Wikki Stix and Finger Lights

I love finding materials (even if they're a little "gadgety") that help young readers make sense of print. For years now, I've been using Wikki Stix and Finger Lights with K/1 kids in small reading groups. The Wikki Stix are nothing more than colorful waxy strips that can be easily cut, bent, pinched, rolled, applied to paper (and removed, and applied, and removed, and applied...) without needing to be thrown out. It lasts forever. (And, it's priced as if it lasts forever. If you'd like a less expensive version, try "Bend-a-Roos." You can find them where toys or craft supplies are sold.) I use them with children when I want to bring their attention to a certain word, word part, or print feature in text. Not only are they great to use with children during guided reading groups, but you can keep them handy for big books, poems, and songs during shared reading, too. The other day, I used two different colors with Matthew to help him notice word endings when rereading his book on plants. Because they don't fall off until I peel them off, I can leave them in Matthew's book until he returns it. This way, each time he opens the book to reread it, the supports are there if he needs them.

Matthew stretched out the red piece a little bit while the book was at home. It was originally just under the -es ending.

A pack of "Wikki Stix" comes in a variety of colors.

One pack will last a long time.

Another discovery I made came after a dinner with my family at a Japanese steak house. My daughter couldn't finish her meal, so the waiter wrapped it up in aluminum foil for her. She requested a swan, so while he was twisting the long piece of foil into the swan's neck, it dawned on me how sturdy, bendable, and tactile the foil was. I remember thinking, "This is something kids could use to make letters." That year, we had quite a few kids who were struggling to form letters correctly and, in some cases, just to identify them. We had used pipe cleaners, but there was the sharp metal piece at each end (which is sometimes a safety hazard, depending on the kid) and they never stayed in place, always springing back out of form. The foil worked great!  

{Take a sheet of foil, roll it, twist it... now it's ready to be shaped!}

Things got even better when I found something called "Finger Lights" in the dairy section of my grocery store. (I have no idea why they were by the milk, but they're very fun and the kids love them!) They're colorful LED lights that slide onto your finger with a soft elastic strap. Turn them on and voila, little flashlights! I use them during guided reading to encourage beginning readers who need a tactile and visual reminder to track print by pointing or sliding their finger beneath the text. We also use them to "shine a light" on certain words in the text, like sight words, words that rhyme with a certain word, words that start with a certain sound, words that have a given meaning, etc. And we use them to trace our foil letters while saying the chant for that letter.

Something neat about the foil letters is that one twisted piece of foil will last a child a long time and can be reshaped over and over without ripping or breaking. In the sample below, Haley is using one piece of foil to learn how small changes can be made to form the d, b, p, q, and g (not pictured). I also placed a piece of Wikki Stix on her desk so she could start visualizing the difference between letters that sit on the line and letters that drop below the line.