sentence of the week

Hi all! I've been busy this month working on grammar stuff. After seeing my cousin Mike at Easter (he's a High School English Teacher) and talking to him about the papers he was grading (we're always grading, aren't we?) we got to talking about Kelly Gallagher's Sentence of the Week, which may or may not be like the Mentor Sentences I've seen around the teaching blogosphere. Since then, I've been busy trying this out with our third graders, and it's been awesome!

Sentence of the Week is a strategy used for the purpose of having students construct knowledge about grammar and mechanics. The principle behind this is that we want to show students correct sentences (rather than incorrect sentences that you might find with Daily Oral Language (DOL) activities). Don't use those crazy, error-ridden sentences with your kiddos!

If you teach with a Writing Workshop model, you might be wondering how to make Grammar a more consistent part of your writing instruction - and this is perfect for that. Sentence of the Week is a 5-10 minute bit of instruction that happens daily, whether you are in the editing phase of the writing process or not.

Sentence of the week works on a five day cycle - you will stick to the same grammar pattern for five days. Following this, you can find a brief explanation of the first two days of the cycle...I'll be back later this week with the rest.

Day 1: Notice
Begin with three sentences that use the pattern you hope to teach. In this case, we were working on Possessive Nouns, so we wrote three pairs of sentences:

My mom has a dog.
My mom's dog is a Pug.

Miss Amenta has a pineapple hat.
Miss Amenta's pineapple hat makes her happy.

Damian has a fake mustache.
Damian's mustache looks real.

We began with the blue, pink, and red sentences. We wrote them about our kids and this particular class so they were more meaningful. First thing I did was read them to the students. Then, we asked students to turn and talk about what they notice. After, students shared out and we charted what they said:

I notice...
the pairs are alike - they are about the same topic
Should there be more commas?
apostrophe
It says what they have

As you can see, students were able to compare and contrast the sentences (one of Marzano's high yield strategies!) to construct meaning - they found the pattern (apostrophe and possession) and even though they could not name it academically, they were most certainly able to find it!

This little bit concluded day one.

Day 2: Imitate
We continued by sharing the academic vocabulary & meaning for what we were working on and three more examples:

You can find the teacher work in black ink. Then, the sentence in blue is the demonstration I did with our classroom teacher to model for the students how to imitate sentences, which is the next step they will complete. You can find teacher think aloud coded {like this.}

I said, "If I wanted to write a sentence with a Possessive Noun, I would first ask myself, 'Who is this sentence about?' Miss, Kriegl, who should we write a sentence about?"

She replied, "Mrs. Maldonado."

Then I asked her, "What does she own or have?"

She said, "A school."

I demonstrated, "Okay, then, Mrs. Maldonado {students, I'm starting my sentence with my person} 's {remember, I have to put the apostrophe s} So, Mrs. Maldonado's school {and then I just finish the sentence} is the best. Let's read it together."

All, "Mrs. Maldonado's school is the best."

Then I directed students, "With your partner, please imitate me, write a Possessive noun sentence. When you finish, hold your index card up, and I'll take it from you, and you can do another."

In pairs, students went on their way writing sentences. I collected them, and then added them to our list. You can find the student sentences in the picture above in pink. We continued to look for the pattern, and were also able to clarify a misconception, where a pair of kiddos wrote, "Ms. Kriegl owns Zach." (Side note: Zach is her fiancé!) We just reminded them of the pattern and then revised the sentence to make it correct.

All of that in just 15 minutes. Great conversation, great learning, awesome way to find trouble spots where students have misconceptions about the lesson at hand.

Because I don't want this post to get so long you don't read it, I'll be back later this week with another post to finish up the five day cycle of Sentence of the Week.

Has anyone used this as a grammar strategy? Please share your thoughts in the comments below! And be sure to check out the grammar presentation my colleagues Jennie, Amanda, and I put on last week in our district!

tribute to primary

This month, the #compelledtribe is sharing posts in tribute to a teacher of our choice. This prompt came at the perfect time, as a week or so ago, I had to help out with sub coverage in a first grade classroom. Today, I'd like to give tribute to all the primary teachers out there, who do such wonderful work each day!

I don't want to take anything away from intermediate, middle, and high school teachers - all of us work very hard to study and teach our content, build relationships with students, plan amazing lessons, and provide feedback to help our students grow. But have you ever spent a whole day in a primary classroom? More particularly, a kinder or a first grade classroom? Primary teaching isn't just singing songs and playing in centers. It's hard work that takes loads of planning, organization, and structure!

