Teaching Strategies for First Grade Students

First grade students benefit from proven teaching strategies.

In first grade, children lay the foundation for their entire elementary school education by learning the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. As a teacher, it's important to draw on proven strategies for helping first-grade students succeed in the classroom. This helps students build confidence in their fledgling scholastic abilities.

Arithmetic Teaching Strategies

In first grade, arithmetic focuses on teaching students number recognition, counting and ordinal positions, and students are introduced to estimations of magnitude. Typically, teachers are encouraged to focus on counting for the first month or two of the school year and to reinforce learning throughout the course of the school day. Once number recognition and counting have been covered, using games to teach ordinal positions is a common strategy. Later in the school year, teachers can introduce estimations and calculations of magnitude (including recognizing proportions and quantifying "more" versus "less" in addition to exercises in addition and subtraction).

Selecting Reading Materials

Ideally, first-grade reading materials should aggressively introduce new vocabulary to students with a focus on phonic concepts. Use books that give children plenty of opportunities to apply phonics concepts to sound out unfamiliar words, and select reading materials that challenge but don't frustrate students. Studies show that students who get a lot of practice sounding out words they don't recognize learn to read more quickly and proficiently.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

It is important to teach comprehension skills and decoding skills simultaneously. Comprehension skills focus on helping students figure out what words mean by considering them in relation to other words in the sentence, while decoding skills include teaching letter-sound combinations, short and long vowel sounds and phonics.

Strategies for Teaching Writing

Educators note that learning how to read and learning how to write go hand-in-hand; as students become better readers, they also become better writers. In first grade, it is important to encourage both expository as well as creative writing to give students varied opportunities to apply their emerging skills to a variety of writing forms.

References

• Reading Rockets: First Grade Instruction
• Rockingham County Public Schools: 1st Grade Math Teaching Strategies