WBT Freebies

If you are just getting started in WBT, I would like to share would you a wealth of free teaching resources that you may have not yet discovered.  I am speaking about all of the wonderfully amazing free downloads that are available on the WBT website.  They will make you ask yourself how you had ever taught without them and why you had not found them sooner.  At least those were the questions that I asked myself when I stumbled across these goodies.

Let's begin with where to find them.  First, you need to go to the WBT website.  The address for this site is www.wholebrainteaching.com.  The next step is to register on the site.  The good new is that it doesn't cost anything to register.  You just need to create a user name and password.  Once you've done this, log into the site and all of the downloads are yours.  There is just one small caveat to this.  The only thing that Christ Biffle (the founder of WBT) and the board members ask is that you share these resources with at least ten of your colleagues.  WBT is a grass roots educational reform movement, and by you sharing what you have found, you will be sharing a little bit of teacher heaven with others.  To get to the freee downloads, scroll down the right side of your screen.  Directly beneath WBT certification, you will find the tab for free downloads.  Click on it, and three pages of unbelievable downloads are waiting for you to access them.

When I first started learning about Whole Brain Teaching, the downloads were one of the very first things that I discovered.  The problem was that there were so many of them, and I had no idea what any of the names meant.  Whole Brain Teaching definitely has a language of its own, so to me it was like reading Greek.  Therefore, I spent a lot of time downloading and reading, trying to find the ones most applicable to me and the ones that I wanted to implement in my classroom right away.  It was very time consuming, and it would have been nice to have had someone to guide me through the process, suggesting which downloads would be most appropriate for my grade level and which ones I would want to look at right away.

I am hoping that in this blog post I can be that guide for you.  I'd like to begin with my top three picks for you, regardless of your grade level.  These three downloads all involve writing and will work in synergy with one another to make your writing program a complete success.

1.  The Brainy Game:  I love the Brainy Game because it will teach you how to do all of the oral writing gestures that are used all day long in a WBT classroom.  It will also provide you with beautiful color pictures that you can print and display in your classroom.  You will find that the Bainies will quickly become a favorite of both you and your students.

2.  The Writing Game:  I love the writing game!  What it does is take writing and break it down into its smallest components.  These components are then taught to the students one at a time in a game format known as complexors.  The concept behind it is really simple.  You wouldn't take someone new to tennis and put them on the court to play by simply demonstrating each shot.  A good tennis coach would break each shot down and teach his student one step at a time how to make that shot.  Practice alone does not make one a better tennis player.  You have to practice the correct way.  Writing is no different.  As educators we are good about giving students plenty of opportunities to practice their writing.  Unfortunately, what they are practicing is often incorrect.  By using complexors, you are providing your students with a fun way to practice the smallest components of writing correctly.  The complexors are then used by the students within writing puzzles.  the puzzles provide a structure for writing.  It is without a doubt the best way that I have ever found to teach writing.

3.The Genius Ladder:  I love the Genius Ladder.  It has made a huge difference in helping my students understand how to write a complex sentence correctly, as well as how to write a paragraph with a topic sentence, detail adders, and a concluder.  To learn more about the genius ladder, please see my separate post on the subject,

Next I would recommend taking a look at all of the Super Speed Games.  These games are so much fun for the students, because they are all about beating previous scores and previous times.  This is something that as teachers we know all students love to do.  They are learning, and they don't even realize it.  I have divided the Super Speed Games into two groups.  The first are games that are appropriate for all grade levels.  The second are for beginning readers/learners.

All Levels

1.  Electronic Super Speed Grammar:  Hands down you will find no better way to teach students the parts of speech, as well as to work on what a complete sentence is.  It is one of my favorite downloads.

2.  Electronic Super Speed 1,000:  This is a reading game designed to help students learn the 1,000 most frequently used words in the English Language.

3.  Electronic Super Speed Math:  The most successful way I have ever found to help students master there basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts.

4.Smooth Bumpy Planet:  I have to be honest.  This is a game that I have not used yet with the whole class.  I remember reading about it last summer and thinking how awesome it would be to use when teaching number concepts like skip counting, place value, and even basic addition and subtraction facts.  Until recently, however, I had forgotten about it.  Just recently I was looking at it again and kicking myself for not using it this year when I taught my students skip counting, place value, and how to count to 1,000.  I will be definitely be using it on a regular basis next year.  I have already laminated the number charts.

For Beginning Readers

1.  Electronic Super Speed Rhyme:  The focus of this game is word families.

2.  Electronic Super Speed 100:  In this game students learn the first 100 sight words.  Let me just point out that this game is great for special education students who need many, many repetitions of a word before they can own it.

