Hey Corps Members!
Here are my read-aloud plans and documents to go with them. I am excited about this text (A Band of Angels) since it takes place at a Fisk University, which is right here in Nashville! It's a great chance for our students to learn about the history of this city, our nation, and how far we've come. I'm hoping it inspires them to be people of character and to continue making history in our city!
Here ya go:
Week 5 Read Aloud Plans - The Band of Angles and
Documents to go with the plans!
Hope these help you and give you some ideas. Happy Monday of our last week of Institute!
Ashley :)
Monday, July 7, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Math Talk, Student Discourse, and EL Support
I know you all have had some sessions about getting students to talk during math time. Well, as a verbal processor myself, I find this a CRITICAL part of math time and all learning in my classroom. There are definitely times for our classrooms to be 100% silent. BUT in my opinion, focused student talk is a critical piece to transformational change, especially for our EL students. I am definitely one of those people that has light bulb experiences while I talk. It's the same for many of our students. We want our students to be able to share HOW they solve problems and WHY they solve them in the way they do. We want them to talk through their thinking and reasoning, explain strategies, and prove their answers.
EL students (and really all of our students) benefit from language support during math talk. Instead of getting caught up in the language, if we provide enough support students can think about math (which is what we want during math time!)
So here are a few things I use in my classroom to provide this support:
1. A math language anchor chart that stays up all year. These are basic sentence frames that can be applied to almost anything in math. I refer to this during math tasks, partner work, whole group, and while leading small groups. After referring to it enough, the students remind each other of it. I also added one not in the picture: First I ____, because ____. Then I ____, because ____. Last I _____, because _____.
2. An Academic Vocabulary Wall (I have a section for ELA, Science, and Social Studies too). As I teach new concepts and skills, I add key words that students will need to use in their verbal and written
explanations. So for example, I'm currently teaching division. I want students to be able to tell me what number is the whole and why. So in their explanations, they can refer to the wall and look for the words "total" and "split." Their answer may sound like: "The whole is 18 because that is the total number of cookies that Jon is splitting up and putting on plates."
3. Sentence Frames: For key questions that I will be referring to (these are the questions that help me scaffold/break down the skill), I often use sentence starters to help students respond throughout the unit. This just gives them a starting place with how to explain their thinking.
4. Re-define words: This applies to ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! When I first started teaching EL students, I watered down vocabulary SO MUCH because I wanted them to understand. Well, that is a HUGE disservice to them. They are deprived of words and left powerless if they don't learn words at school, because they won't hear them at home if they don't speak English at home. So after talking to a colleague one day, I got the best vocabulary advice ever! He told me to use the hard words, but just define them. So in math, this might sound like, "We are going to partition, or split, our circle into quarters, or four equal parts." So if I was modeling this, I just used "partition" and "quarters" (both words they'll need to know to succeed in math), but I defined the words with simpler words to reinforce the meaning and help them understand. Throughout the day, I could do the same thing. I might say, "Wow, I see Juan really being persistent as he is working on this problem. He is not giving up even though it's hard." Bam. It will change your life. BY THE WAY, THIS HELPS ALL STUDENTS!
EL students (and really all of our students) benefit from language support during math talk. Instead of getting caught up in the language, if we provide enough support students can think about math (which is what we want during math time!)
So here are a few things I use in my classroom to provide this support:
1. A math language anchor chart that stays up all year. These are basic sentence frames that can be applied to almost anything in math. I refer to this during math tasks, partner work, whole group, and while leading small groups. After referring to it enough, the students remind each other of it. I also added one not in the picture: First I ____, because ____. Then I ____, because ____. Last I _____, because _____.
2. An Academic Vocabulary Wall (I have a section for ELA, Science, and Social Studies too). As I teach new concepts and skills, I add key words that students will need to use in their verbal and written
explanations. So for example, I'm currently teaching division. I want students to be able to tell me what number is the whole and why. So in their explanations, they can refer to the wall and look for the words "total" and "split." Their answer may sound like: "The whole is 18 because that is the total number of cookies that Jon is splitting up and putting on plates."
3. Sentence Frames: For key questions that I will be referring to (these are the questions that help me scaffold/break down the skill), I often use sentence starters to help students respond throughout the unit. This just gives them a starting place with how to explain their thinking.
