Teaching Phonics to PreSchool ESL Students

There are many thoughts on how to teach reading, I'm not going to go into all the different ideas and theories on how to teach reading. While they all work in some capacity I can guarantee that teaching reading by first teaching phonics is the best way! Give me a 3 year old with no knowledge of English and by the end of the year I'll have them reading simple phonics books.Okay, teach phonics first you say, but how? Once again there are many different...

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Top 35 Preschool Blogs and Websites

 A big thanks to feedspot for not only liking the blog, but also including it in their list of top 35 preschool blogs. If you want to check out the rest of their list you can find the link below.https://blog.feedspot.com/preschool_blo...

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“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not".

 Teaching as a profession has a lot of people that think they can do it or how you can improve. I'm going to leave the internet experts alone today and focus on the subset of managers and educators that write, but don't teach.In a previous school I had a manger who was very well read on educational theories. He always had new ideas he wanted us to try and because he spent a lot of time reading he believed that this would make himself quite capable...

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How to Respond to a Pre-School Student saying "I love you"

A big question for any new Pre-School is how to respond to a child saying they love you? Eventually after a while of teaching your class your students will grow so close to you that they may start to tell you they love you. For children it's natural to tell the people they feel comfortable and safe with they love them. They may see you as much as they see their parents and for some children maybe more. A good teacher will make them feel cared about,...

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Exercise time?

 Should your school / class have an exercise time? Is it an important part of the school day or week? My first school had exercise time every morning. It was sold to the teachers as important to get the students moving to help them wake up for the school day. However, it was also held outside in the heat of summer. Afterwards students and teachers would be hot and sweaty and need to spend the next 20 minutes cooling off. Any suggestion that...

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Apples and Oranges

 This blog aims to help preschool ESL teache...

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Paley's Story Telling

 Paley's Story Telling Curriculum is one of the first teaching philosophies I really read a lot about. In the same vain as learn while playing philosophies Paley presents the idea that all children learn innately through story telling. Using it to help make understanding of the world around them and to express their own idea of how things work.Paley would allow students to volunteer to tell her a story. She would write it down...

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Positive Reinforcement

 Positive reinforcement is so critical in a teaching environment. Most ESL teachers would already have some type of reward system and so already provide positive reinforcement. A big follow up question is what does that reward system give the student? Just points/smiley faces/stars for the sake of having the most. Competition is always a motivating factor for children, so it can work, but don't be surprised to find eventually the students no...

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Online Teaching Further Examined

 Previously, I wrote that one of the most important aspects of online teaching is entertaining the students. After 4 weeks of teaching online I want to highlight that the element of fun in your online teaching is CRITICAL to your class. If you want to keep students in your class or even recruit new students it has to be enjoyable. If a parent has to be sitting beside the student the whole time. Telling them to pay attention and repeat after...

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Online Teaching ESL Kindergarten

 “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”  - Charles DarwinCovid has changed the world and how some of us have to teach. We can  no longer stand in front of our students and teach them. We need to teach through a computer. This new method of delivery requires a new way of teaching. Those teachers that just teach their online lesson as they would their stand...

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Reward and Punishment Systems

A recent theory I had for children is that they either respond to the carrot or stick and you should tailor your management system to the style that works best for them.For those that don't know the carrot is the idea of a reward motivating a student while the stick is the idea that a punishment motivates the student.There is already a lot of material out there regarding both ideas. The thing is both are said to have negatives. Rewards, students...

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Classroom Management for ESL Preschool

A preschool class is hard to control. An ESL preschool class is even more so as your fresh faced students don't understand a single word coming out of your mouth. As a teacher at the start of a new school year you need to introduce your classroom commands. They need to be simple, few and have corresponding actions that naturally show the meaning of what you are saying.Below are my ideas on commands to have, actions to use and why.My rules are: Sit...

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