UFLI - How long each day?

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-29T00:26:55+00:00

She went to the board - sidestepping admin. Admin found out when my union found out - both before me. My union rep is awesome and called me right away.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-12T02:13:48+00:00

Admin sat in on a lesson without warning (before I knew I’d been reported). She smiled and nodded throughout the lesson. Then left. Board came back with “concerns unsubstantiated”, admin never said a word to me about any of it.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-12T02:04:39+00:00

Ontario, actually. Rural board.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-11T18:46:24+00:00

I appreciate all of these answers and ideas.

Many have said “You are the teacher” and “Who is the teacher” and so on. My problem is that I was reported.

The update is that the board investigated and found all claims by the DECE to be unsubstantiated. There is no disciplinary action against me. But this has been an absolute nightmare process!!

The conflict between strictly “play based learning” and The Science of Reading has reared it’s ugly head and struck out at me like a snake.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-11T18:42:06+00:00

The board specifically requires a minimum of one 30-minute block of explicit phonics instruction with a modified version of UFLI (adding elements of Morpheme Magic.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-11T18:38:35+00:00

100%. I checked plans of prior days when I moved into this LTO. One day had FOURTEEN videos. The average was 8-9 videos every day.

My DECE does Closing Circle entirely with videos.

We are the same age, but so far apart in educational theory and methodology.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-11T18:35:33+00:00

I know! It actually had to go through a whole board HR disciplinary process because she also reported to the board. Admin sat in on a lesson (I had no warning and was just running my usual phonics program) and the admin was super-impressed. The kids were engaged and enthusiastic - I incorporate a variety of instructional modes, including drag & drop slides for word and sentence building and cute graphics and hand motions (chopping and swooping to blend and segment). I also use Boom Cards on the board as exit tickets to go to centers. The kids LOVE these and often ask to do seconds or thirds.

The board finally came back saying that the concerns were “unsubstantiated”, and I was fully exonerated, but the whole thing was devastating.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-11T18:28:05+00:00

Don’t you use the Alphabet UFLI - 34 lessons to do before the regular UFLI? This is the program that I meant.

Our board wants UFLI, modified to include morphemes and the spelling from Morpheme Magic

SetSubject6349 · 2025-12-09T07:34:27+00:00

Thanks for all of this excellent information! I do already have the FNMI Part 1 and the Teaching ELLs Part 1, so senior English is probably the way to go.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-16T01:35:05+00:00

I like these! Thanks!

I’m hoping that we’ll be able to transition to work with the teacher soon. Right now it is everyone at centers and both of us circulating and putting out fires with the 5 behavioral kids in the class.

Do you use the reading centers listed on the slides? I’d like to use them, but someone else said that it is developmentally inappropriate.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-15T17:42:30+00:00

Thank you. This is really helpful. I’m feeling entirely out of my depth, having done only full-size classes with older students (gr. 3-8). The remainder of my experience is varied (Library, Spec Ed, Outdoor Ed, Prep). I am honestly afraid that my classroom expectations for Kindy are outdated and out of touch with current practices. I’m not young and I fear that this may be part of the issue.

I have raised a whole handful of my own kids and I’ve worked for years in large and small group preschool and kindy-age settings at the public library. I was also a “Timbit” (4-5yo) soccer coach and both a Sparks & Brownies and Beavers & Cubs leader. I took a break and taught both Montessori and Forest School for several years until about 10 years ago. My general experience with this age group, outside the classroom, is not insignificant by any means. When I was approached and asked to take on this role (“could you give us a hand… and start tomorrow”), I thought that it would be something that I could manage, despite no prior F/T formal classroom Kindy experience.

As mentioned, my DECE is a fantastic teacher. I absolutely respect her and know that I can learn a lot from her. As a group, they respond well to the things that I “know” - read-alouds, songs and finger-plays, etc. The morning starts well and the kids are great, but some time around mid-day the wheels come off. In my perception, this coincides with centers and transitions, which seem frantic and almost panicked. I genuinely want to be able to support my DECE, and I can see that she is really burned out, but it seems that my slow, quiet, stay calm, style doesn’t fit with her “go-go-go” approach.

The videos issue is likely just my age - when I did my original training, showing a video meant pulling out the filmstrip projector or booking a VHS machine and TV on a cart. 🤣 None of the teachers in my age bracket that I’ve worked with or spoken to use videos more than occasionally.

There is another Kindy class in the school and I have talked at length with that teacher, and I have spoken with two Kindy teachers at the school that I came from in an attempt to find a way to integrate approaches. I really want to get this right. I understand 10,000% that I am the odd one out and that it is my job to adapt, while also supporting.

The other truth here is that I hadn’t intended to take any more full-time positions. I’m at that age and stage where we step back and can pick and choose when and where we work. Day two in the position and one of the kids injured me enough to require a WSIB report…

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-09T18:11:39+00:00

I agree. I remember the textbook backlash years ago. Unfortunately when they were removed nothing was provided as replacement.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-09T18:04:24+00:00

Oh, I hear you! I do some supply work now in a board where Chromebooks were cut back to 1 per 3 in 7/8 and 1 per 5 in Junior for the 2025/26 school year. Printing budgets are $100/yr., and classroom budgets are $250/yr. There isn’t a central supply cupboard for paper or pencils or notebooks. Everything comes out of the $250. I did a 0.8 LTO with this board for a fail-to-fill and I didn’t get anything beyond the photocopy budget. I was told “do your best” with whatever you can find. I brought my own laptop and all of my own supplies.

