in order to meet the required text-level assessments. For early grade teachers, rote memorization of high-frequency sight words can feel like a necessity when considering that the phonics skills kids need to read them aren’t even on their grade level scope and sequence. This is because traditionally, phonics skills are “divvied-out” in bits and pieces across multiple grade level years—from PreK to 2nd.
While teaching kids in kindergarten and first grade to memorize words instead of reading them might feel like a necessity for beginning grade teachers, this rote memorization is far from the ideal—from either a developmentally or from a brain-based perspective. (You can read more about this here or by clicking the link under the picture below.)
Moreover, the less skills kids bring to the table, the less value they take away from daily reading and writing experiences in the classroom.
Imagine that you’re a Morse Code operator, just assigned to a naval ship.
But there’s a problem.
You are only in the first year of a three year Morse Code training program, which means that you barely know even one-third of the code. Yet you are expected to send and receive messages on day one.
You think to yourself…… “How can I possibly be expected to accurately send and receive messages with not even one-third of the code? What about all of the sounds I haven’t learned yet? How will I be able to figure out what the incoming messages say? And worse still, how can I send messages if I don’t know the code for all of the words? Should I just leave those parts blank, or just fill up the page with the parts of the code that I do know? Or maybe I could just forgo what the captain wants me to send and just write what I can spell instead?”
Dear Captain,
I like the sub. It is big. It is fun. It is really fun. I like it so so much. I really really like the big fun sub a lot!
These are common strategies that beginning (and struggling) learners will also use in order to get around all of the parts of the code that they don’t know or haven’t yet been taught— of which there are many!
A scope and sequence cannot accurately predict which parts of the code learners will need to read their favorite book or to write the stories they want to tell. The /th/ digraph is considered a 1st grade skill by grade level scope and sequence standards, even though /th/ can be found on every line of every page in every book! In fact, kindergartners will encounter the /th/ pattern literally hundreds of times on their very first day! (And don’t even get me started on the letter /y/!) The bottom line is that just like with Morse Code, you need ALL of it to do ANYTHING with it!
So the burning question is how to provide our earliest grade level learners with access to the “whole” code when it takes an entire for many kids to just learn the alphabet? The answer lies in the brain science. Brain science lights a path straight through the brain’s backdoor via the earlier developing, social and emotional “feeling” networks. By targeting phonics instruction to the affective learning domain, we can bypass areas of inherent early (and struggling) learner weakness (i.e. the higher level, executive processing centers) and tap into alternative areas of strength.
Secret Stories® does this in a variety of ways, beginning with channeling the individual letters and sounds through muscle memory (i.e. body intelligence) for accelerated mastery in just two weeks to two months— and that’s for kinder and PK! (And we’re not just talking the “basic” letter sounds, we’re talking every possible sound that a letter can make by itself, from hard and soft /c/ and /g/, to the long and short vowel sounds, to the positional sounds of /y/, and even /qu/…. and all while they eat their shoes and lick the carpet. (And if you actually teach preK or kinder, then you understand exactly what I mean— Lol!)
Individual Letter Sound Mastery in 2 weeks to 2 months!
During the two week-two month time frame while the individual letter sounds are seeping in via muscle memory, they are also learning about the letters’ “secrets”, (i.e. Secret Stories) which are what they do when they don’t do what they should! The Secrets explain all of the crazy sounds that letters make when they get together, and even some of the strange things they can do when they are by themselves!
Shared as short little stories that are easy to remember and understand, they are ready for immediate use in both reading and writing! And because Secret Stories® aligns letter behavior to learners’ own behavior (by way of already familiar “social and emotional” frameworks) they can easily predict their most and next most likely sound behaviors, just as they could predict the behavior of their own classmates.
Our brains thrive on patterns and making things make sense, and the Secrets make letters make sense!And the earlier the grade level, the MORE they are needed, as they have virtually nothing else to read or write with! Kinder will naturally pick up and remember the Secrets BEFORE all of the individual letter sounds have taken hold, as the time frame for muscle memory to kick in is between two weeks to two months, whereas the Secrets are instant! Stories are easy for kids to remember because stories are HOW kids remember! And stories are developmentally harmless, so when they are ready to plug it in and use it, they can… but until that time, it’s simply a story!