Primary teachers, you are a special bunch! Your students show up with a range of abilities in kinder and all grow in their learning in different ways. They are so small and can't really be independent for much time at all, so I'd like to recognize all the work that goes into planning engaging instruction for them.

Kinder and first grade teachers are the first official teachers (parents are first, #amIright?) of reading... very important work going on with this age range! In our literacy block, you teach your students to be independent with authentic activities so that you can be freed up to provide guided reading that meets each child's needs. You study and prepare lessons that are differentiated and really hit exactly what each child needs. You prepare word study within guided reading, and for explicit instruction of sight words. All of this is after you've  worked with books, and taken anecdotal notes on what the children can do. And all of that happens while the rest of your class works independently for 10-20 minutes at a time. Seriously, it's amazing work that you do!

Our Kinders are writing personal narratives, complete with pictures and labels, and making their way to sentences. Firsties are writing Teaching Books about all kinds of topics, books that are planned out in advance and polished beautifully. While their final drafts aren't perfect, each one is each child's best work, which will be added to a portfolio for reflection later. And don't forget about celebrations! Our writers always get to share their work with their peers, which really amps up their engagement!

And don't even get me started on math. I have no idea how you teach math conceptually children who are five and six, but you all know exactly how and deliver instruction to them in a meaningful way. Jamie Duncan, your passion and knowledge inspires me so much!

Not only all of this, but our Dual Language and Bilingual teachers do so in two languages as well! I know it takes time to plan and prepare for both languages, but building two languages is so important in recognizing the gifts that our students bring to our classrooms. Thank you for studying best practices and trying out new and modified ways of delivering instruction that will best support our learners. 

And academics aside, you do so much to support their social and emotional needs at this age - give them band-aids, wipe their tears, and tie their shoes. You use class pets for classroom management and give them a hug when they miss their parents. You help them learn the importance of taking turns, and sharing, and listening. You read them stories that they can "live through" so they can learn from them about compassion, empathy, and self-control. You build them up when they're down and also teach them important life lessons when they're not being their best selves. It's a short 9 months that you spend with your students, but your lessons and impressions are lasting.

It's February, a month celebrating love and friendship, and I simply adore the work you do each day. Thank you for your tireless dedication to our students...they are so lucky to have you!

Have you sent some love to a colleague lately? It's the perfect time to do so! Hit them up (I sound so middle school, don't I?) on Twitter, with a note in their mailbox, or a hug when you pass them in the hall. Lift others up, and your heart will be full along with them!

guided reading binder - take a peek!

I began teaching guided reading again, this time in first grade! It's been cool to get to know another of the five plans from Jan Richardson. Now that it's been a few weeks, my records have fleshed out and I wanted to share my binder with you!

Here it is in all it's glory --
I'd rather write a blog post about it than make a pretty cover :-)

On the inside...front and back pockets:

Inside back pocket
I know it's strange to start with the end, but there's not much to report there. Just saving some word study materials I haven't gotten to yet; more on word study a few paragraphs down...

Inside front pocket
I keep everything I need now in this pocket - this week's lesson plan, this week's anecdotal notes, word study activities I'm planning to do today or tomorrow, and standards based anecdotal notes.

Lesson Plans, from The Next Steps in Guided Reading:

Anecdotal Notes This form, created by my awesome colleague and friend, Christine. One side of notes covers one group of kids - their names are listed where that white paper is, and then a box for each day of the week.

Word Study Materials - this week we're doing some picture sorting by medial vowel:

Anecdotals by Standard are next. (They are the stack of index cards that are paper clipped together.) Right now we're working on questioning. I just recently learned about this from an awesome fourth grade teacher over at Irving. You keep a stack of cards per standard and then annotate when kids attempt to use that strategy. In this case, it's questioning, so I was able to record the questions (or statements) kids shared and then grade them against a Standards-Based Rubric (4: Exceeds Standard, 3: Meets, 2: Approaches, 1: Beginning). Throughout the week, I'll keep more records of this to get a bigger picture.

Child's name is what is under the pen.

In the Rings:
First, I have a few mini-anchor charts in plastic sleeves:

I made these to use to prompt the students about various skills we are working on, so when I am ready to do that work, I take these out for their reference. This little trick is another one that Christine taught me. She began doing this as she built her Tier 3 lesson plans using Jennifer Serravallo's new book: The Reading Strategies Book.

