March Blog

Happy End of 3rd Quarter!! The strategy groups that Kristin and I reorganize every few weeks is continuing to work really well for us. One of the challenges that I am wondering about involves comprehension and those higher readers. In first grade, once students really understand "how" to read then we really dive deeper into comprehension and inferential thinking. Does anyone have any great mini lessons or ideas on this? Especially those of you at the higher grade levels. Our higher readers are great "readers"...they know all of the words and can read fluently, but it is very hard for them to apply some of those inferential and complex thinking skills to their reading. It's hard for them to understand how to slow down and really pay attention to what they read. Thanks Everyone!

Happy Spring!

Hard to believe it is already the end of third quarter! The past few weeks I have been really focused on MCA prep with my 3rd graders as it is their first time taking the MCA's. As a team, we created skill and activity work based off of the questions we knew would have more focus on the tests. It seems to be working well teaching the mini-lesson/skill as a whole group and then having students complete some independently. This has given me the opportunity to work with various small groups further on the skills, as needed. This has been different than my other guided reading groups, but fits with our mini-lessons and student's needs currently. I have also found that students who I thought might have been more confident in a skill are not as much when they are practicing it in more of a formal/test-like scenario.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hello All,

Well, I can tell it is close to spring break. I am in my second year of a loop, and it is beginning to show in my class. By the time the kids walk through the door, they are already bickering at one another. HUGH!! It is frustrating. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Also, I am doing book clubs at the beginning of 4Th quarter. If you know of any good read aloud, I would appreciate the input.

Finally, I am happy to report that my reading intervention with one of my students is a success. I am applying the neurological impress method, to help him with his fluency. It really seems to be helping him. He is much more fluent and confident in his reading! YEAH!!!

Nikki

March Blog

I have been using the Sonday reading system with some of my students this year. It has been a struggle for these students to both sound out each of the letters in a word and then to blend them together. I finally had a break through with one of these students this week. She is one student who could state the letter sounds but then would say a word that was not even close when blending the sounds together. She all of a sudden started to blend the words correctly last week! It was an "ah-huh" moment for her! Her confidence is higher now that she can read the words, and she is much more willing to try new words now that she has experienced success.

Late Work

Hi,

Does anyone else have students who think it is okay NOT to hand work in? I have students who continuously do not hand in their work. I make modifications for these students when necessary, but still...nothing. I have an HP student who doesn't hand stuff in. I have tried keeping them in for recess, sending the work home, and talking to parents. Does anyone have any suggestions? And also, when/or do we draw the line at some point. This is a issue in my class this quarter and I was wondering if anyone had any insight.

Nikki

March Post

One of my goals this year is to take and make my reading binder data and anecdotal notes purposeful in my instruction planning. I also set a goal to try to meet with students "formally" more about their independent book. I found students were sharing with me often throughout the day about their books but then I was not taking as many notes and getting to meet with them as often for conferring. I have now been trying to meet with 1-2 students a day about their books and recording meaningful data. This has helped me when planning mini-lessons and books talks to meet student's needs.

Extra Post

I participated last month in my first I love to Read Night. I did a reader's theater with 3 of my teammates and one other teacher. I really enjoyed the experience of reading aloud to students from different grade levels and sharing a passion for books. I was surprised that not more students and their families attended this event. How many years has this event been going on? I do look forward to participating in the years to come.

Belated February Post

I have been working on using the assessments that I am already giving and making it purposeful when planning guided reading groups, mini-lessons and strategy groups. After winter MAP testing, I looked at the 4 strands for reading. I found that I could focus on the strand word recognition/vocabulary. I then explored this area further on the NWEA website to find out some skills in this area I could focus more on. I found prefixes/suffixes, root words, and using context clues, to be three areas I could focus more on in class. I plan to use these lessons in whole and small group.

March Post

Hello Bloggers,
This is my monthly post. I am still working on giving continual feedback to my students. One area that is challenging to grade is book club discussions. Last quarter, I came up with a rubric to help students better understand their roles. If you would like a copy of it let me know (because I do not know how to attach papers to this blog). It is broken into multiple scores including if they come to book club prepared. I have also left room for me to make some comments about their participation and discussion.
I have found this to be extremely useful in grading and providing feedback to students.
Also, when I notice a group struggling, I have them rate themeselves and how well they think book club went. It is really interesting to note how they often are very honest or critical of their own preformance.
The book club books this month are:
Gossmer
Leepike Ridge
Charlotte's Web
Punished.
What else do you do to provide feedback in readers workshop?
What resources have been helpful for you?
What do you do to support the groups with difficulty discussing?

Hello

To be completely honest, I struggle with this whole blogging thing. For some reason, when I sit in front of the computer to blog, my mind goes blank! I just don't get it. I have a lot to say, just ask my team!! ;)

I had a math meeting yesterday. It was really interesting to hear what 3rd and 5th grade think about the new curriculum. It seems that almost everyone is starting to appreciate it. I think that next year and in the years that follow, it is going to be great for the kids. We just need to hang in there a little longer.

Conference week...my brain is fried!

Nikki