Shifting early grade reading/ phonics instruction from brain-antagonistic to brain-compatible requires that we FEED the brain, not FIGHT it, and Secret Stories Stories® are its favorite treat! They can (and should!) be given all day long, throughout the entire instructional day—anytime and anywhere they are needed to help read or spell a word. Every Secret you give them is one more “tool” in their tool belt that they can bring to the reading and writing table, so as to bring more value away!
The Secrets are not bound by the traditional “grade level walls” for phonics instruction that limits learner-access to the code. To share only certain Secrets at certain grade levels would presume that learners at lower grade levels don’t need them, and how could that be true if they are reading and writing across the instructional day beginning in kindergarten? Nor can we possibly say WHICH Secrets a learner will need to read the book he picks from the library or to write a word in a story he wants to tell.
Like the Morse Code operators, kids need ALL of the code, so NEVER wait to share a Secret!
Share them simultaneously with the individual letter sounds, whenever and wherever they are needed, whether it’s on the morning calendar or on the lunch menu! Remember that to a Morse Code operator (or to a beginning reader/writer) a /th/ is going to come in a LOT more handy than a /t/, so never hold back the tools that you know kids need to read and write every day!
Why Wait If We Don’t Have To?!!
Why hold back what kids so desperately need every hour of every day in our classrooms when they are working with text? If the brain science provides a “secret” backdoor passage through which we can so easily sneak phonics skills, why wouldn’t we use it?
At this point in the year, you might want to ‘go all the way’ and try the “Letter Runs” with them! Here’s the link to that- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHUwuuXsh-0 ……….and don’t forget to try it BACKWARDS!!
(you can also switch from ‘long’ to ‘short’ vowel sounds throughout to keep the challenge high :) as well as change the tune to: Happy Birthday, The Star Spangled Banner, etc…
Looking forward to hearing how they do!
I attended the Illinois Reading Conference last month and couldn’t get into either of your sessions! I couldn’t even get close to the doorway :(
Folks were setting chairs out on both ends of the corridor to hear you, but unfortunately my ears are too old to hear from that far away so I gave up! I’m hoping to have better luck seeing you at the Natl Elementary Principals Conference this summer.
You should know that your ‘Secrets’ are an ongoing topic of conversation at our school and have had an incredible impact on our student achievement this year. As a school administrator, it’s been truly amazing to witness the progress made at each grade level, especially by our most at-risk. I’m just in awe, as are our parents (which is always a good thing!)
My teachers were so disappointed that I couldn’t get into your session, as they promised the kids that I would take a picture with you to show them. Apparently the teachers that came to your sessions last year tried, but it was too crowded and you had too many people around you afterwards. I told them that this year was even worse, given that I couldn’t even get through the door!
Hopefully I’ll have better luck seeing you in July!
I know… it was CRAZY! The committee tried to avoid the overcrowding problem that happened last year by putting both sessions in the ballroom but I think their overall attendance this year was just too high, which ultimately is a good thing (but understandably frustrating when you can’t get into what you want to see).
I will most definitely be at the Principal’s Conference in July and I’ll even save a seat for you, just in case ;)
Thanks for your kind email, and please let your teachers (and students) know how happy I am to hear of their progress (and we’ll definitely take that picture, as well!)
This is incredible. I appreciate the work that has been put into programs like this and the accessibility of them to other educators and parents. Thank you and well done.
This was an amazing find. Thank you Deanna Jump for sharing this! I am purchasing the alphabet vertically as I write this. I am so inspired by this motor memory approach. Thank you!
So glad you found the post, and be sure to use the vertical alphabet for the “Letter Runs” too… they’re so much fun!! I put the link in the answer to the first comment at the top :)
I am so glad I am subscribed to your blog so that I can find and appreciate programs like this. As a first year teacher, this information makes me see things in a new perspective. I would love the opportunity to use this program in my classroom for my students. I would love the opportunity to share this approach with others given the scientific research that has gone into this. Thanks so much to the developer(s) of this program and the difference it is going to make in teaching.
