Partner Reading Rules

 Make sure that children understand partner reading procedures.
Students take turns reading.  (Everyone reads.  Students read alone “me” or students read chorally “we”.  Both students need to read either together or chorally.)
Students listen and follow along in the book while your partner reads. 
Students are polite if you help your partner.  (The teacher and students develop a [...]

Write to Live Twice

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. (Anais Nin, 1903-77)
After I write, I reread and revisit my writing journal.  I hope I teach my students to value rereading and revisiting their writing and thinking.

Alone to Think

“Others inspire us, information feeds us, practice improves our performance, but we need quiet time to figure things out, to emerge with new discoveries, to unearth original answers. (Ester Buchholz)”
 
 
Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds  (This quote is from my Kindle so I cannot figure out the exact page number.) 
As I have read Reynolds’ book regarding presentations, [...]

Thinking Aloud during Writing

Essential Question: How can I use “Think Aloud” to help me write my story?

Teacher reads the book,  How I Spent My Summer Vacation  written by: Marc Teague. Teacher uses the “Think Aloud” ideas from Writing Mini Lessons for Second Grade (pages 12-13) written by: Dorothy Hall, Patricia Cunningham, Debra Renner Smith.    Sometimes revisiting a selection [...]

Storytelling in Writer’s Workshop

A Place for Talk in a Writers’ Workshop by Erin Pirnot Ciccone writes about the importance of Storytelling in Writer’s Workshop. 
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/239

Story Telling in Small Moments

Small Moments stories only improves if students know how to tell a story. Lucy Calkins refers to this as storytelling. The staff at the Teachers College that work with Lucy Calkins recommends the following 5 steps for teaching children to storytell as a week long event.
1. The teacher models storytelling an event the class experienced [...]

Sylvester and Magic Pebble

This is one of my favorite lessons.  DON’T MENTION THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hide the cover from your students. 
Probable Passage   Click here for directions of how to do a probable passage by Kylene Beers. 
http://www.learningpt.org/literacy/adolescent/strategies/passage.php  Beers wrote the book,
http://www.amazon.com/When-Kids-Cant-Read-Teachers/dp/0867095199
More directions are here: 
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/LAPredictingUnderstandFluency35.htm
 
1.  I introduce this lesson with a probable passage.   First, I read this [...]

Read Aloud to Students

We read aloud to our students for lots of reasons. 

“If we knew 10 books as well as we know our best friend, we’d have everything to teach writing for a whole year.”Lester Laminack

Touchstone Text or Mentor Text Activity

“With a room full of authors to help us teach, teaching writing doesn’t have to be so lonely  (Katie Wood Kay, page 150, Wondrous Words).” 
 
Mentor Text and Touchstone Text are synonyms in some circles and different words in some classrooms.  Both are correct in professional literature in my experience.  Teachers might want to define the [...]

Personal Narratives or Small Moments

When students write a personal narrative or small moment, they need to carefully reread their writing.  The writer asks themselves why their topic is important to them and then write about why their topic matters to them.  Students find the focus for their writing and write small in terms of time.  Writers slow down time [...]