New 2015 ELA Standards for South Carolina!

For my South Carolina followers, HERE is a link to the new 2015 ELA standards!

The addition of inquiry standards has really changed the environment of the classroom! I am so excited about these inquiry additions! 

Do you need help teaching inquiry? The revised edition of Harvey and Daniel's Comprehension and Collaboration has everything you need to get started with inquiry lessons in your classroom!

I Wonder boards are great for finding out what kids are interested in learning! 

You can also use I Wonder as a Four Square process. Download it HERE!

Students observe, listen or read and record their thoughts. I really like this approach in the early grades. 

Another great option for wondering is the RAN chart.  You can download the E-Book here! 

Students are able to see what they know, what they wonder, and how they can learn and grow through the process. Students in grades 2 and up do really well with the RAN chart. It is also great for professional learning with adults.

You can create posters for I Wonder and/or the RAN chart and have students use sticky notes.

Super Sleuths Blog Hop #19

Hi Y'all!
I am so happy to be one of 28 literacy/reading specialists involved in the Super Sleuth Blog Hop!  I love creating  items for students and teachers! I believe in using researched-based strategies and providing those resources to you as freebies!
Today's freebie focuses on comprehension.  Comprehension is all about making meaning.  I have included the Somebody Wanted But So strategy to help students summarize, a list of Generative Questions for you to help readers think deeply, and the FAST character trait analyzing strategy.  I hope that these will help you!

"True comprehension goes beyond literal understanding and involves the reader's interaction with text.  If students are to become thoughtful, insightful readers, they must extend their thinking beyond a superficial understanding of the text."  Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis  

Download Strategies Here!

Now for your clue! Just add the letter below to your list beside Literacy Minute!

 Good luck finding all the clues!  Thanks for stopping by for a minute!  Come back soon! 

Now, on to the...

  

Book Units Teacher
This is a most fabulous item!  Don't miss it!

---

1. Comprehension Connection

2. Dont Let the Teacher Stay Up Late

3. The Reading Tutor/ OG

4. Learning Fundamentals

5. Reading and Writing Redhead

6. Ms. Ds Literacy Lab

7. Conversations in Literacy

8. Teacher Mom of Three

9. A Day in the Life of a Title 1 Teacher

10. Luckeyfrog"s Lilypad

11. Curious Firsties

12. All Four Reading

13. Thinking Out Loud

14. Ms. Jordan Reads

15. Big Time Literacy

16. Read with Me ABC

17. Teaching With Nancy

18. This Little Piggy Reads

19. The Literacy Minute

20. Book Units Teacher

21. Reading Toward the Stars

22. The Literacy Garden

23. Im Lovin Lit

24. Ripper Resources

25. Teachers Take-Out

26. Sweet Integrations

27. Reading is Elementary

28. The Rungs of Reading

C.A.F.E. and The Sisters

Charlotte, N.C. 2013

Here I am cheesing with Gail and Joan!  The Sisters of Daily Five and C.A.F.E. fame!  This conference was without a doubt, one of the best that I have ever attended.  There were educators from Nova Scotia to Texas!  It always amazes me how far we will travel to learn and grow.  Teachers are the BEST!

I loved everything about C.A.F.E.  Just like Daily Five organizes classroom managment in a balanced literacy classroom, C.A.F.E. organizes reading strategies.  You can really "get you head around" how to form instruction using assessment.  The Big Idea of C.A.F.E. is instruction!  Teachers guiding readers!

If you like C.A.F.E., you should consider the Online Pensive.  It is a reasonably priced tool that will make your life easier.

You can trust these ladies to guide you using research-based strategies that will help our kids become great readers!  

Vygotsky and Collaborative Model

Lev Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory states that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the process of cognitive development.  Vygotsky’s theory promotes learning contexts in which students play an active role in learning.  The roles of the teacher and student shift into a more collaborative model.  Learning becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and the teacher. 
We need to ask ourselves how we convey information to our students.  Do we spend time lecturing and primarily using teacher-talk?  We need to make sure that we give students time to discover information on their own.  Content is what we are teaching, but how we are teaching content is of great importance.  Literacy instruction is at the heart of how we teach content.  Students should be reading, writing and speaking in every content area. 

Here are a few strategies you can use in your classroom:
Informal Conversation
Turn and talk, pair and share, elbow partner, and chunk and chew, are a few of the names used for informal student sharing.  Giving students the opportunity to talk about what they are learning is vital.  For every 5-10 minutes you talk, give your students 2-3 minutes (or more) to share.  
Wait Time and Think Time
Information processing involves multiple cognitive tasks that take time.  The proper use of Wait Time and Think Time, will increase your students understanding of content.  Students must have uninterrupted periods of time to process information.  This article explains the idea in depth.
Writing
Just like conversation, writing helps us process information.  Writing helps us make sense of what we are learning and connect it to our own lives or to other ideas.  The National Writing Project is a great source for information and ideas.  Teachers writing side-by-side with students and creating time for Writers Workshop, are two important ideas of the NWP.
Reading
The days of believing that reading is a separate subject are over.  We are all reading instructors.  We must use effective strategies to support our students.  This involves scaffolding the reading by using ideas like: previewing text, making predicitions and connections to prior knowledge, think alouds, and graphic organizers.  Reading Quest has many ideas for incorporating reading into content areas.
Here is a post that has great ideas for managing your classroom library.  We should all have books in our classrooms, even if we teach chemistry!  A literacy-rich environment equals literacy-rich students.





 

Word Analysis

Happy New Year 2011! I love a brand new year!  It is like a blank page, just waiting to be filled.  I hope your year is filled with many blessings.

I spent the morning administering the DRA2 Word Analysis.  After finishing, I pondered over how to work with these students.  What can I do to remediate a particular problem?  For example, I have had several students who just can't rhyme.  I needed a "go to" resource that would offer ideas.  I want to share one that I found.

The materials are published by the University of Texas Center of Reading and Language Arts (UTCRLA).

Reading Strategies and Resource Book
This resource book presents sets of instructional strategies for beginning reading and is specifically and carefully designed for classroom teachers to use with students who are at-risk for reading difficulties, including dyslexia. When students struggle with learning to read, they need additional instruction that is focused on the areas causing them difficulty. These areas, the “big ideas” of beginning reading and literacy, include the concepts and principles that facilitate the most efficient and broadest acquisition of knowledge (Carnine, 1994). The big ideas of reading and literacy are: phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness; alphabetic understanding; fluency; vocabulary; and comprehension [National Reading Panel (NRP), 2000].

Word Study for Students with Learning Disabilities and English Language Learners
This manual presents effective instructional techniques and lessons for teaching word study to all students with reading difficulties, including those who are English language learners. The first section provides an overview of effective word study instruction, including sample sequences for instruction and adaptations for English language learners. The second section provides lessons and activities to use in the area of word study.s

Supplemental Instruction for Struggling Readers, Grade 3
This manual provides lessons for supplemental reading instruction for third-grade students who experience persistent reading difficulties and are at-risk for failing high stakes assessments. Research has shown that these students benefit from instruction that includes all four instructional elements with particular emphasis on the explicit teaching of word analysis strategies. These lessons are not meant to be the primary reading instruction students receive; rather, they should supplement effective classroom reading instruction.


Visit the Website and you will find many more materials to help with Word Analysis and reading!