Reading Without Limits Book Study, Week 2

Hi, everyone!  Thanks for stopping by to participate in this GREAT book study again today!  

I want to again point out  the schedule we are going to be following.  

                                    Feel Free to Pin This!


If you haven't purchased the book you can find it at Amazon!  Just click on the link below and you can go straight to the book to purchase it.

Just click here to purchase!

Last week, OUR FIRST QUESTION was

WHAT WILL I GAIN FROM TAKING PART IN THIS BOOK STUDY?

Personally, I hope to gain some new techniques to use and possibly refine some of my old techniques so that I can be more effective!

Remember we have this WONDERFUL BLOG that we can  explore.  You can get lost in it and best of all.....it goes with the book!  Also, here is the website for the book and the Facebook page that goes with it, too!

QUESTIONS TO PONDER:

Here are some questions to think about and to respond to in the comments section later on:

Now to get started looking at 

Chapter 1--Finding Students Reading Levels

You can see that there are 4 focus points for chapter 1 <they are found on pg 25 of the book>:  Figure out the best levels for students by using running records, do group inventories to save time, match students with their correct reading level, and increase peer support.

Page 27 and 28 refers to Vygostsky, and I have to tell you that all I could remember about him before opening this book was that he was an atheist.  I had never connected him to the Zone of Proximal Development or differentiation in the classroom.  I have to admit to a tiny bit of an increase in admiration for him now!  

1.  How would you define the "Zone of Proximal Development"?

2.  Have you ever given a running record?  What is your experience with them?  

3.  What is the difference between a self-correction and a miscue?

4.  Why are tiered questions and retellings so important?

5.  Using the table on page 34, what correlations do you see?

6.  What is a QRI-5 and how can it be used as a group inventory?

7.  What is the difference in the type of texts that are used for choice reading, guided reading, and shared reading?  Where might we put Independent reading?  <CHALLENGE:  The first person that emails me a graphic of a table explaining this visually so that I can post it next week can go to my Teacher's Pay Teacher's store and choose an item that will be emailed to him or her as a thank you!>

8.  Read page 43.  Here is that Mild, Medium, and Spicy thing again!!!  <Create an example of an Anchor Chart that could be used in the classroom in graphic form or take a picture of it and email it in for us to look at next week.  The first person to email an example in will also get to choose an item from my store!>

Chapter 2--Teaching Students to Understand What They Read

You can see that there are 4 focus points for chapter 1 <they are found on pg 25 of the book>:  the importance of read alouds and think alouds, checking for understanding, avoiding pitfalls, choosing a 'just right' text for a think aloud, strategies like 'figuring it out' and paraphrasing, teaching strategies that cultivate lifelong readers.

9.  Pg. 52:  Who is James Lee and what did he figure out?

10.  What is strategic reading and why is it important?  How does it work?  What does it look like?  <Hint:  Look for a video to leave in the comment section that shows what strategic reading looks like>

11.  What does a dependent reader look like/sound like/work like?  <In the comment section tell us about a dependent reader you had and what you did to help him/her>

12.  What is paraphrasing?  How does it work?

13.  Page 57:  What is the gradual release of responsibility?  What would it look like in your classroom?

14.  What does it mean to 'check for understanding'?

15.  What are some strategies that can be used to move passive learners into becoming direct learners? <Hint:  Choose 2 strategies and describe them in the comment section....you never know if I might choose someone to win something.  =)>

16.  Just for fun--what is a rotten tomato???

17.  What is a good think aloud made of?  How do you choose a think aloud?  

18.  Highlight, tag, dog-ear, paper clip <or sumpin'> pages 68-78.  How can you go wrong with these pages???  These are the BEST PAGES EVER!!!

Resources:

An example of a Five Finger Test Poster by my friend Lyndsey Kuster...she has some of the cutest stuff!!!

Guided Reading Growth Chart

Fry Graph for Estimating Readability

Suggestions on how to set up a leveled library

Here is a button for you to use on your blog if you would like to incorporate your thoughts into a post:

Book Giveaway Winner and all sorts of other stuff!!

Congratulations to Stacy B.  She won The Transparent Teacher Giveaway!  If you aren't Stacy, but you still want the book, just click below and go to Amazon and put your order in!

