Reading Begins!

I am so excited to have started our groups.  Each class we will begin with our morning message.

Why do we write a morning message?

By participating in the writing of our morning message, students learn...

writing is speech written down
proper letter formation 
upper and lower case letter recognition 
associating letters and sounds 
left to right progression 
differentiate between a letter, a word, and a sentence 
reading of common sight words
spacing 
punctuation 
to look for patterns within words (word families)

Sample Questions I will ask the students:

Can someone show me where I start my morning message?
What sound do you hear at the beginning of this word?
What letter do I write at the beginning of that word?
What do I put at the end of that sentence?
What do I put at the end of that question?
How do I show that we are excited about going?
How do I end my sentence?
Can anyone help me spell the word, 'love'?
Does anyone know what letter to begin 'Today' with?
Can you find a word you know and circle it?
Can you find a word that begins like Adam?
Can you find a word that rhymes with ______?

Progression of  the morning message:

Over time I will start to make mistakes in the morning message. I may:

Omit letters on purpose

   Make mistakes in capitalization “good Morning”

      Incorporate sight words and have students spy them

      Phonemic awareness mistakes “Good Torning Class”

     Make Calvert handwriting mistakes! Forget the tail on a letter

        Invert letters! Write a backwards “b” “j” etc.

Currently we are working on letter recognition in our morning meetings.  
For example, for our initial message (pictured above) we found each work that contained 
the letter "e" in it. Each friend had a chance to "share the pen" and circle an "e" that they found.  Once we found the total number of "e" letter we did that many jumping jacks.  I then read the message aloud again and had students clap each time I read a word containing an "e"

I love that the morning messages contain VAKT linkages

Visual: see the message as I read it aloud and point to each word
Auditory: hear the message as I read aloud and point to each work
Kinesthetic: practice jumping jacks (harder for this age group then you would expect) completing the number dictated by the message. Leaving a seated position to "share

the pen"
Tactile: share the pen as they find and circle specific letters, punctuation, words etc.

Feel free to use any of these ideas at home for a fun learning experience.