If there is a late start on an LNW day at your building, LNW will be cancelled for the whole day and rescheduled.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
FYI - Late Starts and LNW
If there is a late start on an LNW day at your building, LNW will be cancelled for the whole day and rescheduled.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
WONDERFUL Websites for Informational Text and Videos
If you've been looking for informational text WEBSITES to put on your SMARTboard for mini-lessons and guided practice, you'll want to check these out soon. We appreciate teachers sharing these informational websites with us. Guess where they learned about them...The STAR Summit!
This website will ask you to register and pay. Do NOT pay for a subscription. Scroll down and click No Thanks.
Newsela provides high interest articles for students in a variety of Lexile levels. Articles are organized by headings: Kids, Science, Health, Arts and more. Below are two examples of the types of texts they create for students:
Kids
"On line" entertainment aims to make wait times less boring at theme parks
By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff
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| http://newsela.com/articles/parks-lines/id/840/ |
Health
Study shows why cookies are like cocaine for rats, maybe humans too
By The Hartford Courant, adapted by Newsela staff
Time for Kids is a website that also includes articles on current events. Click on the News tab and a menu for the latest news stories will appear. The menu includes articles on the: World, Nation, Science, Entertainment, Health, Sports, Kid Reporter Scoops, and Specials. Below is an example of a Time for Kids article:
Back in Business
The government reopens after a 16-day shutdown
Dogonews is another great website for news articles and videos. You can view them by grade levels: K-3, 3-5, 5-8, K-5, and 3-8. There is a wide variety of headings for teachers and students to pick from. You will find an article from dogonews below:
Japanese Scientists Uncover Cool Optical Illusion
Focusing on the red cross, look carefully at this picture. What do you see? White dots wriggling around in different directions and colliding? What if we tell you that the dots are not wriggling around, but are actually moving in a straight trajectory and even worse, they never meet each other at all!
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Information on Scoring Spelling and Reversals
This information is from An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (2005) by Marie Clay, pg 108.
How should we grade spelling in first grade?
- Correct Spelling: Each completed word scores one point if it is correctly spelled.
- Incorrect Spelling: If the child accidentally writes a word that is correct but spontaneously tells you that it is another word. Then, it is incorrect. For example, student writes ‘am’ and says without prompting that it is ‘me.’
What should we do about reversed letters?
The formation of individual letters (including the reversal of letters) does not influence the scoring except when the letter form represents a different letter.
- Correct Spelling: Words with one or more reversed letters are correct when the intended letters are clear (for example ‘bus’….with a reversed ‘s’). ALSO, capital letters are acceptable substitutions for lower case letters and vice versa. We are grading spelling not penmanship.
- Incorrect Spelling: Words are not correct if the reversed letter could be a different letter (for example ‘qop’ for ‘pop’) and they are not correct if the intended letters are not clear (e.g. reversed ‘e’ looks like ‘g’, or ‘run’ looks like ‘nun’).
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Nursery Rhymes for Our Youngest Readers
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Why Use Classic Nursery Rhymes?
The first answer that always comes to my mind is simply rhymes are fun. Children for generations have enjoyed the silliness of characters' antics. Linda Dorn shared these nursery rhymes with us, so we could share them with teachers. Nursery rhymes provide a great way to work on phonological awareness with the youngest readers. Nursery rhymes introduce young listeners to story structure in its most basic form. There's an orientation -- Peter Pumpkin eater has a wife. There's a problem -- He's having trouble keeping her. And, there's a resolution -- He puts her in a pumpkin shell and there he keeps her very well. Nursery rhymes also introduce children to a cast of characters who are likely to reappear throughout their school lives. You can't enjoy Ahlberg's delightful Each Peach Pear Plum if you don't get the allusions to the nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes also greatly enrich young children's vocabularies and supply some early lessons in the way our language works. Jack Sprat is lean; when we read this rhyme to children, we have to explain that word. And children add another word to their developing vocabularies. When a child asks, "What does it mean -- Molly my sister and I fell out?", you explain that "fell out" is an expression we don't use much anymore. It used to mean "had an argument". And children get a glimpse of how words and expressions work in English. Finally, nursery rhymes encourage thinking skills with short, simple texts. While their uncontrolled vocabulary may occasionally make them tough to decode, their unrelenting rhythm makes them perfect for emerging readers.
A-Rhyme-A-Week Units and Downloadables
On Mondays, revisit favorite rhymes, then introduce this week's new rhyme during shared reading. Whenever you are able to locate the tune, teach children the rhyme through song. Also chant the rhyme, and work on its rhythm. On Tuesdays, emphasize acting out the rhyme, using our various Monday chants to provide the accompaniment for our "actors". On Wednesdays, introduce the rhyming picture set, explaining the new vocabulary that comes with the picture set. On Thursdays, work with the picture sets and the Riddle Rhymes. On Fridays, review, using new Riddle Rhymes, acting out, singing, and chanting.  |
Reading Workshop Management
Reading Workshop looks a little different in every classroom. One of the first things the classroom teacher must decide is how to manage the workshop. It is important to keep data on what you observe and have discussed with individual students and small groups. Managing that data can seem daunting! Take a look at resources that other teachers have used and borrow ideas from them. Find a system that works for you. It may take a little trial and error! ;-)
Here is an example of a couple of Anecdotal Records forms you could use for students who need a running record taken.
Here is an example of a couple of Anecdotal Records forms you could use for students who need a running record taken.
Garrett Lowder, fourth grade teacher at John Thomas School of Discovery, shared the form he uses during Reading Workshop.
Lori Elliott, fifth grade teacher at JTSD, shared this reading form:
Summit teachers Meredith Carrisalez and Sonya Trent use the form below with their fifth grade students.
Summit teachers Meredith Carrisalez and Sonya Trent use the form below with their fifth grade students.
Here is an example of what fifth grade teacher Shelly Newton uses for assessing skills in reading.
Sixth grade Summit teacher, Amanda Ward, uses this form with her literature circle groups.
The Curriculum Corner has a blog post about Reading Management Binders for grades 4-6. It has lots of example forms--FREE!
The Real TeachR posted templates for Reader's Workhop, Guided Math, and Writer's Workshop.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Fiction vs. Informational Texts
Fiction vs. Informational Text
Which Will Kindergartners Choose?
Open the link below to find out:
Which Will Kindergartners Choose?
Open the link below to find out:
The Case for Informational Text
Open the link below to start the Prezi:
This Prezi gives four strategies to improve students' understanding and comprehension of informational text:
- Increase students' access to informational text.
- Increase the time students spend working with informational text in instructional activities.
- Explicitly teach comprehension strategies.
- Create opportunities for students to use informational text for authentic purposes.
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