Also, I wanted to let you know that I got my Easy-to-Fix-and-Get-Ready Summer Sanity packet finished.  So, if you are still in school or you have kids at home that you need to entertain, this is a great packet for you.  Just print it off and give it to your kids to fix if you are at home <only if you like living on the edge!>.  My group here at home are patiently <for now> waiting on me to get some more color ink to print off the flip flop antonym matching game.  You'd think that they haven't seen flip flops before!!!

Here is what the cover looks like:

You can check it out on Teachers Pay Teachers and have your kids review antonyms, dictionary drills, sentence work, and ABC order.  Or.....you can go and enter this summer giveaway and get this same pack <because everyone wins!!>.   I vote for the cheap route so you just have to enter the giveaway and follow all of the blogs that are listed.

Another remind:  This Wednesday I will have a blog up for Chapter 1 of Reading Without Limits

and will be including some freebies, so you won't want to miss that.  I'm pretty excited about it because the author of the book has already been by to offer support, so if we have any questions, we will defer to her!  It isn't often that we get an offer like that!!!  So....grab a book and study along with us.  It is pretty easy...all you have to do is answer a question or two <or chit chat--that's why we are converting over to the website www.chartsnchitchat.com....I'm all about the chit chat these days!!> in the comment section of the blog.  If you haven't left a comment yet, PLEASE LEAVE ONE!!!

Have a great weekend!  I'll be looking for you to come by!

Classroom Library Check Out

I hear the angels in the background.  I am wanting to belt out the chorus of Handel's Hallelujah.....I am.....complete.

Every year I loose close to 30-50 books because my students find some way to sneak them out and never return them.  I beg for their return, but don't make too big of a deal for them because my hope is that they are still being read when they go home.

But now.....NOW, I have found a solution!  BookSource's Classroom Organizer.

Using an app on your phone, you scan ISBN numbers to put books into your classroom library.  You input your students names.  Then, they can use the computer to type in the ISBN number or key words of the book's title and check them out.  There is also a way to return the books.

Problem Solved:  I know how to attach lost books with a face!!!

You have GOT to go look at this.  I have used my own kids as Guinea pigs and it works!!!  I could just dance a jig!!!

Everywhere I Looked Today

I saw 100!!  All sorts of hats and posters were everywhere that said one hundred.  I took a couple of pictures and thought I would share them with you!

This cute young man was glad to put on his hat to show me how handsome he was.  He said, "It's a little crumpled.  Sorry!".  I think they sort of look like dread locks now!!  Thanks to my friend Kelley Dolling for creating this beauty!  I wish you could have seen all of the hats as the kids walked down the hallway!!!  Actually, I wish I had the picture of HER modeling her own creation!!!

This is the great, young Ms. Marbury, one of the kindergarten teachers that I work with modeling the latest fashionista style created by another one of our co-workers.  I told her that I was going to make her the next greatest "pin-up girl"!!  So, get ready to pin her stylin' self.

And I can't forget to show you my favorite project by one of the Kindergartners:  it was made with puffy stickers!

The Expanded Writing Process

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I recently spent a few days in a writing workshop hosted in my district that featured both poetry and non-fiction writing.  In the workshop we discussed the merits of different writing programs such as 6 Traits and ideas taken from Lucy Calkins, but spent a lot of time on developing mini lessons and how to make the most of writing conferences.  Amid the discussions that we had in how we presented topics and edited with students, we never talked about the writing process as a whole.  We discussed the different steps of the writing process, but as we talked in groups or in pairs, I noticed something that was universal among us.  We all added 'extra' steps into the writing process.  Even more interesting to me was that these 'extra' steps were added at the same exact place by each teacher.  We may not have referred to them with the same vocabulary, but they were there, just the same.  I identified 12 steps needed to help students improve their writing:

Step 1:  Brainstorm with a graphic organizer.

Step 2:  Begin illustrating and label  the ‘nouns’

Step 3:  Begin writing a beginning, middle, and end.  

Step 4:  Conference with student.

Step 5:  Student edits.

Step 6:  Student rereads and edits again if necessary.    

    This can be done with a partner.

Step 7:  Conference with student to revise the story.

Step 8:  The student rereads to make further changes

    and checks for clarity of the story.

Step 9:  The student begins to rewrite the story to work

    towards a final draft.

Step 10:  The student rereads for clarity again.

Step 11:  Add details to the illustration to help tell the   
     story.