You’re so welcome, and as a new teacher, you would probably get a better perspective/ context if you watch the VLOGS, starting with #1 here….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziT4bautiGk ……
I am gearing up to make the next set before I have to leave town again for conference, with the focus being on “What to do when a “Secret” doesn’t work?!!” as that’s actually where the fun begins for learners with regard to their daily interactions with text becoming a virtual “playground” for critical thinking!!
In the meantime, don’t hesitate to ask, should you have any questions, and thanks again for your comment!
I just discovered Secret Stories and the Better Alphabet Song today and I’m in love! I love how engaging it is and how it can meet so many different learning styles! I really like how you put so much thought into the position of the mouth when you did the action for short a on the you tube video. I’m always looking for new ways to make learning meaningful and fun for my kids (why I was on this blog) and feel like I have hit the jackpot with this find! I wish I could go back in time and could have done this with my class since day one. We review letter sounds and phonograms daily- and I’m embarrassed to admit but it b-o-r-i-n-g the way I’m doing it now and definitely something I want to improve on. This is just what I needed and will totally transform how I teach phonics. So excited to make something that was not so fun into something I know my kids will not only love doing but truly benefit from.
LoL…. I remember feeling the same way when I’d stumble upon something that would completely change the way I teach! I’d always feel SOOO badly for my previous classes, who I sometimes felt, learned ‘in spite’ of me….especially my very first year – ugh :(
I remember wanting to buy my whole class t-shirts with- “I survived Mrs. Garner’s 1st Year Teaching!!” written across the front!! ;)
I think this sounds fabulous and I will be trying this out with my title students. I notice that my title students DO NOT know their alphabet-ever, nor their sounds. This should be the answer!
It’s funny you mention this, as often readiness issues are more pervasive with Title I learners, for a variety of reasons.
These ‘work-around’ strategies (i.e. motor/ muscle memory for individual letters and sounds; social/ emotive connections/ cues for complex pattern sound retrieval) are crucial for learners struggling with cognitive readiness.
For these learners, in particular, the ability to GIVE these core reading and writing skills, rather than having to wait on ‘developmental readiness’ in order to TEACH them, truly makes all the difference!!
So many of the problems that Title I learners face stem from the fact that in the first few years of school, they are ‘slaves’ to their own developmental readiness, resulting in their having to continually play on an uneven playing field!
By using brain research findings to circumvent these pitfalls, we can actually avoid these deficit areas in the brain entirely, targeting the stronger, more capable areas instead!
(Hope this makes sense…. have had glass of wine!!! :)
I think this sounds fabulous and I will be trying this out with my title students. I notice that my title students DO NOT know their alphabet-ever, nor their sounds. This should be the answer!
I am a HUGE Secret Stories fan….I use your very first Secret Stories set! Every year, my students amaze me with their writing and reading and they looove their “stories”.
I am so glad to view your videos and your updates here. I learn something new everytime. Thanks so much !
Denise
Oh my! You HAVE been using them for a while then!!
I’m so glad you found the videos and updated info on the Secret Stories website, as I’ve really been working hard to ‘flesh-out’ the basic strategy-base.
I’m curious if you’ve been in the same grade level since you started using them or if you’ve moved around a bit?
I have only taught Kindergarten…30 years total. I can’t remember exactly how long I have had my set of Secret Stories…maybe since 2000/2001?? .they are just part of my routine. Like I said….my kids constantly amaze me with their progress.
My best teacher friend went to your workshop …she was so impressed, she came back and told me all about this great new program. I was so excited I purchased the set with my own money and have been using it ever since.
Hello. I have a question. Why don’t you do all three A sounds– A as in apple, A as in gate, and A as in about? I have a chant that I made up years ago with the sounds, but it has all three common A sounds that beginning readers come across in their reading. Just wondered why three Y sounds, but not three As. Thanks for letting me know. Kathleen
Great question! And the answer actually lies in the ‘rule-of-thumb’ I used when creating the “Secrets” in the first place, which was to “avoid having too many cooks in the kitchen” when it came to identifying the most useful phonics rules!!
