Communicating Home Through a Classroom Blog

View our 1/2 Blog. You can see our various classroom activities we did last year: http://theall-stars1-2.blogspot.com/.

Supporting the Struggling Reader

"Struggling readers need more than effective short-term interventions; they also need effective reading instruction in their regular classroom programs" (Hiebert & Taylor 1994).

Children who are read to daily are found to be more successful in reading and literacy activities than those who do not, Dolores Durkin. Students need to know that reading is important and also they need to hear how you read fluently. Read Aloud are a wonderful way to incorporate reading to your class everyday. I place it into our Science and Social Studies themes. During the read aloud I demonstrate reading strategies through think alouds and questioning.

Literacy

Recommended Sites:

http://brainconnection.positscience.com/teasers/

- Students can work on memory, word and sound retrieval and sound discrimination.

Writers Workshop: Lucy Calkins

Writers Workshop

1) Kids write everyday

2) Investment
a. topic choice
b. write about the experience and audience
c. What do you like to write about: nonfiction, mystery, dialogue?

3) Explicit teaching
a. Teach explicitly
b. Teach clear and specific skills

4) Process
a. everyone is writing
b. everyone is writing at different points

Primary Writing Process:
1) Rehearsal
a. Tell story out loud to a partner and sketch a picture
b. It doesn’t matter how they get to this point
c. Writers Plan Their Writing Before they Draft

2) Draft
a. Write it down
b. We are collecting Entries
c. Partners Can
i. Be readers
ii. Compliment
iii. React
iv. editors

3) Revision
a. Add in
b. Makes story better
c. Elaboration

4) Tools for Revision
a. Post-its to add information
b. Asterisks
c. Add another page
d. Add flap
e. Tape, staple
f. Speech bubbles

Unit completed students:
1) Choose a piece

2) Further revise (students DO NOT rewrite the piece, they add and change their draft. This allows students, teachers and parents to see the development in their writing).

3) Edit

4) Publish

5) Author Celebration

Units take 4-6 weeks

Teaching Writers Workshop
1) Minilesson (10 min.)
a. “Writers today we are going to work on __________.”
b. Connection 1- min. activate prior knowledge
c. Teach 5-6 min.
d. Active engagement 2-3 min.

2) Independent Writing
a. Students are writing
b. Teacher conferencing
i. One-on-one or small group strategy lesson
ii. During Conference time the teachers sits side by side the students. The student does a lot of sharing and talking while the teacher observes and then develops compliments and teaching points.
c. mid – workshop teaching point
i. “Writers so and so did ___________. Please keep going.”
d. continue a-b

3) Link: teaching share options
a. Follow up on minilesson by reading a part of a students piece
b. Talk about any problems that may have arisen during WW i.e. “today we ran out of paper, what we can do?”
c. “Writers remember this skill __________.”
d. “today and everyday …”

Assessment

While conferencing with students I have in front of me the Unit Rubric (download from the CD). The unit rubic guides me during conference time and allows me to note what I have taught, what the student is completing independently, with support or is not able to complete the task at this point. This rubric is very helpful for parent conferences and report writing.

Resources:

Lucy Calkins, Teacher's Reading and Writing College
Lucy Calkins, One to One

Interactive Writing

"Interactive writing is an instructional context in which a teacher shares a pen- literally and figuratively- with a group children as they collaboratively compose and construct a written message. We want to help children learn how written language words so that they can become independent writers," (Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell & Irene C. Fountas).

Throughout the week we have a scheduled time for interactive writing. Sometimes we complete a piece full class or small group, depending on the goal.

Times we have used Interactive Writing in Our Classroom:
1) Morning Meeting
2) After a Read Aloud
3) Class Letter
4) Book Talks or Guided Reading
5) Information they have learned in Science or Social Studies
6) Writing directions
** We scaffold interactive writing depending on the group of students we are working with.

Essential Elements of Interactive Wriitng (Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell & Irene C. Fountas):

1) Provide a base of active learning experiences.
2) Talk to establish purpose.
3) Compose the text.
4) Construct the text.
5) Reread, revise, and proofread the text.
6) Revisit the text to support word solving.
7) Summarize learning.
8) Extend the learning.

Our Observations from Interactive Writing:
1) Students begin to reread and think how to develop a clear statement to add to the writing.
2) Students apply site word vocabulary.
3) Students demonstrate their understanding of what they have learned.
4) Studnets apply writing strategies: sounding out words, spacing, spelling strategies, and letter formation, clear statements.
5) Students take risks becuase they want to show others what they know.
6) Our classroom is centered around student text rather than teacher text.
7) It allows us to assess students with specific isolated skills.
8) Students have ownership of the text and we can play phonics games with the text and they are engaged.

Tools you need to begin:

1) Easel
2) Sentence Strips or Writing paper
3) Markers
4) Pointer
5) ABC Chart and or a Word Name Chart

Enjoy and have fun. You will continue to see your student's become more confident and stronger in writing.

Resource:

Interactive Writing, (Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell & Irene C. Fountas).