4. Re-define words: This applies to ALL DAY, EVERY DAY! When I first started teaching EL students, I watered down vocabulary SO MUCH because I wanted them to understand. Well, that is a HUGE disservice to them. They are deprived of words and left powerless if they don't learn words at school, because they won't hear them at home if they don't speak English at home. So after talking to a colleague one day, I got the best vocabulary advice ever! He told me to use the hard words, but just define them. So in math, this might sound like, "We are going to partition, or split, our circle into quarters, or four equal parts." So if I was modeling this, I just used "partition" and "quarters" (both words they'll need to know to succeed in math), but I defined the words with simpler words to reinforce the meaning and help them understand. Throughout the day, I could do the same thing. I might say, "Wow, I see Juan really being persistent as he is working on this problem. He is not giving up even though it's hard." Bam. It will change your life. BY THE WAY, THIS HELPS ALL STUDENTS!
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Read Aloud Plans Week 4
Those of you that are planning reading this week. I posted my Week 4 Read-Aloud Lesson Plans here, just to give you an idea of how I plan during the school year. Keep in mind that as I plan, I visualize what this will look like in my classroom...thinking through my exact students, what keeps them engaged, etc. I also post-it note my read aloud books as reminders for me about what I'm going to say and when.
As you grow as a teacher, you won't need to script lessons. BUT you still need to think through what you're saying, when you're saying it, how you'll say it, and why you'll say it. Post-it notes, visualizing the lesson, taking bullet-point notes, writing out questions, prepping my anchor charts that include key points, preparing my vocabulary words/wall, and prepping the activities and worksheets that go with the read aloud are all critical in being well-prepared and ready to teach. So I may not write out scripts, but I 100% think through the text enough to internalize what I'm teaching. :)
I hope these plans help you as you plan and tweak your lessons...look for Kagan strategies (like Fan and Pick) and other engagement strategies! Check out the worksheets that I will collect at the end of my lessons too. :)
As always...come ask me questions if you have them!
As you grow as a teacher, you won't need to script lessons. BUT you still need to think through what you're saying, when you're saying it, how you'll say it, and why you'll say it. Post-it notes, visualizing the lesson, taking bullet-point notes, writing out questions, prepping my anchor charts that include key points, preparing my vocabulary words/wall, and prepping the activities and worksheets that go with the read aloud are all critical in being well-prepared and ready to teach. So I may not write out scripts, but I 100% think through the text enough to internalize what I'm teaching. :)
I hope these plans help you as you plan and tweak your lessons...look for Kagan strategies (like Fan and Pick) and other engagement strategies! Check out the worksheets that I will collect at the end of my lessons too. :)
As always...come ask me questions if you have them!
Monday, June 30, 2014
this is why I teach!!
We've been reading culturally responsive texts this summer...digging deep into real life issues and struggles that people face. This past week we read Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting, a story about a boy and his father who are homeless, live in the airport, and try to go unnoticed by other patrons and security. We also read two articles on homelessness, one about homeless students in Las Vegas and another about homelessness in Nashville. I was timid about navigating the conversations with my students, wanting to be careful about what I said. But we seriously had some amazing discussions.
It is BEAUTIFUL to see the compassion and empathy my students have. And it was great also being real...looking at the issue from multiple sides. As a culminating experience, my students had to write their opinion answering "Is homelessness an individual problem or a community problem?" They also had to come up with solutions.
Check out some things they wrote! AMAZING!
This student on his own decided that homelessness is BOTH an individual problem and a community problem. I didn't even think of giving them the option to write about both!
This one is my FAVORITE! One of the articles said that homelessness is a "black eye to our community." We talked about what that meant, and how homelessness makes it look like we don't care for our community and may make people feel like our city is unsafe and dirty. ON HER OWN, this child wrote "So as you can see homelessness is a black eye for our community and homes and supplies are the ice packs." THE ICE PACKS! What an AMAZING metaphor! :) This child has learned that we can be part of the solution to bring healing to our broken world. What more can I ask for. She also definitely needs to grow up and be a writer. :)
Another student had the idea to collect donations of food. So at the end of the day, we did a quick shared writing activity where we wrote a letter to our parents telling them what we learned and what we wanted to do about it! I typed, and they told me what to write. We asked students and families to bring in donations...and it's only day 1, check out how much we already have!! :)
The coolest thing about this is that many of my students' families are just making ends meet. One of the students that brought in the most gets donations from our school during the holidays. But when she brought in the food, in her broken English she said "My dad took me to The One Dollar Tree, because I felt sad for the people. They have no homes."