(and by useful, I mean ‘only what’s necessary to be able to read and write,’ given that the goal is to give learners at the earliest grade level EVERYTHING they need to jump into working with text…. both reading and writing!!
Because the brain will require an explanation for anything encountered on a fairly frequent basis in text- there could be ‘no stone left unturned’ when it comes to accounting for the various letter patter sound possibilities. This, however, is different from teaching “rules for rules’ sake” (i.e. the less useful and/ or less frequently occurring phonics rules/ sound patterns).
My rule of thumb was to account for only those patterns/ sounds that occurred ‘5 times or more’ in text, given their likelihood to be encountered often enough by learners to require an explanation.
Patterns/ sounds occurring LESS than five times would are either put in “Word Jail” OR ‘rehabilitated’ …. so as to avoid having an ‘overcrowded prison system’ / overcrowded word wall, both of which are equally ineffective ;)
As for your specific question regarding the letter a and providing the ‘uh’ or ‘schwa sound’ being taught/ included in the “Better Alphabet Song” as an additional sound option…. this would be an example having ‘too many cooks in the kitchen,’ in that there is too little value/ purpose in teaching it.
What I mean by this is, if a beginning learner knows the SECRETS, he will attack a word like ‘about’ or ‘around’ with a ‘short a’ sound, as he knows that Mommy e isn’t ‘one letter away’ and thus can’t make a ‘say its name.’ Attacking these words with the short a sound will STILL result in learners (even lower level Kindergartners!!) still being able to ‘get the word.’ In other words, they will still recognize that the word is ‘about’ or ‘around,’ regardless of the fact that they attacked it with the short a sound …… The presumption is that learners can and will apply at least a “grain of common sense” in recognizing the word, and my experience with the ‘lowest of the low’ kindergartners proves this out!!
By taking into account the differences between how words can sound, depending upon how they are sounded out, I was able to determine which required SECRETS and which were, for lack of a better term….”figure-out-able!!” LoL!
With the Sneaky Y, all THREE sounds had to be accounted for, as they are all vastly different (y as in yellow, y as in July, and y as in mommy) ….. Each are entirely different sounds and thus, each must be accounted for with logical explanations as to what / why causes each to occur.
Again, with the ultimate goal being to GIVE learners EVERYTHING they need to read and write at the EARLIEST grade level, so as to allow EXPERIENCE to be the best teacher….. it was necessary to think in terms of training “ER Doctors” ….. preparing them for what’s ‘most likely’ to roll through the door, while spending less time preparing them to handle the “plague” ;)
I hope this helps to clarify the basis for the SECRETS, and I promise to get into more detail about exactly this in upcoming posts…. you’re just one step ahead with your great question!!!!
Thanks for this. I get the frequency point. We could never teach beginning readers all the sounds that letters CAN make in this isolated way– look at the VERY many sounds that ‘o’ can make when paired with ‘h’ when ‘ho’ comes at the beginning of a word! :) The only reason I added the ‘a’ sound heard at the beginning of words like around and about as a third sound in my chant, was because my guys weren’t getting that kind of word by knowing just the first two possible ‘a’ sounds… but maybe it was not the isolated sound that ‘a’ makes in that case that was the issue, but the fact that they were saying “ar…” as the beginning ‘sound’, instead of the necessary two syllable “a-r…” When they kept saying ‘ar, ar, ar” instead of ‘a’ when starting words like around, they got stuck. They seemed to get it better when they had that third ‘a’ sound to try. Thanks for sharing why you do it this way– always more food for thought– I can teach 100 years and I’ll still be growing my own brain :)
This article really intrigued me! As I was reading the “why” of certain discrepancies, I was picturing specific students I’ve had along the way. thanks for sharing
https://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/secret-2Bstories-2Bphonics-2Bbrain-2Bpattern-2Bmaking-2Bmachine-2Bletters-2Bsounds.jpeg7681024Katie Garnerhttps://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Secret-Stories-Phonics-Method-Logo-1-copy.pngKatie Garner2015-04-18 00:41:002021-01-20 01:03:22Breaking Down the Grade Level Walls of Traditional Phonics Instruction
It Takes More Than Individual Letter Sounds to Read and Write!
