Lake Michigan

Summers are wonderful in South Haven!

Talk Much?

http://writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/writing-and-reading-dialogue-week-1/ 

http://writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/writing-and-reading-dialogue-week-2/ 

http://writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/writing-and-reading-dialogue-week-3/

http://writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/fireflies-dialogue-examples/ 

http://writingeverydayworks.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/dialogue-writing-lessons/

Duck Tape Contest – Vote Today

Duck Tape Contest – Vote Today

http://www.stuckatprom.com/contests/prom/entries_finalist.asp

Units of Study: Retelling

This website is developing ideas for units of study for reading. 

This unit encourages students to check for understanding or confusion:  http://bestbookihavenotread.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/strategies-for-checking-comprehension/ 

This unit encourages students to check for retelling:  http://bestbookihavenotread.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/readers-think-and-talk-to-grow-ideas/

This unit encourages students to realize that they have thoughts as they read.  http://bestbookihavenotread.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/readers-think-and-talk-to-grow-ideas/

Games for the Classroom

Kelly has several games for her classroom that are easy to make.  As teachers are looking for RTI ideas, I thought many of these games will fit right in. 

http://www.kellyskindergarten.com/Games/GamestoMake/games_to_make.htm

Many teachers are asked to justify why we are doing what we are teaching.  Teaching how to play board games is important because there is plenty of life skills to learn.  Many students struggle to learn sportsmanship.  Learning to take turns and how the give and take of a game is one way to improve sportmanship skills.  Learning how to win gracefully or lose gracefully are also difficult.  Teachers can help our students learn to shake another child’s hand and say, “Good job for winning,” even when the disappointed child who lost wants to cry instead.  Children need to learn how not to gloat regardless if they have won or lost the game.  Whether students play store bought games or games made by the teacher for the classroom, they are learning how to interact with others appropriately.  Students learn to follow preset directions, follow the rules, and take turns.  There is often a winner and several losers.  Students also learn perseverance since many children want to win the game.  They may lose the first several games, but they do not give up.  Instead they master the game and eventually win it.   Or the child learns a more important lesson that life is not always about winning.  Instead the child learns to handle defeat and keep trying.  Sometimes students learn flexibility when game playing.  They learn that the rules can be bent or just out right broken for a frustrated friend or a younger player.  Children learn planning their moves ahead and thinking ahead.  They might even learn to pay attention to the moves the other person is making on the board.  Teachers should be encouraged to allow their students to play games in the classrooms and take class instructional time where appropriate to teach them games related to their curriculum.

Do we use our 180 days wisely?

This is an awesome blog that triggers wonderful thinking and conversation!  Do you think that too many other factors get in your way of teaching?  Factors beyond your control? 

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/04/180-days.html

The original 180 days on You Tube with music:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdwmes9w5Q

What do you believe in when it comes to the teaching of reading?

http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/2009/05/quotes-from-frank-smith-and-john-taylor.html 

Where do stand?  What do you believe?  Dare you stand up for what you believe?  Is anyone listening or hearing?  Where are the conversations taking place?

Leading and Learning blog

This guy really gets you thinking!  If you haven’t visited, go there.  I don’t always share his exact viewpoint, but I do always appreciate his well written thought out point of view!  He is an educator he cares about kids and educating kids and we absolutely have the same point of view there!  He challenges all of us to remember to ask why!   http://leading-learning.blogspot.com/

Shared Reading through Interactive Charts

Once again Jessica Meacham has wonderful ideas for teaching!  She shares her interactive charts at this link.

http://www.jmeacham.com/shared.reading2.htm

Hubbard’s Cupboard is another wonderful site with awesome resources. 

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/read_write_sing_lesson_ideas.html

The purpose of interactive charts is students engagement.  Students reread the chart many times on day one with the teacher.  On day two the teacher and students interact with the chart manipulating pieces of text.  The text that moves might be an individual word, an entire line of text, or a phrase.  What changes in the selection depends on the text. 

Easy to manipulate elements:  names, words that rhyme, concrete nouns, animals, sounds that animals make, and many many more ideas. 

    

Students interact with the chart by matching the picture to the text.  Deb also provided matching words for text and for the color words.  Lots of interaction opportunities. 

Students become very familiar with the words and text.  Some children read the whole selection by the end of the week.  Some students learn to identify a high-frequency word or two.  Other students are focused on left to right or top to bottom concepts of print.  It benefits all students where ever they are in their learning at the time on their literacy path.  Since there is little chance to develop a sense of story or to discuss comprehension, it is better to use an interactive chart as a part of a Shared Reading sequence in one’s classroom instead of the only tool. 

Scholosser and Phillips have many ideas for interactive charts in their book. 

Shared Reading Using Pocket Chart Stories

Early Literacy Instruction in Kindergarten by Lori Jamison Rog

Chapter 7 Shared Reading:  Learning to Read by Reading

Shared Reading Using Pocket Chart Stories

When students are in kindergarten, they do not yet know the difference between a word, a sentence, a letter.  Pocket Chart Stories are a perfect place for understanding that a word has space around them.  A line of text or a sentence is written on a sentence strip.  Students can also point to specific letters.  Literacy Through Literature by Johnson and Louis (1987) recommends reading the complete chart numerous times. After several readings, the teacher might ask, “What does this line say?”  This reinforces recognizing text.  During this teaching point, the whole class is encouraged to read the sentence chorally or echo read after the teacher.  The teacher is careful to emphasize that this is a sentence. 

The second teaching point with pocket charts is identifying text.  The teacher might ask, “Where does it say…?”  Typically when students are identifying text, students are finding individual words and framing them or pointing to them with pointers. 

The third teaching point with pocket chart stories that Johnson and Louis suggest is matching text.  One set of sentence strips are in the pocket chart in the correct order.  Another set of sentence strips displaying the complete rhyme are mixed up.  The students read the first line and find the correct sentence that matches it.  Teachers encourage the students to answer the questions, “Why does it match?”  OR “Why does it NOT match?”

The fourth teaching point with pocket chart stories encourage by Johnson and Louis is sorting text.  After a pocket chart story is known well by students, they recognize that this story is mixed up!  The teacher has taken one set of sentence strips and mixed them up in the pocket chart.  The teacher and children read the mixed up story and fix it.  The children are responsible for putting the story back in the correct sequence.

Some teachers have other activities for pocket chart stories.  These books suggest lots of ideas that I have seen in classrooms that are effective.