These kids inspire me and make my job worth it!
It is BEAUTIFUL to see the compassion and empathy my students have. And it was great also being real...looking at the issue from multiple sides. As a culminating experience, my students had to write their opinion answering "Is homelessness an individual problem or a community problem?" They also had to come up with solutions.
Check out some things they wrote! AMAZING!
 |
This one is my FAVORITE! One of the articles said that homelessness is a "black eye to our community." We talked about what that meant, and how homelessness makes it look like we don't care for our community and may make people feel like our city is unsafe and dirty. ON HER OWN, this child wrote "So as you can see homelessness is a black eye for our community and homes and supplies are the ice packs." THE ICE PACKS! What an AMAZING metaphor! :) This child has learned that we can be part of the solution to bring healing to our broken world. What more can I ask for. She also definitely needs to grow up and be a writer. :)
The coolest thing about this is that many of my students' families are just making ends meet. One of the students that brought in the most gets donations from our school during the holidays. But when she brought in the food, in her broken English she said "My dad took me to The One Dollar Tree, because I felt sad for the people. They have no homes."
These kids inspire me and make my job worth it!
Math Fluency
Math fluency is a super important part of teaching math. We of course want students to also explain HOW and WHY during math time. BUT fluently adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing is also very important! It helps take away extra thinking while you model too! If you're modeling how to solve a 3-digit regrouping problem, and you have students that struggle with fluency...they will get caught up in the computation and miss the HOW and WHY.
So... here are some fluency routines, games, and activities that I have used in my classroom and that my students love! :)
1. Mad Minute - This is a 1 minute timed fluency worksheet that my students complete EVERY DAY. They LOVE it! Each student gets a page protector and inside they place the fluency facts that they are working on. Monday-Thursday, they practice with a dry-erase marker. And on Fridays, they take it out of the page protector and complete the fluency sheet with pencils. In my class, students have 1 minute to get 20 correct. If they mastered the facts, they move on to the next one. I organize the worksheets in files (see picture), so that I can quickly check students and hand them a new worksheet (eventually I train a few students to pass them out).
FYI: to set this up in the beginning of the year, they complete one at a time with pencil until they don't pass. Once they get "stuck" on one, I hand them a page protector, and that's when they start practice. This allows me to quickly differentiate and meet students where they are at! Some students may be working on multiplying by 4, while others are multiplying by 9.
2. Speed Fun - For this game, I usually do boys vs. girls or have table groups challenge each other. Each team lines up. The person in the front solves one problem (we use post-its and they just stick them on), then hands the marker to the person behind them and goes to the back of the line. The first
line that finishes first with 100% accuracy wins and congratulates the other team. You can also make this a center and have "mini speed fun" games where students compete against each other.
My example is from when I taught 1st grade, just change to multiplication and division for upper elem! :)
3. Addition or Multiplication War - Students work in partners with a deck of cards. They split the deck in half, and at the same time they each throw down 1 card. The first one to find the sum (for lower elem) or product (for upper elem) of the 2 cards gets to keep them both. I practice this in the beginning of the year a lot, and then add it to math stations/centers. It's one of the easiest stations EVER, because students can use the cards as pictures to help them solve the problem. For example if they have 3 x 7, they can count the diamonds (or whatever symbol that is on the card) on the 7 card three times if they need help to solve. I also model and set the expectation that they need to check each other. The person with the most cards wins. :)
*you can do this with dice and cards...both of which you might as well stock up on! :)
4. Flash Cards - You can play memory games, matching games, racing games, quiz-quiz-trade and so much more with flash cards! Make the investment and buy some! :)
*Students can also make flash cards that go with their mad minute during math stations!! :) Just give them index cards and an example so they have the right answers! It's an easy station and they can take them home to practice!
