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 monitoring chart or a fix-it strategy chart.) 

Students follow the teacher-made rule about how much to read. (“Each page the students switch.” or “Each student reads a handful of text then switches readers.”)

Students follow the procedure:  read, stop [reading], think [about the set purpose], and talk [about the set purpose]

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, I realize many of my instincts are correct.  I am definitely relieved!  I also realize as much as I know about my content, I have a lot to learn about the genre of presenting with powerpoint.  I read of many of the ‘common’ mistakes that Reynolds writes about and realize that I don’t make this error or that one.  For example, I already avoided transitions and sound effects and never use clipart.  Then I read another error and feel flushed because I have that slide in each powerpoint.  I use microsoft designs.  However, my favorite powerpoint  that I use frequently was created by my brother-in-law, who works in marketing and designs powerpoints.  I realize that I actually have good instincts, but did not know the reasons behind my decisions.  Reynolds’ book is helping me to solidify my thinking so that I am consistent and purposeful when designing a powerpoint to aid a presentation.  His main point is to develop the concept before the powerpoint.  I am also adjusting my powerpoints to reflect storyboarding instead of bullets.  I appreciate his advice of the 6 word minimum on a slide.  This book is aimed at the business side of presenting, but I did find lots of good advice to pull for my education presentations.