I sneakily took this pic at the end of snack the other day….
These 6 kids were engrossed in telling the Secrets (and trying to figure out the ones we haven’t learned yet!) The little guy in the stripes has become our unofficial “Word Jail Warden!” He can spot an ‘Outlaw Word’ a mile away! We will start ‘paroling’ some of them soon!”
Kjersti Johnson- Kindergarten Teacher
Phonics on Steroids: “Warp-Speed” Access
to the Reading & Writing Code in Kindergarten!
A Guest Post by Kindergarten Teacher Kjersti Johnson
As teachers, I think we have all had that moment when we sit down with one of our students and they completely knock our socks off! This post is all about one of those moments.
Yesterday, I had just gotten my afternoon class of kindergartners settled into our Dailies….they were spread around the room, some reading, some writing, some listening to books on iPod shuffles, and a few shopping for new books.
I looked around to see who I would confer with (one of my favorite times of the day, by the way!) I started with Abel.
Now let me tell you about a little kindergartner named Abel.
He is one of the sweetest little guys I know. He has an amazing smile, and he is also VERY excited about learning!
He is an English Language Learner who entered kindergarten knowing 7 letters and 0 sounds. He worked SO hard the first weeks of school to learn his ABC’s and by October, he knew ALL 52 upper and lowercase letters! (the Better Alphabet Song was a huge success!)
So back to yesterday……
I sat down next to him and asked him to read to me. That’s when he pulled out Arthur’s Halloween.
I looked at him and said, “Oh, this looks like a great picture read. Can you tell me a story to go with the pictures?” This is kindergarten after all, and it’s a tough book! He gave me a strange look, and then…….He was READING it!
Later in the day, I had him read it again so that I could video it, and here he is reading Marc Brown’s Arthur’s Halloween.
ELL Kindergarten in October—”Spotting Secrets” in Arthur’s Halloween
“Before”….?
Didn’t stump him. He saw that Babysitter Vowel®o telling e to say its name! He also spotted /o/ and /r/ who can “never make up their minds when they get together,” and read it like a pro!
Then we got to “making”…. and guess who was able to use the Babysitter Vowels® Secret to figure out whether /a/ would be long or short?!
He knew it wasn’t right when he first read it, but then he remembered the Secret! (and please excuse me telling another student, TWICE, to go color their work! ;-)
“House”….?
Rough-housing /ou/ and /ow/ saying “Owwwww!” No worries.
Secret Stories® Phonics ou/ow Secret!
“Look and spooky”….?
Knowing the Secret, he switched sounds for /oo/ like a pro!
Secret Stories® Phonics /oo/ Secret
I was BLOWN away! And so I made poor Abel read that page to everyone I could find! I was so proud of him! (and by the way, he is determined to read the whole book now, and I have no doubt that he will!)
This morning, I shared the video with my principal, our Dean of Students, and our LAP teacher. The question of how and when I use the Secret Stories in my class came up, and I thought to myself, “When don’t I use them???”
The Secrets aren’t limited just to “reading” time. We use them ALL DAY LONG, which in half-day kindergarten, is only about 2 hours and 40 minutes. (Oh, did I forget to mention that I teach half-day kinder?!) That’s not very long, which is why getting the most bang for the buck in the short amount of time we have is critical. Secret Stories® makes what used to seem impossible EASY! (It’s like phonics on steroids!)
Literally not a moment that goes by that the kids aren’t spotting Secrets.
We look for Secrets in our poems…..
We use yellow and blue for “popcorn” words. We “butter” the new ones and put blue dots under the ones that we already know. Then we use a green highlighter to find Secrets.