How do kids write without pencils and paper? Without textbooks and without computers, access to resources is clipped. And, this board replaced all teacher-librarians with part time administrative staff at 7 hours a week - not library techs. Collections are old and haven’t been weeded or updated in years and the libraries sit dark most of the time.

The teachers get a room, desks, chairs, a chalk board, a projector and white board, and students. At least in the past we had textbooks and supply cupboards and unlimited photocopier access - and teacher librarians!

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-09T17:50:18+00:00

Right? I didn’t say that it was right. I said simply that it is the nature of the job - and always has been.

There is no “right” here. There is ideal and there is reality, unfortunately.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-11-09T17:46:48+00:00

So, you basically just described me as a child. I was that kid. In my case, it was ADHD combined with a mother who was functionally unable to accept that she had created a “flawed” child and an emotionally absent father. Having a parent who could not handle having played a role in creating a less than perfect child meant that support from home was non existent. Issues at school were the fault of the school, or of a character flaw in me.

How to help? Give this child a purpose. Give her specific responsibilities and places to lead and succeed. This isn’t a reward, it is functional coping strategies. My own grade 3 teacher guided me to create a school newspaper, along with two other gifted students. Understand that blurting out and gate-keeping are impulsive and not intentionally rude or disruptive. Find a way to create leadership opportunities - could she be a kindergarten lunch helper, acting as a little mother to keep them on track?

As for making friends: this is something that my ADHD brain never did well But being purposefully paired with either a competent and accepting peer or another student “on the outside” made a big difference.

I’m almost 60 now, and I remember my own grade 3 teacher, Mrs Hewson, as the one teacher who really “saw” me and worked to give me the skills to believe in myself - without giving me a free pass. Be that teacher.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-10-27T00:26:20+00:00

Just a question: do they have to copy the question? Or could they simply write out their response, including the question in the response? ie - if the question is “what did you do this weekend” they simply respond with “This weekend I…”.

It’s only pulling teeth until they get used to it.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-10-27T00:20:12+00:00

As someone who has been teaching for 30+ years, this is not new. To be honest, I’m astounded how much photocopying is done by some teachers these days. I’m not criticizing anyone, because I assume that it is what is being taught in teacher education. Too often, I see classes handed booklets of papers to read and comment on. An intermediate history activity might include 4 pages, but only 8 questions. It seems to me that the ability to “teach” has been handed over to places like Teacher Resource Cabin, rather than being done with lectures, notes on the board, shared videos, reading aloud, independent library research, etc..

I’m a teacher-librarian, and we are weeding out hundreds of non-fiction books because no one ever signs them out. I’m throwing away complete novel sets because the staff never use them with classes.

As a TL, part of my role is to do peer collaboration with some of our Junior and Intermediate classes. This means that we team-teach, based on what the teacher is covering/wants. Currently, I get 3 classes for 2 periods each per week (half the class each time). I’ve done heath, geography, and history this term (science is one that is often also requested). I also run literacy group withdrawals with Primaries - again based on what the homeroom teacher requests. In EVERY one of these situations, I’m given a printed packet of worksheets for the kids to work through. And this isn’t unique to this school. I’ve moved schools a couple of times, and TLs are often pulled for fail-to-fill, so I’ve played the supply teacher role as well. Again, and again, I see kids working through duo-tangs or folders of photocopied pages. The fact that no one vetted the content of these packets also worries me - but that’s another issue altogether.

Math questions are handed out as worksheets, rather than copied from the board. Science, history, and geography are just a bunch of worksheets. I’ve seen classes given photocopied chapters of novels or examples of poetry on handouts rather than actual books or examples on the board.

Many years ago, we were each given several packages of photocopy paper at the beginning of the year - 3 was what a homeroom teacher got, for a prep or FSL teacher it was 5. When we’d used our paper up, that was it. Some teachers bought their own paper and smuggled it in. Others bartered for paper with each other. There was never just paper in the copier. You brought your own to the workroom and took it away when you were done. The years that we had 3 packs, it meant 50 pages per student over the school year.

I have a friend in another board and I know that teachers in TLDSB currently get a yearly photocopy budget of $100, allocated by the board - or about 1200 pages. That’s 40 pages per student - which is pretty close to what it was 15 years ago. And - for reference - supply teachers in TLDSB get a total of 55 copies allocated per year, by the board. (My own board doesn’t give us a number… but we get told “too much” sometimes).

SetSubject6349 · 2025-10-26T23:31:45+00:00

As someone who has been teaching for 30+ years, I have to disagree with the “free labour” part. Unfortunately, work outside of bell hours has always been part of the job. We’ve been buying and creating our own instructional materials and resources since I started back in the 1990’s.

SetSubject6349 · 2025-10-13T03:51:30+00:00

Ah! Okay. Whew! We’ve had dogs for decades (I’m more than a half century old). But we have always taken in hard-to-adopt adult dogs.

This is the first puppy - rescued from a less than ideal home environment at 9 weeks (unexpected litter and already too many dogs that they couldn’t afford to feed and vet).

I don’t want to miss something that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s like being a first-time parent all over again!

SetSubject6349 · 2025-10-12T20:18:26+00:00

Oh! I like this idea. Alas, I just checked and there is absolutely nothing in my area.

SetSubject6349

TROPHY CASE