Next I have more anecdotal notes - using a calendar is another way to think about them:

I just began a 1:1 intervention with a student who needs to build her knowledge of letter names (this is also in Jan Richardson's Book!) Since I am only working 1:1, I wanted to use a calendar to take notes of observations across our time together, so I just grabbed this freebie online today to use.

Strategies and Skills by Level - this is another resource in the Richardson's book and just wanted a quick reference to keep handy. The front page you see are all the strategies and skills children need to master at level A, behind it I have a few more levels, too. This way, when I'm planning the word study component of guided reading, it's easy to figure out what I should do!

Archived Lesson Plans - After I'm done with a sheet of plans, I hang on to them here, newest on top as a record of the work we've done.

Next section is for sight words:

I have two groups, so I have two sets of these charts, but up top you list each child's name on top of the list, and then when you assess their sight words, you can make notes here of how they're doing. I put a check mark if they are able to spell it correctly, and a "P" if I had to prompt them for support to write the word. If I notice that more than one student needs prompting, then I go back and reteach the sight word in question.

The next section is for archived Anecdotal Notes:

I keep the current notes I'm working on in the front cover, but then, as I finish them, they get filed here. What I love about this system is that when I go to an RtI meeting or need to update a parent or teacher about a child, I have so much information to potentially share with them just by looking through my notes!

I'm getting better at taking anecdotals the longer I keep with them, but some days I don't write things, and other days I focus too much on one student. Sometimes I take notes on the group as a whole, other days not. These notes are waaaay better than I used to do as a novice last year, and I'm sure I'll keep on improving with them the longer I keep working on them.

Assessment Data is collected in the last part of my binder:

When I say Assessment Data, I just mean running records, which are all saved here. But, I keep an Assessment Summary on top so I can see trends at a glance. This form below is just for one student, and lists running record scores and notes for each week I test him.

You see that I include the date, guided reading level of the text, the genre (fiction or nonfiction), whether the running record was hot (meaning the child read the book already before) or cold (it was the first time with the text. Then I have scores for Words Per Minute (WPM) and number of errors (which I haven't been taking because I keep forgetting to bring the calculator), their accuracy percentage, comprehension score, and overall reading level (Independent, Instructional, or Frustration) notes. That circled letter on the end of the line is the level I want to test the child on the following week, that way I don't have to analyze the information again - just a way to make myself more efficient.

On the bottom of the form is a rubric for determining the level that is from Fountas and Pinnell's Benchmark Assessment System.

So, that's my binder! What's in yours?

Any ideas to enhance what I've already got going on?

Please leave your ideas in the comments!

getting cozy with Calkins

Good morning! Is anyone out there getting acquainted with the new Reading Units of Study from Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at The Teachers College? We are so lucky to use this curriculum in our school district, and so our teachers are beginning to orient themselves to the new units of study. In an effort to smooth things out, I've created a little cheat-cheat to figure it all out!

First, let's start with the books.

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: The Overview Book
This book does a really nice job acquainting the reader with the curriculum. In this book, you will learn more general information about Reading Workshop and the research and theory behind it. This book is also the source of this blog, as it directed me to what was most important to read as we begin instruction.

Reading Units of Study: The Lesson Plan Books

Each grade level's curriculum includes four spiral-bound units of study. Since I head fifth grade in my district, I'm going to share theirs:

1. Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes
2. Tackling Complexity: Moving Up Levels of Nonfiction
3. Argument and Advocacy: Researching Debatable Issues
4. Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbols

These four books are the meat and potatoes of the curriculum. Teachers will be reading these books day in and day out and using them for instruction.

Reading Pathways: The Assessment Book

This book is really a toolkit for reading assessment. In it teachers will find information about running records, bands of text complexity in both fiction and nonfiction, learning progressions of different standards across grade levels (think vertical alignment), performance assessments, and assessment tools.

If... Then... Curriculum: The Differentiation Book

This book has letters to teachers at each of the three intermediate grade levels. It offers a very broad overview of the year. Then, it gives alternate units of study that teachers and use if they need to modify the grade level given units of study.

