When I started my teacher business, I had a moment when I realized something. I had purchased much of my classroom supplies from my own pocket for my classroom. And I had a lot of stuff! I realized that it would be too difficult to take items back and forth. I would need to buy some things just for my reading tutoring business.
When it comes to teacher side jobs, our contracts often specify that we cannot use school supplies or materials in a private teacher business or for tutoring students. And if it’s not directly stated, it’s at least implied.
So, Amazon teaching supplies became my favorite shopping solution. I was already using Amazon for lots of household items (Ok, maybe, I like it a little too much!) I was able to search for and find just what I needed. If you are looking for teaching materials for reading that you can easily find on Amazon, check out the list below.
If you tutor younger students or even older students in need of basic reading skills, you may need to teach letter sounds. This can help to teach students what their mouth is doing when they make the sound for each letter (or group of letters). For some sounds, we can see our teeth, but for others we can’t. There are some sounds where our mouth is more open, and others where our lips are more pressed together.
Mirrors can help the tutor to model correct sound production for the student. They can also show students what their mouth is doing as they practice correctly forming sounds. I love these small colored mirrors that I found on Amazon. They come in a pack of 12, which is great if you have multiple groups and need each student to keep one in their cubby or a supply box.
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These mats are another great find for teaching reading. They provide the visual support that many students need when working on phonemic awareness. I love that there are multiple options for using with words with different numbers of sounds. I also like that I can use dry erase markers to write the letters that correspond with each sound.
I also added an additional activity for when I use these mats. I give students a choice of which mat we need for a given word. For example, I might say the word, “clip”, while presenting both a 3 circle mat and a 4 circle mat. My students need to figure out how many sounds they hear in the word ‘clip’ (which involves segmenting the word, and in this case, splitting up the blend at the beginning). When I give them this task of choosing which mat we need, I’m also doing an informal assessment of their phonemic awareness skills.
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My favorite thing about these strips are that they include a variety of sizes, which is great if you work with students who are readign different sized fonts. Some of the strips have colors that are light. That way kids can still read the text underneath. Some students find these strips helpful, either for tracking text or for focusing their attention. I find it worth the time to try them out, to see if students find them helpful. Some kids find that the color focuses them and helps them to track their reading, but others may find it distracting. They might prefer a simple piece of paper to place under the section that they are reading. If you have several students who would likely benefit from using something to track their reading, these are worth a try.
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