So... here are some fluency routines, games, and activities that I have used in my classroom and that my students love! :)
1. Mad Minute - This is a 1 minute timed fluency worksheet that my students complete EVERY DAY. They LOVE it! Each student gets a page protector and inside they place the fluency facts that they are working on. Monday-Thursday, they practice with a dry-erase marker. And on Fridays, they take it out of the page protector and complete the fluency sheet with pencils. In my class, students have 1 minute to get 20 correct. If they mastered the facts, they move on to the next one. I organize the worksheets in files (see picture), so that I can quickly check students and hand them a new worksheet (eventually I train a few students to pass them out). FYI: to set this up in the beginning of the year, they complete one at a time with pencil until they don't pass. Once they get "stuck" on one, I hand them a page protector, and that's when they start practice. This allows me to quickly differentiate and meet students where they are at! Some students may be working on multiplying by 4, while others are multiplying by 9.
2. Speed Fun - For this game, I usually do boys vs. girls or have table groups challenge each other. Each team lines up. The person in the front solves one problem (we use post-its and they just stick them on), then hands the marker to the person behind them and goes to the back of the line. The first line that finishes first with 100% accuracy wins and congratulates the other team. You can also make this a center and have "mini speed fun" games where students compete against each other.
My example is from when I taught 1st grade, just change to multiplication and division for upper elem! :)
3. Addition or Multiplication War - Students work in partners with a deck of cards. They split the deck in half, and at the same time they each throw down 1 card. The first one to find the sum (for lower elem) or product (for upper elem) of the 2 cards gets to keep them both. I practice this in the beginning of the year a lot, and then add it to math stations/centers. It's one of the easiest stations EVER, because students can use the cards as pictures to help them solve the problem. For example if they have 3 x 7, they can count the diamonds (or whatever symbol that is on the card) on the 7 card three times if they need help to solve. I also model and set the expectation that they need to check each other. The person with the most cards wins. :)
*you can do this with dice and cards...both of which you might as well stock up on! :)
4. Flash Cards - You can play memory games, matching games, racing games, quiz-quiz-trade and so much more with flash cards! Make the investment and buy some! :)
*Students can also make flash cards that go with their mad minute during math stations!! :) Just give them index cards and an example so they have the right answers! It's an easy station and they can take them home to practice!
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Shared Reading Time
This summer, the objectives for shared reading have centered around VOCABULARY and READING FLUENCY.
Remember, there are 5 components of teaching reading:
1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Phonics
3. Vocabulary
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
All of these components are integrated. If you can't sound out a word, you won't read fluently. If you're not reading fluently, you won't comprehend the text well.
We spend 10 minutes on vocab, and 10 minutes on reading. All of my vocabulary is on a PPT...it just helps me stay organized! :) And I also put the poems on the PPT.
I've also been focusing on vocabulary development during Shared Reading. So for each vocab word from the poems, my students make a vocab flash card.
I've used this shared reading time to FOCUS on explicitly teaching students what it means to be a FLUENT reader. I've used these rubrics to help them rate themselves and each other. On Monday, I don't use a rubric, because I model, give them time to practice, and front-load vocabulary. But Tuesday-Friday, I just focus on one rubric a day. I found these rubrics on http://www.fcrr.org/ which has an AMAZING number of resources!
I hope this gives you insight into my sequencing, planning, and pacing during shared reading!
Remember, there are 5 components of teaching reading:
1. Phonemic Awareness
2. Phonics
3. Vocabulary
4. Fluency
5. Comprehension
All of these components are integrated. If you can't sound out a word, you won't read fluently. If you're not reading fluently, you won't comprehend the text well.
We spend 10 minutes on vocab, and 10 minutes on reading. All of my vocabulary is on a PPT...it just helps me stay organized! :) And I also put the poems on the PPT.
I've also been focusing on vocabulary development during Shared Reading. So for each vocab word from the poems, my students make a vocab flash card.
- Monday - they write the words and parts of speech on separate index cards, and then they look for the vocab words in the poem and highlight them (this ties in to being fluent readers...they must be accurate to be fluent!)