And honestly, I have to say, now that the kids know the Secrets, I spend almost no time at all on memorizing sight words, except for the small handful that really break the rules and have to go to jail, as most of the words the kids can just read.
We look for Secrets in Science….
Look at the picture above to see how many variations of the word hibernate we found when reading our big book in our whole group Science lesson! One of the kids spotted the er Secret, then another spotted the /or/ and /ing/Secrets, and we were off! Next came the Babysitter Vowels®, which they used to help them figure out whether the vowels would be long or short. Some students knew the Secret sounds immediately, and others had to check the posters first before sounding out each part, but they were all able to read all of the words— and write them!
No one was left out of the reading and writing fun because we all had one thing in common— we all knew the Secrets! That day, we did more reading and writing in Science than in our designated reading and writing blocks, combined! What better way is there to show beginning learners what these Secret skills are actually for!
My favorite thing is what happened the following day when I was working with a small group and heard Abel yell from his seat across the room, “Mrs. Johnson! Mrs. Johnson! Look, I found the word hibernate in my book!”
And sure enough, he had.
Even for an ELL Kindergartner in October, sounding out the word hibernate with the Mommy E® was easy!
We use Secrets when we write…..
See the /ow/ and /ing/ in snowing and the /ou/ in mountains!
We look for Secrets when we read the directions on our math papers.
Words like draw and count with the “letters who love each other” (au/aw) and the “letters who don’t” (ou/ow) can’t fool us!
I almost never have to read the math story problems to my kids anymore because they can do it all by themselves using our Secrets!
Secret Stories® has opened up so many possibilities…..there seems to be no limit to what my kindergartners can do. It has really changed everything.
And while I do still have kids that are just chugging along at their own pace, like sweet little Abel, they are ALL sucking up the Secrets— even those who are not always ready to apply them. And that’s okay, because I know they have the “keys” in their pocket that they will need to unlock the words they want when they are ready, just like Abel did.
I can’t thank Kjersti enough for that deep dive into all of the wonderful things that she’s doing in her kindergarten classroom. I will be doing a part 2 “follow-up” to Kjersti’s post, so stay tuned! (You can catch another post by Kjertsti here!)
For a list of upcoming conferences, or for information on scheduling a school or district professional development workshop, click here.
https://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/sample_er_ur_ir_color.gif502600Katie Garnerhttps://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Secret-Stories-Phonics-Method-Logo-1-copy.pngKatie Garner2015-01-17 00:57:002021-01-10 15:07:08“Phonics on Steroids” for Kindergarten Reading and Writing
We have so much to share with you and so little time to do so! Busy, busy, busy we are at this time of year, but my students have been hounding me to sneak on Katie’s blog again and brag about their growth.
“Mrs. Mac…
We need to let the people know how we’re doing!!!”
I have learned over the years to never argue with determined 1st graders, so let’s get right down to the bragging….
These kids are officially crazy-in-love with Secret Stories!
I cannot get through a lesson without them freaking out because they’ve discovered a Secret Story ‘hiding’ in a word.. and they go literally insane if the word has more than one Secret in it!
Here are some of our super-exciting Secret Stories-moments…
In this first clip, the kids were so excited that we actually had to stop what we were doing that moment and come to the carpet, so that they could “work the word.”
Notice that they are holding their hands over their sweet little mouths, which is what they do whenever they notice more than one Secret Story in a word. This helps them “hold the Secret in” so that they don’t accidentally blurt it out (completely their idea!) Aren’t they just adorable?
Spotting SECRETS in the word ‘dangerous!’
This class has some real performers in it, and I love to tap into their hidden talents as much as possible! Here are few future actors performing their favorite…… the ousSecret! When o, u & sget together, poor little o is always left out, and so it’s just “US!”
We spent 30 minutes acting this out. They got so into it that they just didn’t want to stop! Below is a clip of one of my favorite groups acting out the ous Secret…
My favorite time to share and hear Secret Stories is during guided reading. I loveGuided Reading! I could listen to them read all day. Using the Secret Stories has completely changed my approach to teaching kids how to read. It literally took all the stressoff my shoulders!
