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 3Asking Questions Chart 2























Asking Questions Chart

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

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

Anchor Charts:

activating_schema
Our schema is organized like file folders in a cabinet.
We can add to and change our schema as we read.

listing-schema
Once students know they have schema, they can then
begin to activate it as they read.

 

text-to-self

 

text-to-text

Forms and Resources:

Texts for Teaching Schema:

  • Fireflies by Julie Brinkloe
  • Hazel's Amazing Mother by Rosemary Wells
  • I Know a Lady by Charlotte Zolotow
  • Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber
  • Koala Lou by Mem Fox
  • My Great-Aunt Arizona by Gloria Houston
  • Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola
  • The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
  • Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran
  • The Two of Them by Aliki
  • Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
  • Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola

Thinking Stems

These are great for students when they are trying to decipher text.  They also are a great springboard for writing and would be helpful when practicing the retell for Dibels.

This is glued on to the left page of the notebook.  The other pages is on the right side.  I like them facing each other so they can see it all at once.


For some reason, I took two half-page pictures of the other page,

Great Ideas for Teaching Imagery

This link has free downloads with great lesson plans for teaching imagery.

Using mental images

Good readers create mental images as they read to deepen the meaning of the text. This is often referred to as the "movie in your head". Many readers include more than visual images, however - sounds, smells, taste, and touch can all add to the experience of a text.
Proficient readers:
  • use images to make emotional connections to the text
  • adapt their images as they read to include new information
  • use images to immerse themselves in rich detail as they read
get-the-picture

mental-images

sensory-details

sensory-details-by-us
Once students begin attending to sensory details in their reading,
they begin to include it in their own writing as well.
juan-postit
Collecting "beautiful language" found during independent reading

Link:http://www.hallco.org/literacy/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=2

Fabulous Anchor Charts

I think these are great examples anchor charts.   When we use these it helps our students dig for deeper meaning!





  What a wonderful way to set up expectations for the workshop model!


This anchor chart is used to show that order to see the WHOLE picture in a fiction story a reader needs to have all the pieces.


We read a book about dolphins and charts how our schema changes, was added to or remained the same.
Great examples of charting student thinking.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Text To Self

Another Great Text Feature Strategy

 Text Feature Scavenger Hunt
After students learn the different text features, I want them to start paying close attention to the text features they find in their own books. In the primary grades, students may simply do a scavenger hunt where they check off the features they find, but in the upper grades, they also need to be able to determine the purpose of each text feature and explain why it helps them read the text. Below are activities your students can use to accomplish these goals.
Text Feature Scavenger Hunt

Text Features and Purposehttp://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/03/my-march-top-ten-list-nonfiction-reading-resources

Idea for Teaching Non-fiction Text Structure

 I found this on the Scholastic website and I thought these would be a great go to for the new core with all of the non-fiction we will need to be teaching.
 You can click on the link below to take you to the site!


1.  Using Text Features to Successfully Navigate Nonfiction Texts
Before I can teach students to gather information, determine importance, or find supporting details, I must first show them the tools that they will be using. Those tools are the predictable, common features of nonfiction texts. I created text feature posters to help my students recognize, name, and understand the purpose of the most common features. Below are nine of the 23 posters I created. (Special thanks to Charla Lau, the reading specialist at my school, for the idea.)  
CaptionDiagramGlossary Graph Heading Map Table Photograph


Table of contenst 














Here is the link: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/03/my-march-top-ten-list-nonfiction-reading-resources