Step 12:  Publishing

Here are those same 12 steps in a poster for you!

I know that realizing this validated not only me as a teacher, but also me as a writer.  I had never thought to break down and analyze the way I taught the writing process.  I hope that this helps you strengthen your writer's workshop like it has me.  It is incredible when something that you have thought about makes a connection with such strength that it changes the teacher's heart inside you.  Here it is, the middle of summer, but thinking through this process was so profound that I know it has already changed the way I will look at my writer's workshop when this next year begins.

Here are 3 other things to remember....Maybe these can be the beginning of a few anchor charts for you.

Jennifer Ayers is an 18 year veteran teacher and has experience teaching in both suburban and inner-city schools.  Out of 18 years, she has been a lead teacher in some capacity for 15 of those 18 years.  She has taught in a multi-age Montessori classroom, has taught 1st, 2nd, and 4th grades, and has also been a full-time reading interventionist/Title 1 teacher.  Jennifer earned her master's degree in K-12 Education at Tusculum College in Greeneville, Tennessee in 2000 and also graduated in 2008 with her Education Specialists Degree in Supervision and Administration from Tennessee Technological University.  You may recognize Jennifer from Really Good Stuff's annual blog contest as she was selected to judge the competition.  You can find Jennifer at her website, Best Practices 4 Teaching or at her freebie website Best Practices 4 Teaching Freebie Pages.

Acitivities for those book order forms

If you are like me, you get gobs and gobs of book order forms....so many that you could never send all of them home for book orders.  So....what can you do?  Use them for centers!  Then....when the kids just HAVE to have that certain book....they can order it on the Internet with their parents!!  Sneaky, huh?

Here is an activity that my friend, Denise from Sunny Days created that is JUST  THE THING to keep your kids entertained with a book order!  The result is an increase in sales!  I know....because I use them!!

July 5th...Where did summer go?

Hey all! I am *GUEST STARRING* over at Kindergarten Lifestyle for Jeannie tomorrow so that she can have an extra holiday!  Be sure to go and see what I wrote for her!  There is a freebie, also!


I wanted to let you know that I just finished working on some contraction games that you can use as task cards, scoot games, or whatever else you can dream up!  They are $3 each, but if you buy all 4 sets at the same time they are $10 instead of $12!!  A pretty good deal.  Just by being thrifty, you save 2 bucks!!

Ordinarily I don't just put a 'commercial' out, but I am still celebrating the founding of our country!!  Tomorrow I'll be back!




Set 1:  This game will reinforce the understanding that contractions are formed from 2 words. Students will read the contraction and record the 2 words that made it.

Set 2:  This game will reinforce the understanding that contractions are formed from 2 words. Students will read the two words and record the contraction that is made.

Set 3:  This game will reinforce the understanding that contractions are formed from 2 words. Students will read the sentence with 2 words that can be put together to make a contraction. The student will read the sentence, put the 2 words together, and record the contraction that can be made.



 

Set 4:  This game will reinforce the understanding that contractions are formed from 2 words. Students will read the given sentences, identify the contraction, and then record the two words that make the contraction.

Be sure to follow me if you go buy the store.  That way you can find out about new files as I get them done.  Take care!

The Continuum of Literacy for Prek-8th grade

The Continuum of Literacy for Prek-8^th grade

   

 One goal I have is to share the resources I have found over the years that have helped me bring best practices into my classroom.  I have bought hundreds of dollars worth of books over the years <don’t tell my husband>.  Most of them are now sitting on the shelf, collecting dust.  However, there are a few that are among my most prized ‘teaching possessions’.  This book is one of them.

You need this book!

     The authors, Fountas and Pinnell, are among the forefront of education, and have been for the last 15 years at least.  They are among the movers and shakers that caused the education world to leave whole language and really begin to understand how to differentiate reading groups….thus, guided reading was born!

     I bought my copy of the book about 7 years ago.  My copy is worn, tattered, has notes stuck all through it, and looks very used!  This year, my school system ordered every teacher a copy of the newest version <there is not that much difference> and we are conducting professional development with it.   So, now, I leave my broken down copy at home for a quick reference when needed, and leave my new copy at school to use in meetings or conferences with parents! 

     The book has several sections of the book such as:  writing products using the 6 traits and writing about reading, reading aloud, shared reading, communication and technology, word work, and guided reading.