I used to really stress when I came across a word that I knew they couldn’t sound-out or identify using picture-support, but now I know the “Secrets” for all of those tricky words…. and so do THEY!
Guided Reading is now stress-free (or at least as stress-free as a first grade classroom can be!) The following clips include children on a variety of different reading levels, as I wanted to show how knowing the “grown-up” reading & writing Secrets make cracking the code easy for ALL learners- regardless of their level!
So here are some very proud kiddos who couldn’t wait to share their Secrets with you.
Can you see the pride in their faces?
Sneaky Y®, Mommy E®, and the ‘al’ Secrets!
The “ce/ci/cy” Secret
The “ay” and “ing” Secrets
And here is a clip from our very first Reader’s Theater Production. These kids couldn’t believe that they could read a 40 page play…. but they did! And they even made their own costumes (well, headbands) to help them “get into their parts!”
Readers Theater
Now this next clip requires an introduction.
This little guy is just a love bug. He comes from the most amazing supportive family. I have a great relationship with his mommy, and she’s a regular mommy-helper in our classroom. She was initially very concerned about her little guy, as there had been a few rough experiences in the past, and like any loving parent, wanted her baby to be successful!
At the time I’d captured this video, his mommy had just walked in as I’d started recording, so I quickly shooed-her right back out! Look at the pride in his face when he discovered that he could not only read the “big” word on the page, but the WHOLE sentence, as well!
When his mommy saw this clip, she had tears… and this is just the beginning!!!
I’m so thrilled that I will get to share all of his continuing growth with all of YOU this year!
Spotting the ‘ar’ SECRET in the word ‘shark!’
And finally, I have one more beautiful moment to share.
This student came rushing to the guided reading table when I called her group. The words she said touched my heart. What had initially sold me on Secret Stories was the idea of teaching my kids to read in a ‘stress-free’ way.
I teach it because I love it and it works, but I’m not the only one who had a life-changing moment. Listen to Lana as she explains why she loves Secret Stories so much, and how it has changed her life.
The “ing” Secret—
Lana shares why she loves knowing the Secrets (This one’s my favorite!!!)
Well folks, thanks so much for taking a quick peek into our little classroom,
and I hope that these small glimpses will help inspire you own Secret Stories journey!
xoxoxo
Renee McAnulty
PS I want to thank Katie for allowing me to guest-blog!
This approach has fostered a new way of thinking about teaching kids to read that has truly changed my life. Thank you for making me a better teacher for my amazing kids!!!!
https://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/secret-stories-book-access-foil-copy.jpg552736integritivehttps://www.thesecretstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Secret-Stories-Phonics-Method-Logo-1-copy.pngintegritive2014-12-12 23:51:002018-07-17 16:59:44And We Have READERS!!!
Notice the “ay” Secret in the word play, above? Watch the video clip below to see how EASY it is to teach…
and notice the Sneaky Y® Secret in the smartly-spelled word batterey in the sample, below.
Theer, ir ur Secret is easy-peasy to teach….
….and even EASIER to learn, as this little kindergartner demonstrates, below!
And then there’s the ar-Secret with Superhero A!
Notice in the last two samples above, the Outlaw Words, one and there, depicted as “mug-shots” for posting on the class Word Jail (the Secret Stories®-version of a “Word Wall”)
The Secret Stories® Word Jail is reserved for words that are truly “un-figure-outable”…. not random sight words, as most are easily decodable for learners who know the Secrets…. even in kindergarten!
For more on writing with the Secrets, check out the video below and download the FREE Secret Writing Pack underneath!
Kids can’t read OR write about their pet mouse with only 26 individual letter sounds and a handful of sight words! They need ALL of the code to do ANYTHING with it, and from the earliest possible grade levels! Check out these kindergartners and see how easy it is to break down those grade level walls that delay learner access to the code!
Mrs. Mac’s students, looking up the “ie” Secret in the SECRET STORIES book! (She hadn’t shared that oneyet, but the kids said they needed it NOW!!!)
