Practice Makes Perfect

My husband has turned into a reader!  For years, he couldn’t understand how I could lose myself in a book for hours.  How I would love to sit and discuss books with other people who also read it.  Well, the man has officially read more books than me in the past year.  After finishing this one…..

he recommended that I read it.  He said that it was a great book for teachers to read.  It talks about the importance of practicing correctly and effectively. I am taking it slowly because there are so many important points to think about. 

Rule #2 in the book is “Practice the 20.”  The author says that you should, “identify the 20 percent of the things you could practice that will deliver 80 percent of the value.” 

Then in Rule #4 “Unlock Creativity with Repetition,” he says that we should, “automate skills to free participants’ cognition to be more creative.”

I got to thinking about how this relates to my struggling readers and really all of my students.

I began asking other teachers if they could identify the 5 skills they thought were most important for a reader at our grade level. 

I decided that my strugglers needed more practice with those 20%skills so that they would become so automatic their minds would be freed up to comprehend the text.

That lead me to my newest packs.  I decided that they needed more fluency phrases for practice.  If they can become automatic and fluent with these “Instant Words,”  that will be one step in automating their skills to free up their minds for comprehension.

 

These 2 packs take care of the first and second 100 words on Fry’s Instant Word List.  Sets 3-6 will follow and are in the works!  You can click on the pics above to check them out in my TpT store.  I am also giving away one set to the first person who comments and tells me what they think are the 20% skills.  Which skills can we be practicing that will deliver 80% of the value?  Don’t forget to leave in your comment which set you would like and your email so I can send it! 

Also, be on the lookout for my new Blessed Teacher Facebook page!