Building a sense of community and acceptance

In any classroom I feel it is important to build a community of learners that care for each other. Students need to truly care for each others feelings, respect their differences, and want to help each other learn to have a high functioning classroom. This is a difficult task to fully accomplish, in my opinion.


This school year I am going to check out some of these books to educate about diversity. This variety of books looks at cultural diversity, and tolerance through many different lenses. 

This list has books that focus more on being yourself and accepting other people's differences.

The Washington Post shares 3 books that many help teach about diversity too.


Hopefully I can create a fun and meaningful after reading activity that links what we read to learning and personality differences as well. I will share later if I'm able to do this.

With any luck, this first step will help me create a peaceful and empowering classroom environment.


Good luck and have a happy school year!

A Reminder about Picture Books

I'm subscribed to a blog called Nerdy Book Club. I get weekly emails including about 5 posts from it. 

This week I got an update email that included this post: "Top 10 Things Picture Books Taught Me". It's a quick read, and includes some great reminders about using picture books to teach writing and reading strategies, as well as other life lessons. It also mentions some titles that were new to me. Enjoy!

Here is the link...

http://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/top-10-things-picture-books-taught-me-by-beth-shaum/ 

Running Records

WHEN?
Running records (RR) should be done on a regular basis with your students (on level = 1x per month; below = bi-weekly).

WHY?
The purpose is to record the process and behaviors the student exhibits while reading to inform our instruction on both fluency (accuracy, rate, expression) AND comprehension. We want to see what the students are doing and understanding independently with the texts they are choosing.

If you have a very fluent reader, who is accurate and expressive, you will want to focus on the comprehension discussion after the sample of the student's reading.

WHAT TO USE?
You can pre-count words in a common text for a student to read during small group instruction. If you are conferring with a student, make sure you know the level of the student's own book, and listen to them read. Depending on the type of book the student is reading, usually a page and a half to a page is usually 100 words.


HOW?

Great 8: Questioning

For this month's thinking strategy...

4th grade Anchor chart made in class with students, their questions, and the ideas "inspired by" Harvey and Goudvis (Strategies That Work), and Debbie Miller (Reading with Meaning).

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech used for my think alouds, and student stop and jots.

digital reading

This is the last week of the myON reading contest! If you are encouraging your students to use myON during reading workshop, here are some things to think about.

We want students to be actively reading. That means keeping tracks of their thinking: sharing reactions, visualizations (mental movies), predictions, confusing parts, and "new" words.

We train our students to use sticky notes to track their thoughts while reading. This should continue when students are reading digital texts.


SET UP

In our classroom, my co-teacher and I had the students set up their reading notebooks (in their "Stop and Jot" section) as shown in the picture below. We walked around making sure students understood how to organize their notebooks, and conferred with them about their thinking, prompting them to write down their thoughts.
.
We told students:

• they are reading for 30 minutes they should have 3 thoughts written down.
• if they finish one book, start the same routine with another book

CONTENT

Since our class has been practicing retelling, visualizing, predicting, reacting, etc., students have a choice of their 3 thoughts most days. However, some days I do specify the type of thinking I want them to focus on recording. For example, I might say: you need to stop at one part and write a prediction, and sketch a visualization at 2 other parts.

If students have a difficult time stopping and jotting down their thoughts, you may want them to choose a page number to stop at before they start reading

Anchor Charts: reminders

"Writing helps us remember the NOW later." - Mary Howard

Lucy Calkins gives us examples in almost every lesson of possible anchor charts to create.
Remember these charts should be created WITH students through discussion, modeling, and their input should be added to the chart in some way.
Some things to remember...

Anchor Charts

Making Student Thinking Visible

In Debbie Miller’s new book Teaching with Intention, she provides a good overview of why the above statement is important.

Page 61:  In our anchor classroom, evidence of student thinking was everywhere; anchor charts, student responses, and quotes adorned the walls and boards making thinking public and permanent.  The questions, quotes, ideas, and big understandings displayed throughout the room reflected the real voices of real kids.

 

Why is making thinking visible and accessible in our classrooms an effective strategy for student learning? 

It lets students know that their thinking matters and it provides a visual reference of their thinking to support further learning.

 

So what makes an anchor chart distinctive from other visuals found on bulletin boards and walls?

Look first at the definition of anchor: any device that keeps an object in place.

How this relates to anchor charts:   they are devices that anchor student thinking.

Then look at the features of a ‘true’ anchor chart:

·    An anchor chart is co-constructed with students (should feature student thinking) – it has meaning for the students because they participated in the construction

·    The anchor chart matches the learners’ developmental level

·    The anchor chart supports on-going learning (recent, relevant, referred to)

Lastly, when looking at an anchor chart ask these questions:

·    Was it developed with students?

·    Was it posted for student access and use?

·    Is it a record of student thinking? 

Taken from here

[screen shot from an Expeditionary Learning article]
Written by Lily Newman currently serves as an Expeditionary Learning School Designer based in New England.  She taught grades 4-12 in a variety of urban settings, and was also a coach and trainer. Lily founded and opened secondary schools in Mexico as well as several Expeditionary Learning schools in Massachusetts. Her work is focused on turn-around schools: aiding schools struggling to meet state and national standards and focusing on differentiated instruction.  Lily also supports and mentors school leaders in strategic planning to maximize student achievement, and mentors other Expeditionary Learning staff.  She currently designs, develops, and facilitates standards-based training for schools and teachers, as well as serving as Expeditionary Learning’s key staff member overseeing a Masters of Arts in Teaching program to license teachers in Expeditionary Learning schools.  Lily is also a former board member and active leader for professional development in the Massachusetts Writing Project.

A "Small Moment" Thought

I am by no means as knowledgeable as Lucy Caulkins, nor do I have published books that school districts across the country are buying to implement; however, there are some terms that I have picked up through the process of becoming a reading specialist. 

I feel strongly about never telling a student something is too hard for them. I believe we should use terms that empower students. Please consider using the terms "new words" or "future book" (instead of "hard" as Caulkins refers to them) when talking to your students about reading. Read my reasoning and descriptions of these two terms below.


NEW WORDS - words aren't "hard, they're "new"
We as teachers are told to stay positive, so why would we be anything less than positive in our discussions with students about reading? Readers don't "come to a hard word". They come to a word that they have never seen or heard before. Its a new word to them. New words are words that, as readers, students may have never encountered before; therefore, they may have to work at sounding it out or understanding what the new word means. I don't teach my students strategies for "figuring out hard words so they can continue to follow the story". I teach strategies students can use to read and understand new words, so they can enjoy and comprehend a text.


FUTURE BOOKS - books aren't "hard", they're just not something we're ready for yet
There's no such thing as a "hard book". I feel its important that we never tell students a book is too hard for them to read. The book only seems hard because the student is not ready for it yet.  I use 3 terms when referring to book levels:

1. Vacation books: books that you can whip through and are for pure enjoyment - does not have any new words, or concepts for you to ponder or to challenge your thinking - something you would read for fun while on vacation
2. Just Right books - might have some new words, concepts/topics, but you are able to work through them and still understand the text.
3. future books - have many "new words" in them so the book fails the Five Finger Test - the topic/story line/concept is something about which you have very little prior knowledge - a book that would be better for you in a few months

If students continue reading just right books, and using metacognitive reading strategies, in a few months they will be able and ready to read those currently labeled "future books". I feel this term gives students hope and something tangible to work towards. What do they have to work towards if we tell them its too hard?