3.  Super Speed Letters and Phonics:  This game will teach students their letters and sounds.

4.  Super Speed Numbers:  This game will help students learn how to count to 100.

5.  Biffytoons:  This is a great way to introduce beginning readers to basic sight words.

In addition to the above downloads, I would also highly recommend for kindergarten through third grade teachers the language arts and math power pics.  These can be downloaded by subject and grade level.  They are visuals with gestures and definitions that accompany math and language arts standards.  They are used as part of the WBT five step lesson.  (Please see my posts on the five step lesson.)

Finally, I would recommend Mind Soccer for everyone.  Mind Soccer is the WBT review game that is usually played on Friday afternoons.  It is a lot of fun, and the students look forward to playing it every week.

There are many other downloads available that you will also want to check out, but what I have given you is a good place to start.  I hope that you have found me to be a good guide through the world of WBT free downloads.  Happy teaching WBT style!

Super Speed Reading Games

As an inclusion teacher I have students who enter my room as non-readers or reading significantly below grade level.  Part of the challenge that these students have with reading is the number of repetitions that they need of a word or a phonic's pattern before they "own" that word or pattern. Finding a way to provide students with the needed number of repetitions has always been a challenge, and I had never been able to find that "just right" solution.  That all changed, however, when I discovered Whole Brain Teaching.  In the free downloads section of the Whole Brain Teaching web site, there are two games that were literally a answer to prayer for my low readers. They are Super Speed 100 and Super Speed Rhyme.  In this post I would like to share with you my experiences with these two games.

The first game I would like to talk about is Super Speed 100.  This game is designed to teach beginning readers of any age the 100 most commonly used sight words in the English Language. These are the words that make up approximately 50% of what we read.  The words are arranged in order of frequency.  “The” is the most common word in English, so it is the first word
learned.  “To” is the next most common word in English and is the second word learned, and so on. The game has 100 levels.  One new word is added in each level from 1-100; previously learned words are frequently repeated.  Every 10 levels, there is a Challenge.  The Challenge contains all the
words from previous levels.  In order to continue, students must be able to read all of the words in the Challenge.

I play this game every day during my low students' reading group time.  You can choose to play solo or partner Super Speed.  I have my students play with partners. At the beginning of the year I tested my struggling readers on these 100 words to determine their starting level for the game.  I paired up students who tested close to each other.  Partners are given one minute to alternately read the words.  At the end of one minute they mark where they left off.  I then time them for a second minute, and students try to get farther than they did the first minute.  If they beat their previous number of words, they draw a smiley face in a star on a sheet of stars that come with the game.  When partners are able to read all of the words in a level, I cross that level off, and the next day they start on the next level.  In my room when students fill up one page of stars, they earn a star on the Super Improvers Board.  (For more information on the Super Improvers' Board, see my post on the subject.)  This just provides students with added incentive.  They are always counting to see how many more stars they need to fill up their page of stars.

Immediately following Super Speed 100, we play Super Speed Rhyme.  Super Speed Rhyme is actually a power point designed to teach beginning readers some of the most common word families.  Included in the Power Point are a number of suggestions on how it can be used in the classroom.  One of the suggestions is to play a game using the words from the Power Point.  Last summer, in preparation for the game, I typed all of the words from the Power Point out and grouped them by word families.  Since Super Speed Rhyme was designed with kindergartners and first graders in mind, I added additional word families that I would expect my second graders to know.  The game is played very much like Super Speed 100.  Once again, you have the choice of having your students play solo or with a partner.  For this game I chose to have my students play solo.  They still have a partner, but their partner's job is to follow along and be prepared to provide help reading a word if it is asked for, and correct their partner if he/she reads a word incorrectly.  All partner A's reads first. After one minute they mark where they left off.  They are then given a second minute to try and beat their score.  If they do, they give themselves a smiley face and I cross off one line of words on their paper.  This process is then repeated with all of the partner B's.  I have attached the word list that I use with my students.  Please feel free to use it as is, or revise it to match the levels of your students.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgav55nrzbcwj3f/speed%20rhyme%20words.docx?dl=0

I have seen so much growth in my struggling readers, and I truly believe that these two games have played a big part in this growth.  I think that they are successful for two reasons.  The first is student engagement.  I have never seen kids so excited about coming to a reading group, and I have never seen struggling readers have so much fun reading.  The kids love the game format, and they love to see their daily improvements.  The second reason is the number of repetitions that these games provide.  The repetitions are built into the format of the game.  My lowest student played the game for over two weeks, before he could remember the first ten sight words.  Since then he has progressed more quickly, since only one new word is added at each level.

When students graduate from Super Speed 100, there is another game that I would highly recommend called Super Speed 1,000.  This game is appropriate for all students who can read the first 100 sight words.  My kids love it!  It can also be found on the Whole Brain Teaching web site under free downloads.

No matter what grade level you teach, if you have struggling readers in your classroom, I promise you that you will find success with these games.  I hope that you will give them a try.