Talking, Drawing, Writing: Chapter 5- Writing Words

As I tucked my four year old into bed two nights ago, he asked me to read one of our favorite stories, David Goes to School. As I read the story, I was drawn to the illustrations. The illustrator used ovals to make the characters just like our book study has discussed. I immediately tucked that information away for later; I can’t wait to show my kinders the oval drawing technique used in a famous picture book that many will be familiar with. 

Chapter five summarizes the process of encouraging our young writers to use written expression along with their drawings to give meaning to their reader. Children come to kindergarten with so many different experiences. Some come to us with a high literacy background. They have parents who have read to them consistently since birth. Most have attended a pre-K program, which has introduced them to the alphabet and phonemic awareness. Some children however come to use with a very low literacy background, having little knowledge of print concepts or alphabet knowledge. As teachers, we must bridge the gap and help all students build upon the framework that they come to us with. I love how the author encourages students to write a sentence, even if the sentence only includes the first sound of each work. For example…

A student may write, “M D W D M T the P”.

Dictated this sentence translates to, “My Dad was driving me to the park.”

In this example, the student was able to experiment with letters to form a sentence that had meaning while also using word that they already know. One thing that this book does so well is allow a teacher to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners in his or her classroom. As students become more familiar with words (sight words and high frequency words), the teacher can encourage them to use the words in their writing. We want our students to be excited to write, and we want them to feel successful. The lessons outlined in this chapter provide every student with scaffolding to enable that success with writing.

The Next Step in Guided Reading Chapter 2: Assessment and Grouping

This week our book study went further into our guided reading book with a chapter over assessment and student grouping. This chapter offered so much to think about. Assessment is such an important part of our career. How can we effectively teach our kiddos if we don’t know what they know? As a second and third grade teacher, so often I just wanted to be left along so I could teach not test. There is such a fine line in what makes a good assessment. But, good sound assessment plays such an important part. It allows a teacher to deliver great instruction to her students that best meets their needs. This chapter really helped me evaluate the assessments I have used in the past and determine if they are effective in guiding my instruction. 

·      What do you use for your assessments:  Letter Identification? Sight Words? Dictated Sentences? Writing Sample? Running Records?

My knowledge is coming from upper elementary (2^nd/3^rd) but I am also looking at how these assessments will help me next year in kindergarten. Our school uses a series of assessments for both reading and math that I feel are so effective. We use DIBELS as a fluency assessment. I love that this simple test gives such an accurate assessment of fluency. Three times a year, our CAMP (specials) teachers deliver the assessment to our entire school. In my individual classroom, I also use the DIBELS progress monitoring to determine student fluency. I personally enjoy administering the assessment because so much goes into a fluency assessment. Fluency is NOT just how many words per minute a child reads. It also includes their prosody and their intonation.

Our school also uses the STAR reading and STAR math assessment. This computer administered test gives teachers a picture of reading levels. My STAR reading reports help me find perfect fit books for students for both the instructional and independent text levels. Our library staff has labels every book in our library with a reading level so students can find perfect fit books easily (They are amazing!). When I send students to the library, I send their target card that states their reading level. This helps our library staff make sure that a students reading on a first grade level isn’t walking out of the library with Harry Potter.

This year, our school also uses the Saxon Phonics program for K-2. Each week, I assessed students with dictated sentences, phonics, sight word/high frequency words, and reading comprehension using this program.

·      When you finish your assessments, how will you use that information to group your students?

This past year, I would use my data from my assessments to form my strategy groups. If I noticed that a student or group of students was struggling in fluency, I formed a group to help these students. If a few students struggled on our weekly assessments (for example my assessment on cause and effect), I would form a strategy group to help these students and then retest when I felt students had mastered the skill. I loved being able to show students how I was remediating students through my documentation. I also met with individual students to instruct. Each day, my goal was to meet with two strategy groups and 6-8 individual students. I completed this during my Daily 5 times.

·      Will you use comprehension interviews? If not, then how will you check for understanding?

I haven’t used these in the past, but am very interested to learn more. How have other kindergarten teachers used these in their classrooms?

Effective assessment is paramount to being an effective educator. I would love to work with other educators to develop assessments that can be an effective evaluation tool to guide instruction.

So, it’s back to vacation. Today I took my kiddos to Dollywood! Tomorrow, I my son is dying for us to go to the aquarium. He loves fish! 

Talking, Drawing, Writing: Chapter 4-The Craft of Drawing

We are in week four of our summer linky book study over Talking, Drawing, Writing. Thus far it has been an excellent book on how to introduce writing to our very youngest learners. Coming from upper grades experiences, it has been very insightful on the best practices in the teaching of reading.

