On the first day of school, I would tell each and every one of my first graders that they had to write a story for me. I wish you could have seen the shocked looks on their little faces! They would cry out, “I’m only 6-years old! I can’t write a story!”
I explained to them they all had stories inside them. Some of them would tell me their stories with pictures. Others would tell their story with pictures and letters. Some might even tell me their story with words and pictures. It did not matter how they told me the story, they just had to tell me a story.
These first stories taught me what each child knew about letters, words, and even their pictures. They taught me about where each child was in their development.
I put these first stories in front of each child’s portfolio. For Mother’s Day, I would bundle up each child’s portfolio (no worksheets were in them) and give them to the children to give to their mothers for Mother’s Day.
The response was overwhelming. The kids all said their mothers cried after they opened their Mother’s Day Portfolio gifts.
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When I was a first-grade teacher, I started each day, from Day One, with a song about the letters and the sounds they make. It went like this:
I would point (with my handy-dandy long pointer) to the letter A and sing, “The ‘A’ says ā-ā-ā or ă-ă-ă.” Then I would point to the letter B and sing, “The ‘B’ says b-b-b.”
I would continue through the entire alphabet with this little song. The children picked up the little song very quickly and it started out each day in a fun and easy way.
Even after my kids knew all of the letters and the sounds they made, they did not want to give up “their” song. It only took a few minutes each day and it really helped the kids who were struggling with phonics. So we kept up our letter song every day while the tardy kids were coming in and the class was settling in for the day.
To hear a recording, please go to the Favorite First-Grade Letter Chant page (listed under ABCs).
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