- Tuesday - they draw a picture to show the meaning
- Wednesday - they add the definition
- Thursday - they write a sentence on the back
- Friday - we play games with the words
I've used this shared reading time to FOCUS on explicitly teaching students what it means to be a FLUENT reader. I've used these rubrics to help them rate themselves and each other. On Monday, I don't use a rubric, because I model, give them time to practice, and front-load vocabulary. But Tuesday-Friday, I just focus on one rubric a day. I found these rubrics on http://www.fcrr.org/ which has an AMAZING number of resources!
 |
| Student-Friendly Fluency Rubrics (from http://www.fcrr.org/) |
I hope this gives you insight into my sequencing, planning, and pacing during shared reading!
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Text Analysis - When do I ask questions?
Some of you have asked why I do the text analysis portion of my read-alouds during reading instead of after. Well, I actually do a little bit of both. HOWEVER, I do definitely incorporate deeper thinking during reading. Why? Because that's what good readers do. We think before, during, and after. So my questioning depends on multiple things:
1. When is the best time to stop and analyze based on the reading strategy and objective? For example, if I'm teaching how to make a prediction and using predictions to analyze a character, then I need to stop during reading. You can't make many predictions after a book is over (though you can make few). So my modeling and questioning will be during the text. BUT I will still often go deeper with the text at the end.
2. What is the best way to keep my students engaged and comprehending the text? This is a hard one, and I'm still learning. Sometimes, stopping and modeling chops up the text too much and distracts students. (I still do this! It's hard for me!) They need to hear a flow of a text without it being interrupted, but if I'm modeling strategies it can be difficult to do that. On the other hand stopping and analyzing during reading can actually help them to process the text and comprehend what is going on and allows you to check for understanding and incorporate turn-and-talk and other engagement strategies.
3. What do I have time for? Sometimes, you just don't have time to go deep during reading. Sometimes you do.
So...what do you do with all that??? First, you've just got to know that there are always different opinions and perspectives. So, you've go to believe in yourself as a professional and do what works best for your kids! It's about them. What's going to help them learn most? What's going to help them love reading most? What's going to help them master the objective most?
I know this is a slightly vague post...but the point of text analysis isn't when you do it. The purpose of text analysis is analyzing the text. The end. As adults, we analyze text before, during, and after. SO what is important as a teacher is thinking through those three segments of reading. Post-it your read-alouds and plan out questions that will engage students before, during, and after reading...and plan out questions where it seems most purposeful in mastering the objective. You can ALWAYS go deeper after reading, and it's important to. But you don't want to miss out on engaging conversations during reading if it will help students learn. :)
Hope this helps!!
1. When is the best time to stop and analyze based on the reading strategy and objective? For example, if I'm teaching how to make a prediction and using predictions to analyze a character, then I need to stop during reading. You can't make many predictions after a book is over (though you can make few). So my modeling and questioning will be during the text. BUT I will still often go deeper with the text at the end.
2. What is the best way to keep my students engaged and comprehending the text? This is a hard one, and I'm still learning. Sometimes, stopping and modeling chops up the text too much and distracts students. (I still do this! It's hard for me!) They need to hear a flow of a text without it being interrupted, but if I'm modeling strategies it can be difficult to do that. On the other hand stopping and analyzing during reading can actually help them to process the text and comprehend what is going on and allows you to check for understanding and incorporate turn-and-talk and other engagement strategies.
3. What do I have time for? Sometimes, you just don't have time to go deep during reading. Sometimes you do.
So...what do you do with all that??? First, you've just got to know that there are always different opinions and perspectives. So, you've go to believe in yourself as a professional and do what works best for your kids! It's about them. What's going to help them learn most? What's going to help them love reading most? What's going to help them master the objective most?
I know this is a slightly vague post...but the point of text analysis isn't when you do it. The purpose of text analysis is analyzing the text. The end. As adults, we analyze text before, during, and after. SO what is important as a teacher is thinking through those three segments of reading. Post-it your read-alouds and plan out questions that will engage students before, during, and after reading...and plan out questions where it seems most purposeful in mastering the objective. You can ALWAYS go deeper after reading, and it's important to. But you don't want to miss out on engaging conversations during reading if it will help students learn. :)
Hope this helps!!
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