Chapter four consisted of several lesson plans that help students use more detail in their drawings. As the book stated, effective writers use specific detail to inform their audiences. This detail may be in the form of detailed drawings with our younger learners and in the form of words for our older storytellers.

As I read through the chapter, I was so impressed with the quality of the drawings that these young authors were creating. There was so much attention to detail, much more than I ever saw from my second and third graders. Perhaps it was because at that age our main focus is the actual words, publishing with drawings is just the icing on the cake that often gets tossed aside when we run short of time. However, after reading this book, I feel like the students would have more to write about and more detailed paragraphs if they had been able to express their ideas in detailed illustrations.

One question that keeps running through my head as I read this book is the timeframe. How long/how many days are these teachers spending on teaching children to draw? Do they spend a week on actual drawing lessons and then reinforce the skill throughout the year? After participating in this book study, I definitely see such a need for students to learn the craft of drawing because it directly influences student writing in such a positive way.

The Next Step in Guided Reading- Chapter 1~ Preparing for Guided Reading

Since I was a child, my favorite subject has always been reading. As a teacher, I LOVE teaching children how to read, finding new ways to better reach the needs of all my learners. When I found teachers planning to study The Next Step in Guided Reading as a summer reading linky party, I couldn’t have been more excited! I’ve been teaching second and third graders for the past few years. Next year, I will be teaching kindergarten. I am hoping that this book can help me reach my kindergarten readers using the best practices in reading instruction. I have used the Daily 5/CAFE in the past and love the ease of use and reading success that it brings to my students. I want to use this in my classroom and love that this book really couples well with the Daily 5 program.

Chapter one was a great introduction to guided reading instruction. It focused on setting up your guided reading instruction time segment. It also give detailed lesson plan examples on how to teach your literacy stations to your students during the first six weeks of school. This chapter really got me thinking about two things…

·      How do I want to manage my work stations? What will my work station board look like in kindergarten?

·      How will I take the information discussed in this chapter and use it in my classroom? 

~Things to Think About~

·      How do you introduce your students to read alouds? Shared reading? And independent reading?

Starting the very first day of school, I use read alouds and shared reading experiences with my students as a key teaching tool. In the past (2^nd and 3^rd grades), I have started the second day of school building student stamina for independent reading. In my kindergarten classroom, all three components will be a huge part of my daily reading instruction.

·      Do you have your schedule set? Do you set your Literacy block up in a workshop format? What will your RW block look like?

In the past, I have used the reading workshop framework during my reading instruction time segment for both second and third grades. After teaching a mini lesson to my students, I would dismiss students into their Daily 5 activity while I pulled strategy groups and met with individual students. My students also completed a Daily 5 time segment for their morning work time and at the very end of the day. I really enjoyed using Daily 5 centers during morning work time. Students quietly worked on a literacy activity while I completed the morning chores. It always started our day out right. I am still thinking about my schedule for next year, but want guided reading and Daily 5 literacy centers to be a large part of my day.

·      What activities will you have your students do for the first 6 weeks to teach independence? Literacy Work Stations? Daily 5? Others?

I use the Daily 5 (read to self, read to buddy, listen to a story, word work, and writing) in my classroom. After following many kindergarten blogs, I still want to use this framework but am spending a lot of time deciding how I best want to set up my centers. Do I want to have a set activity for each center each week? Or do I want to let it be more student choice, student directed centers (students pick activity in each center)? During the first six weeks of school in the upper grades, I have slowly introduced students to our Daily 5 work stations, modeling activities and discussing expectations. Setting this time aside at the beginning of the year really helps my students know what I expect from them and gives me more time to teach. 

Was it just me or did you love the Oral Retelling literacy station discussed in the book? In this station, students play “Guess the Story” while a leader in the group retells key parts of the story for the group. I can’t wait to use this with my kinders.

·      Reading Notebook:  How will you use these? What will you use for this?

I have used reading notebooks in the past that I have made for each of my students. They have had a section for…

·      Reading Log (Students would log each book they were reading)

·      Genre Log and Graph (Students would log the genre of each book they read for a month and then graph the results. It really helped students see what types of books they were choosing to read.)

·      Reading Goal Sheet (I would help students identify reading goals to work on during our individual conferences and they would list these here.)

·      Reading Response Journal

I don’t plan to use a reading notebook in my kindergarten classroom.

I would recommend that all teachers or reading read this book. I honestly couldn’t stop reading at the end of chapter 1. It is such a great book that can help guide reading instruction K-8.