Welcome back, Superkids teachers! We hope you had some time to relax and recharge this summer, and you are excited to jump into the 2021–22 school year.

In this issue of The Superkids Bulletin, you’ll find a host of classroom tips and ideas we gathered during our June Superkids Schools Conference. You will also read about a few resources that will help you start the school year strong.

If you know a Superkids teacher who does not receive The Superkids Bulletin, please feel free to share this link to sign up for a monthly collection of teaching ideas, wisdom from Superkids coaches and teachers, and fun resources for the classroom.

https://www.zaner-bloser.com/reading/superkids-bulletin-signup.php

This summer we hosted our first Superkids Schools Conference. It was a day packed with learning, inspiration, and opportunities to connect with fellow teachers.

The interactive grade-level sessions were a highlight of the day. A special thank you goes to our panelists for sharing a plethora of information about teaching Superkids successfully.

Kindergarten panel: Rosie Aguilar, Ramona Blair, Kelva Chatman, Kaye Lega, and Jennifer Palmero

Grade 1 panel: Karen Pitoniak, Meggan Roper, and Kathryn Zangrilli

Grade 2 panel: Nicole Carluccio, Jeff Englert, and Cynthia Haring

Here are just a few of the wonderful tips that were shared by these veteran Superkids teachers.

Character Connection—Create your independent work time station names around the characters in Superkids. “Blending with Tic, Tac and Toc” or “Decoding with Doc” include activities to strengthen decoding skills. “Ettabetta and the Big Book” activities have tasks that center around the Big Book of Blending or Decoding. “Handwriting with Hot Rod” provides an extension of the handwriting Daily Routine or additional letter-formation practice. “Spelling with Sal” includes activities related to practice with the week’s spelling words. “Fluency with Frits” incorporates tasks tied to the fluency passages or chunks of texts from a Superkids story. Psst! Be sure to read next month’s newsletter for a freebie connected to this idea!

Game Sets—Create sets of games, like Kaboom, for each unit to provide practice with decoding words with new phonemes or memory words. Using the same game, but updating for each unit, eliminates the need to explain new game directions each week.

Word Work Games—When the Student Book or Word Work Book offers a game for the students to create, make an extra game and laminate it to keep in the classroom. This provides an activity for students who need additional practice with previously taught memory words.

Storing Unit Materials—Store all resources needed to teach a unit in a bin or box. Place a label on the outside of the container that indicates the core skills that will be covered, independent and small-group activities that are available, stories that will be read in the Reader, library and magazine titles included, and other information to help with planning as you head into each unit.

Resource Labels—Laminate and store games for differentiated instruction and independent activities in photo storage boxes. Label every game piece with its unit number. Labeling in a consistent way helps the classroom and support teachers easily find the correct activities for the current unit. In addition, when a misplaced game piece is discovered in the classroom, students can quickly return the piece to the correct box.

Ten-Minute Tuck-In Tips—Store bagged Ten-Minute Tuck-In materials and printed directions in file folders labeled by unit. Place the bin in an accessible space. When support staff or classroom volunteers arrive to assist, simply direct them to the box and indicate which folder to pull to find activities to support the student or group they will be working with.

Fluency Pyramids—For struggling readers, Fluency Pyramids provide a lot of reading practice while also giving them the scaffold they need to successfully read the text. To prepare this resource, print individual sentences from a fluency passage—or any selected Superkids text—onto a triangle-shaped cutout. Start at the top of the pyramid with just the first word in the sentence. The next line will include two words. Continue adding one word to each line until the whole sentence is printed. Introducing one pyramid at a time, students read through the text as many times as needed to gain confidence and mastery. Once mastered, introduce the next pyramid with a new sentence from the passage of text. When all the sentences have been mastered, students can put the pyramids in order and read the complete sentences from beginning to end.

Five Days of Fluency—Add fluency passages to your daily instructional routine. Begin on Monday, modeling fluency and expression using the text as a read-aloud as students follow along. On Tuesday, choral read the passage as a class. The Wednesday task can be partner reading. Thursday brings an activity for the students to complete, such as circling memory words or highlighting a unit phoneme in the passage, as they whisper read independently. On Friday, students complete a one-minute timed read with a partner. They each will circle the last word that was read and submit for your review.

• Read through the implementation training materials or Program Guide thoroughly after you attend the training.
• Spend some time reading through the first few units of the year to familiarize yourself with the flow and routines of the lessons.
• Get to know the characters in the program. Reading the Superkids stories can help with this.
• The first few units of kindergarten, the grade 1 review unit, and the grade 2 warm-up unit move at a slower pace. Use this more flexible period to assess your students.
• Watch a few of the Video Lessons to see examples of how the lessons are taught. (See below for details on where to find Video Lessons in the Superkids Portal.)
• Log in and become familiar with the resources available on the Teacher Portal.

New teachers will find The Superkids Reading Program Digital Welcome Package full of information and resources to help get started.

Check out these additional tips, specific for each grade, for beginning the school year.

Guidance for Starting a New School Year — Kindergarten

Guidance for Starting a New School Year — Grade 1

Guidance for Starting a New School Year — Grade 2

The Superkids Video Lessons have a new permanent home! They are now accessible through the © 2017 Teacher Portal in the Resources tab. Here are a few ways teachers will be using these videos for in-person instruction.

• Use Daily Routine videos as part of your instructional routine. This allows you the flexibility to monitor, assist, and assess as the students work. It is like having another teacher in the room!
• Independently viewing a word work lesson can provide extra exposure to phonics instruction for smaller groups of students needing reinforcement.
• Students who are reading below-level can view the recorded reading lessons independently before coming to reading group. This will allow the group to have exposure to the text, comprehension discussions, and think-alouds prior to working with you. This practice offers you more time for targeted instruction and learning support that will directly benefit this group.
• If a student needs to miss school for an extended amount of time, video links can be shared with the family to keep the student current with classroom instruction during their absence.
• These videos will be perfect when planning for your own absence. Simply provide the substitute with the video links to ensure your students get exactly what they need during the literacy block while you are away.

Are you prioritizing social-emotional learning this year? We have created a printable feelings chart—using the Superkids characters, of course—for you to use in your classroom. Download the feelings chart, directions for assembly, and a few ideas for how to use this resource with your students.