Inside the Classroom: Mallory Higgins - Lance Thompson Elementary
Inside the Classroom is a series that visits Northwest ISD campuses throughout the year and highlights the magical moments that happen between teachers and students each and every day across the entire 234 square miles of NISD.
With baking sheets in hand, kindergarten students all across Northwest ISD are cooking up a love for reading as their teachers use a new curriculum and a unique tool for their phonics lessons. To see the reading in action, this week’s Inside the Classroom takes you to Mallory Higgins’ classroom at Lance Thompson Elementary.
In her third year teaching Kindergarten after three years teaching first grade, Ms. Higgins is in a unique position to see the impact of NISD's newest curriculum, UFLI Foundations. Developed by the University of Florida Literacy Institute, the curriculum is “an explicit and systematic program that teaches students the foundational skills necessary for proficient reading.”
In addition to the tools typically provided to teachers with a new curriculum, NISD teachers also saw an opportunity to make phonics hands-on, so they enlisted the help of the Northwest ISD Education Foundation. NEF generously purchased baking sheets for every kindergarten student in NISD, and the sheets are used weekly to help students build the foundation of their reading skills.
When we visited Ms. Higgins class, all students were gathered on the carpet as Ms. Higgins introduced the day’s lesson and explained it would revolve around the letter V. Students pretended to write the letter on their hand, then Ms. Higgins picked a few students to write it on the board. Then, they practiced the sound V makes by whispering into their hand then saying it aloud.
After the quick introduction was finished, “table captains” grabbed a stack of baking sheets and brought them to their classmates. Each baking sheet was full of magnetic letters representing the entire alphabet.
Once students were settled at their desks, Ms. Higgins asked them to use their letters to spell VET. Students listened for letter sounds, then “pounded out” the sounds on their hands to help determine what letters to use. Ms. Higgins then used her iPad to remotely cast a student’s sheet onto the room’s monitor as an example.
She then gave students instructions to slightly change their word; for example, to change the E to an A, and ask what the new word was. It wasn’t long before students had gone from VET to VEST and VAN to TEN, sounding out and spelling eight words along the way. The baking sheets and magnetic letters made this part of the lesson seamless.
After table captains put the sheets away, students gathered back on the carpet and were given a worksheet with two paragraphs to read. The paragraphs were full of words and sounds that have been previously learned, so students read the page silently before reading aloud as a class.
They then returned to their desks and glued the sheet into their notebooks. When they have reading time later, students can read any of their past sheets instead of books as most books will be filled with words and sounds they aren’t familiar with yet.
With the new curriculum and tools at their disposal, kindergarten students across NISD are reading with confidence, and Ms. Higgins knows they are ready for everything that lies ahead of them in first grade and beyond.
Check back regularly all year as we continue to visit students and teachers throughout Northwest ISD and offer a rarely seen look Inside the Classroom.