Digging Deeper!!!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

PINTEREST!!!

So I have decided to direct everyone over to Pinterest to look for ideas and strategies. I have 3 areas for you to look at for school related ideas. All you have to do is join Pinterest- which most of you already are doing, then follow me. I have categorized ideas I have found searching the internet in one fabulous place. All you have to do is click on the picture and it will take you to the original site it came from. I have found 355 ideas and that is just for Reading and Writing.

There are so many great anchor charts, activities, and strategies that I wanted to make it easier for all of us (mostly me) to find them all in one place.

A word to the wise. Pinterest is addicting! I love snooping around and I feel that a lot of the ideas I have found would be great for the classroom and especially reading comprehension.

Visualizing

Taken from http://snippetsbysarah.blogspot.com/2011/02/visualizing.html

Visualizing

Today, I did a visualizing activity with my class. I started out with modeled/interactive writing. I wrote a few sentences on the white board with the class gathered around. They helped me spell certain words and place punctuation, but I came up with the sentences. Then they went to their seats to draw what they visualized. They do similar pages during literacy centers, where they read it independently.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Great Idea for Compare and Contrast

Here is another great idea I found via Pinterest and is credited to Writingfix.com.

This would be great for the upper grades. Students would just need a piece of paper and whatever they are comparing and contrasting. Ashley P. and I were just talking about how you could do this with rocks.

The link also provides a full lesson plan with a mentor text.

http://writingfix.com/images/Corbett/Stick_Compared_to_Famous_Person_850.jpg

http://writingfix.com/WAC/HistoryFix/A-Lincoln_andMe1.htm

Cool!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Posters for Questioning

These are so simple, yet they can make such a big impact for our kids.

Here is the link: http://www.adsit.net/default.php?Submit=Photo_Gallery&Menu=Literacy&SubMenu=Reading_Comprehension_Posters
Asking Questions Chart 3

Post it Posters

Here is a Story Map poster that uses post-its:
Click on the pictures to take you to the original blog.

Here is another one for teaching about making connections!

To make the poster, use the following doc:

{Click Pic to Share!}

Status of the Class

I thought this idea seemed pretty cool. It's not a comprehension strategy but it is great for record keeping. I just thought you might like it.

{click the pic to share}

I have read about Status of the Class in different books about teaching reading and many of the teachers at my school used it last year and raved about it. I reluctantly gave it a try this year, thinking that it might take too much time, that it might not have the impact that I intended, and on and on with the excuses. However, it has been such an amazing and invaluable tool in encouraging and monitoring the readers in my classroom.

Here's how it works...

I copy one of the forms above for everyone of my students and wrote their names at the top. I keep them in 3-ring binder.
Each day during "Reading Zone" as my students read independently, I call out their name and they tell me what book they are reading and what page number they are on. I then record the info on the sheet. {If they are reading the same book from the previous day, then all I record is the date and the page number}
I also record an "F" if they "finished" a book or a "Q" if they "quit" a book.
Then I repeat the process the following day. {I usually do it 4 out 5 days a week}
In the beginning the process takes a bit of time. However, now that my students and I are used to the routine, it takes me less than 5 minutes to get through all 29 of my students!!}

The Benefits:

I always know what my students are reading.
I know how quickly they are finishing books, and how often they are quitting books.
Students know that they are being held accountable for their reading.
I am able to praise students when they finish books or when they have read a lot from one day to the next.
I am also able to slightly urge students to spend more time reading if I see that they are progressing slowly through a book.
Most important, students look forward to it each day because they simply can't wait to report what page they are on compared to the previous day, or because they are so excited to share that they finished a book!!!
http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/2011/10/few-of-my-favorite-things-about-this.html

Schema and Making Connections

This site has AWESOME ideas for comprehension strategies! Here is the link http://www.hallco.org/literacy/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=2

Here is some of the great ideas and anchor charts they have for schema and making connections. Make sure to download the student anchor charts!

Schema

Using and creating schema, or background knowledge

Good readers make connections between what they know and what they read. This can take the form of text-to-self connections, text-to-text connections, and text-to-world connections. But it can also mean that readers use what they know about a particular author or genre or type of text to help them comprehend.
Proficient readers...

activate their background knowledge before, during, and after they read texts
add new information to their schema and change existing schema as they read
recognize when they lack background knowledge about a topic and they know how to create it to get the information they need