I highly recommend this book, also, because it tells you what expectations you should have for each level in guided reading, correlates necessary comprehensions skills as well as reading strategies, and even has a skill-based curriculum map to show how the skills correlate across the grade levels starting in Pre-Kindergarten and ending in 8^th grade.

     There is much to be learned from this book as it categorizes teaching literacy into skills, products for students to create, lessons for ‘Within the Text’, ‘Beyond the Text, and ‘About the text’.  This has helped me rise to a much higher level of teaching in order to challenge my students thinking about literacy.  In fact, I planned my 3^rd quarter literacy focus calendar using these categories and linked them to my state’s standards. 

Here is a snippet below:

Within the Text:  Self-correction of intonation, phrasing, and pausing while reading aloud Beyond the Text:  Infer a character’s feelings or motivations as preparation for reading in the character’s voice About the Text:  Recognize when texts are realistic, fantasy, or true informational texts and read them differently as appropriate Comprehension:  Story Elements Map Identify base words and suffixes (re, un) Reading Strategy:  Model reading with intonation, phrasing, and pauses Word Work:  Review Syllables (Center), short 3, long e (ee, ea)  <see Sort 27>

      If you live in a state that has moved to the ‘drop in evaluations’, this book is indispensible.  As long as you are using these categories and areas to plan and reflect on your teaching, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t do well.   So, as my students say in school, “We give this book a 2 thumbs up and 5 out of 5 stars!" 

     If you decide to order a book, or you already have one, leave a comment below and let me know what you think about it and how you use it! 

You may also want to take a look at these books by the same authors:

Literacy Beginnings for Pre-Kindergarten

Prompting Guide Part 2

Guided Reading for Grades 3-6

Why Should I Be 'Making Phrases' in my classroom?

Ok, I am taking a risk here.  I am introducing a lesson that most of you will read about and think 'What a waste of time!'  And, already, I am going to beg to differ with you!  Well, anyway, here it goes!

**********************************************************************************

I have a class full of fast finishers.  So, I need to either create longer activities or put more in my work stations, right?  NOPE!  More work is not the answer.  However, more of a challenge is.

For years, I have been using the 'make the magic mystery word' lessons and love them because of their scope, the variety of vocabulary that can be used, and because it teachings kids how to manipulate word families or 'word chunks'.  So, when I was rethinking my centers, I thought 'Why not try a 'making phrases' activity to challenge my fast finishers?'  So.....I have put this thought...hope....dream.....into action.

So....here is my thought process about this activity:

Why should I have my students 'make phrases'?  What is this teaching?

¨ This is a higher level version of ‘making words’.  Students will have to go through many different combinations of words in order to find the answer.  It is an excellent activity for higher or gifted students and can be used to differentiate a spelling/making words center.

¨ This activity teaches students to look for clues, use hints, and groupings of letters to find their answers.  Students will have to make inferences based on the information that they have.

¨ This activity was created with the idea that students would be working together.  This promotes listening skills and verbal communication. 

¨ This activity teaches organizational methods such as marking out letters as they are used and highlighting the correct number of boxes that are needed.  Students will have to pay close attention to details in order to be successful.

¨ Students will find themselves asking each other questions.  They will be more apt to carry over the questioning skills into other subject areas.

That said, here are a few screen shots of the activity.  I put a lot of time into selecting the borders, making each card different.  Plus, each border is a hint to the phrase that is to be created!  Pretty good idea if I do say so myself!  This activity has approximately 70 or so cards, for a variety of different phrases for students to discover.  Every task card has a set of clues and a set of letters listed for the students to use.  A key and student directions are provided, also.

This lesson is located at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Making-Magic-Phrases-Problem-Solving-With-Words.  Click here to find out more and see other thumbnails of pages.

31 Card Contraction Scoot Game---In Color!

If you have never played Scoot, then you and your students are missing out!  My kids LOVE to play it.  In fact, they beg to play it.  They don't even mind playing it for a rainy day recess game.  They haven't figured out that they are thinking....or learning.....or may even be assessed!  To them, getting to move around the room quickly is a treat in itself.  And, it works, because the students move in a certain pattern, which prevents them from running willy-nilly around the room.  

So my recommendation for today:  Try scoot.  What the heck!  Tomorrow if Friday anyway!!!