Getting Started

Now that you know about the books, here are Calkins' recommendations for getting started in the Intermediate Grades. (Primary grade teachers, slightly different.) If you're like our teachers, you don't have time to read the whole first book of lesson plans, and in fact, Lucy doesn't even recommend that. Here's how you should begin:

1. Grab the first book of lesson plans that you are going to teach. At the beginning of each of these is An Orientation to the Unit. You can find this right after the acknowledgements. Read that first, and then read the first session of lesson plans.
2. Next grab Reading Pathways. Look up the Learning Progressions in the table of contents. Go to that section, pick one strand, and read the progression of work children do across the grade levels. This will help you see what students were expected to do before coming to your class, and also see the depth that you will take your teaching on each standard (for example, on Time, Plot, and Setting).
3. Now you're ready for the If... Then... Curriculum. In the very front of this book are letters: A Letter to Teachers of Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5. You'll want to read your letter to get a sense of the units you will be teaching this year.
4. If you're new to Reading Workshop, it would definitely help to skim through A Guide to the Reading Workshop.
5. Also, check out the online resources at Heinemann's website! You can find your access code in A Guide to the Reading Workshop book.

It seems like a lot to do, but it's just a little bit of reading here and a little bit of reading there. Hopefully this post clarifies the purpose of the books and where to begin!

Who else uses Reading Workshop? Any other tips to offer? Please leave a note in the comments if so!

there's no app for that

I was surfing my blog feed today and ran across a post, Motivate your kids to write with this app! Yesterday I saw a post about math Pinterest Fails - you know, those quick acronyms and tricks math teachers use to get kids to remember order of operations or division steps?

If you're a teacher and you're really interested in getting your kids to love to write and to deeply understand math concepts, you have to come to terms with the fact that there are no quick fixes.

I'm a writer, so let's go there...

If I want my kids to love to write, I have to be an authentic model of what that looks like. I have to make my writing life visible to kids. They need to see my writer's notebook:

They need to see inside, too, and see that it's messy and not perfect. I need to tell them about my writing process and my writing preferences - how I like to keep my notebook with me and in the instance I don't have it, I make lists on my phone of things I want to write about. They need to know about my obsession with writing utensils, including these new Ticonderoga pencils that are now in colors, colors people!

I need to "go there" in my own writing - you know, that scary place where we investigate tragedies and conflicts? Then, I need to let them see what that's like. I need to take the time to research mentor texts and show kids how I study writers so I can mimic what they do, so I can help myself find my own way as a writer. I have to let them in on my own writing insecurities (I'm not as eloquent as I'd like to be) and work to make my classroom a place where they feel safe enough to share theirs. I need to keep up with PD in writing to bring fresh strategies to my students so both they, and I, can write in newer and livelier ways. I need to take time to plan Marathon Writing days so we can marvel in and be inspired by our surroundings and facilitate their planning of Author's Chairs so they can share their best work to a real-life audience. 

Friends, there's no app for this.

While I totally appreciate all that technology does for us: lets us share, allows us to respond to others we normally wouldn't have the opportunity to, and publish our work in new and creative ways, I also understand that it takes more than that to put thoughtful, insightful, beautiful works out into the world.

It takes a writer.

written conversations

I'm at the Illinois Writing Project, friends! It's a 2 and a half week course all about Writing with a focus on teacher leadership the second week. Every day, we get this blissful Writing Workshop time to compose anything we want! Today, I'm sharing Written Conversations with you, a strategy we used earlier this morning!

What are Written Conversations?
They are just that - a silent activity where two participants each write a note (in our case, in response to a story we read). Then, when both finish, they pass their note to the other, then respond to their partner's thoughts.

How can you use them?

• Get to know someone! Introduce yourself ask a question to your partner, then respond.
• Build background knowledge: Share a topic, kids write what they know and then respond to one another.
• Response to Literature: Students write letters about their Just Right books, short stories, brief articles and teacher or a partnered peer responds
• Exit Slip (?): Maybe kids could write about something they learned at the end of a unit, then have a written conversation, and then teachers could collect?
• Staff Development: Share a teaching strategy by way of a short article and then have paired teachers engage in written response to one another about the article

What other ideas do you have for implementation?

After participating in this activity, we spent a good 30 minutes debriefing. (Think Share Time!) There was so much to learn! The ideas here represent the ideas of the participants of my group - so thank you to all my colleagues who shared! 

Side note: It was during this time that I thought I should get everyone's twitter handle so I could give credit where it's due! Unfortunately, for this activity, I wasn't tracking who said what! But appreciations to my class for sharing their ideas that are now shared here!

