Turn & Talk! Stop & Jot!

We officially started Reading Workshop this week! The students have been doing a great job listening, learning and participating during our Mini-Lessons!

The philosophy of Reading Workshop works like this: 

• Teach a skill and strategy through modeling and think-alouds using authentic literature.
• Release the students to apply the learned skill and strategy with their own independent text.
• Conference with students individually about what they learned while the class is reading and applying the skill and strategy.
• Regroup the class and share how they applied the skill and strategy to their own reading.

The key is to keep the lesson short and focused. This allows the students to maximize their time reading and applying the concept taught.

This week we learned about student and teacher roles during Reading Workshop, turning and talking with a partner to grow ideas together, and the importance of thinking during reading by stopping and jotting down our thoughts about the text.

The kids were very familiar with Turn & Talk. We use this in Reading Workshop, but I also use it in Social Studies, Science and Math. At different points during the text I stop and ask the students to turn and talk about their thoughts with a partner for a few minutes. After partner sharing, I ask a few students to share what they talked about with their partners. It's a great way to keep all the students engaged and accountable.

Stop & Jot is very similar to Turn & Talk. This is an approach I use to have kids actively think while reading. I modeled Stop & Jot this week as I read Old Henry. As I read the book aloud to the kids, I stopped at different points and said "I think..." or "I wonder...".  Each of these phrases were then turned into ideas that I wrote on post-its attached to the page. 

This strategy is no different than what a lot of us did in High School and College when we wrote in the margins of our books.  Fifth grade students can decode words, read with some fluency and even recall a bit of what they read...but if they don't actively think while reading, they won't fully comprehend what they have read.

Hopefully you have seen a few books come home this week with post-its sticking out on all ends! Ask your kids about it. Room 19 is filled with Readers and we are loving it!

MAP, FOUNTAS and PINNELL...Oh My!

We are slowly getting through all our beginning of the year testing. All students have now taken both their Reading and Math MAP tests for the Fall. Our Resource teachers have finished administering the Easy CBM to all students and I have F & P tested about half the class.

The NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Association) describes MAP testing as:

Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) are K – 12 interim assessments that measure growth, project proficiency on high-stakes tests, and inform how educators differentiate instruction, evaluate programs, and structure curriculum.

Computer adaptive MAP assessments reveal precisely which academic skills and concepts the student has acquired and what they’re ready to learn. MAP assessments are grade independent and adapt to each student’s instructional level. Every item on a MAP assessment is anchored to a vertically aligned equal interval scale, called the RIT scale for Rasch UnIT—a stable measurement, like inches on a ruler, that covers all grades.

And because the measurement is reliable and accurate, RIT scores serve as an essential data point in a student’s learning plan; educators can see their precise learning level and respond accordingly.

As a classroom teacher I use this data to drive my daily instruction and to adapt that instruction to individual student needs. Students in grade 5 MAP test in the Fall, Winter and Spring.

The Easy CBM testing is designed to "give teachers insight into which of their students may need additional instructional supports as well as to provide a means by which they can measure the effectiveness of their teaching. System reports provide information that supports evidence-based decision making, and the Interventions interface streamlines the process of keeping track of students' instructional program, a feature that is particularly helpful for student study team meetings and parent conferences". These tests are administered by our school reading specialist in the Fall, Winter and Spring.

The Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System is used to get one-on-one assessments of each student's instructional and independent reading level. This information helps me:

• Determine reading placement levels and group students for reading instruction.
• Select texts that will be productive for student's instruction.
• Assess the outcomes of teaching.
• Assess a new student's reading level for independent reading and instruction.
• Identify students who need intervention.
• Document student progress across a school year.
• Inform parents of student progress.

I will administer these tests in the Fall and Spring. Students in need of intervention may also be tested in the Winter.

Although testing can be time consuming, the data helps me provide your child with individualized instruction. 

Close Reading

Hopefully if your student stays with me during ELA WIN time from 8:40-9:10, they have talked to you a little bit about Close Reading.

 

Essentially, Close Reading means reading to uncover layers of meaning that lead to deeper comprehension. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) defines Close Reading as:

• Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately. Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details. It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole. (PARCC, 2011, p. 7)

In our room, students do a "first read" independently to get a general understanding of the text.  Their "second read" is guided by questions that ask students to reread certain parts of the text for facts and details. The next step is having students interpret their observations. I want students to move from observations of particular facts and details to a conclusion, or interpretation, based on their observations. I often have students do the Close Read in partners or small groups so they can discuss their observations about the text and form conclusions together.

Last week we did our first Close Reading activity on the article The Evil Swirling Darkness from the Scholastic magazine Storyworks. I filmed students Close Reading and tweeted it out to Scholastic Teachers. The author of the article, Lauren Tarshis, saw our class Tweet and responded back to us! She is also the author of the I Survived series. 

This weekend I looked over the student responses to the article and offered the students written feedback. Please notice I didn't say I graded the responses.  My main objective is to offer feedback so that responses improve over time. I am not grading reading and writing, I am cultivating a mindset of being Readers and Writers in Room 19!

Artifact Unit

25 years ago I walked into District Office and they handed me a box of binders and said, "Good Luck Kid!" There were no textbooks with the exception of Math and I was a scared first year teacher.

I stared at my Social Studies binder titled Clues to Our Past and decided I needed to come up with something, but was at a total loss. At this time in my life I regularly visited my Grandmother in Brookfield. During one of these visits I mentioned my Social Studies dilemma.

My Grandmother dragged me into her basement and began pulling out objects from the cupboards, shelves and work benches. She laid the objects in front of me and said, "Use these." Slowly I began to create my Artifact Unit in which we use primary sources to learn about the past.

The students in class have been examining 30 artifacts that belonged to either my Grandmother or Grandfather. The students are slowly starting to piece together my Grandparents story and the history of the 1940s, 50s and 60s by investigating these primary sources using the questions:

• What is it made of?
• What is written on it?
• Are there dates?
• What does it remind you of from the present?
• What do think it was used for in the past?
• What does all this information tell you about the past?

 

The students will also have the opportunity to share an artifact of their own. Any object from home that is older than the student qualifies as an artifact for this project.

 

 

Discovery is an amazing way to learn. Hopefully this unit grabs the students' attention and shows that History books don't just fall from the sky. History comes from real people, real objects and real stories.