Will my students get bored?

I always get asked how I make my literacy sessions engaging. So I have put together my top tips for you!

1. Perky Pace! The UFLI team used this term all the way through training. We need to keep the pace of our literacy sessions fast and allow many chances for students to join in and respond. There are suggestions in the UFLI manual for the timing of each activity, for example the phonemic awareness drill should take less than 2 minutes.

2. Use the UFLI slides and emphasize the check marks every time you complete an activity - "Wow that was quick, let's move on to the next task"! Use a funny sound like "cha ching" everytime you see the check mark, or make the check mark in the air. The activities are varied in this program so the children will be kept engaged as they move through the lessons and wait for that check mark.

3. DON'T try and mix up the lessons to make it more interesting. The predictable routine is what makes this program work. Once students learn the routines, they are really able to focus on the content for each lesson and they don't have to worry about learning a new process all the time. This is wonderful for those students with working memory difficulties. It is one less thing they need to add to their memory and can focus on the content rather than the "what next".

4. Blending Drill - now this is where it can get a bit tricky and students might start to fidget while you set it up for the lesson. Make sure you are using the free UFLI Blending Board. If this is new to you, my tip is to set this up before your literacy lesson. Did you know that you can actually save your blending boards for each lesson? Another alternative is to incorporate movement during this step. If your students are at their seats they can quickly transition to carpet for the blending drill or vice versa. That movement can be helpful to increase attention stamina and allow you to set up the blending board. It will not take up too much time from your lesson. If you don't want to transition from seat to floor, you can try using this time as preparation for step 6 - word work. Ask the students to collect their blending mats, whiteboards and markers - whatever you need for this step.

5. Auditory Drills and Spelling - of course we can always use student notebooks and lined paper but varied practice keeps the lessons interesting - so keep that in mind when you reach for those notebooks or pre-filled templates - let's keep lessons multi-sensory! Students love using a whiteboard with markers. HOWEVER I have discovered LCD Writing Tablets and the children LOVE them!! Have you tried these before? They have the feel of writing onto paper but a click of the button can erase the screen - there is also a lock button to prevent anything getting accidentally erased.

6. Provide opportunities to engage and respond. Instruction doesn't mean we are talking 'at' the student, the student also needs to interact with us, they need plentiful opportunities to respond. This way they are involved and more engaged, as well as allowing us to monitor their progress during the lesson. Utilizing choral response is also a great tool to make sure all students are active and participating throughout their lessons.

6. Don't forget to celebrate the end of your ULFI literacy lesson with a game. Whilst the UFLI roll and reads are so much fun, they can get a little repetitive. I like to mix it up with some of my games I have created. My students just love Lucky Squares, Honeycomb Race and Dots and Boxes.

Lucky Squares UFLI Foundations

Honeycomb Race UFLI Foundations

Remember effective instruction is explicit! The UFLI Foundations program is clear and direct, it is no nonsense and explicit. When you are selecting additional resources to use outside of the UFLI online resources, you need to ensure you are selecting activities that directly reinforce your UFLI lessons. This might look like games with high repetition of single word decoding and encoding. Select activities that are directly targeting phonemic awareness, decoding and encoding and connected reading. Make sure to select activities that are no-fuss, print and go. You want to choose games and activities with little to no set up. Toss away those activities that waste our valuable teaching time. That means no cutting and pasting activities!