Benefits of Written Conversation

1. Honors 2 Voices: Many times, when we have a Turn and Talk, the conversation will go off on one person's response to the article. In this case, both partners started their response, so two conversations of different content were going simultaneously!
2. Focused Listening: In verbal conversation, we tend to listen long enough to then start figuring out our response. In Written Conversation, you can really hear what your partner has to say and then begin composing your response.
3. Less Daunting: When students are paired, everyone participates more often and the teacher doesn't have to respond to everyone. As a teacher who used to do this about Just Right books with ever kid in my class, I can tell you that this was a big undertaking. I would spend an hour - 1:15 minutes PER DAY responding to my kids letters about books. While it paved the way for exceptional, deep thinking, it was time consuming to say the least!
4. Awareness of Audience: Getting kids to think about audience for their writing is so abstract. When kids write for one another, they can really begin to understand what that means. I for example, was making jokes in some of my letters, while another participant might be more serious. If kids changed partners for this activity, they would definitely begin to see how audience plays a role in writing.
5. Special Record: You walk away with a record of your conversation, so make sure they're in a special notebook!

Teacher Tips for Implementation

1. Remind students to respond to what their partner says, not carry on the conversation they originally started in their own notebook. Asking students to include a question at the end (like us bloggers do) can help guide this!
2. If needed, remind kids that the conversation is about the content, not the grammar. No need to worry about conventions, just as long as your message is clear.
3. Teacher should float during this time to look onto conversations and perhaps, make some notes for debrief.
4. Want to do a shortened version? Have kids write on post-it's and then pass them!
5. Tech version? Could we use Twitter here somehow?

How have you used Written Conversation?

Do you have a great idea to Rev Up Writing? Share it with The Reading Crew!

summer blog party: word study tips

Good morning! I have kinda fallen off the map because my niece is visiting me in Chicago for the week, but she's still sleeping so I am taking a few moments to write up a post about Words Their Way for our focus today: Phonics and Phonemic Awareness. Seemed appropriate since my most popular post is about the five day plan for word study - check that one out here!

Today I'm going to share some tips and tricks for a flawless Word Study implementation. So off we go!

Assessment and Grouping: First things first, you'll need to figure out how to group your kiddos. You'll need to give the spelling test in the back of the Words Their Way book, and use the feature guide to determine the level each child will start at. Word study is great because it's not a right or wrong situation. The feature guide will help you see which phonics principles the children have mastered and not. My friend Carla has a great You Tube video on her blog that will touch on this assessment. See what it looks like by clicking here. 

As far as grouping - I recommend no more than three different groups within your classroom. As their teacher, you'll need to provide each group with instruction and materials to enhance their knowledge of phonetic principles, so if you create more than three groups, it's going to make your life really complicated. Keep it simple: Three groups or less!

Forget days of the week: Because you're going to be guiding three groups of kids through the word sorts, you're going to have to stagger the days that you meet with them so you're able to introduce the words to the kids when they begin their new sorts. (This, and many weeks have holidays which will throw everything off!) Perhaps the following chart might be what your plans would look like:

Remember, kids sort their words first thing every day (to build automaticity) and then go on to their other task. So if you notice June 22nd - the teacher is responsible for giving group 1 and introduction to their new words and possibly giving an assessment to group 2. Teacher would begin with group one and then meet with group 2.

Also: It would be a good idea to post some kind of chart with each day and the description of activities. Then, groups numbers can be on a clothespin (or something similar) and kids have a visual of what they will do for the day. I've been looking online for a picture and just can't seem to find one!

Teach routines: Kids have to be taught the routines and procedures for each of the days. So, give your whole class the same sort for a few cycles and focus on teaching kids what the routines look like. Teach them what each day in the cycle is all about - how you meet with the teacher on day 1, how to do the vocabulary activities on day 2 and the word hunting in their Just Right books on day 3. Once you do the routines two or three times, then you'll be ready to complicate things further (for the teacher!) with three different word sorts going on!

Don't assume: As the sorts and the rules become more difficult, your students will most certainly need instruction to understand the phonetic principles, highest group included. You want to make sure all kids in the group can say each word correctly for sorting purposes. It's imperative that the teacher meets with each group on Day 1 - in addition to word pronunciation, you also need to talk about word meanings. This doesn't have to be any big deal - the kids can attempt to sort first if you need to see another group first, and then when you meet with them, they can tell you what they have trouble with. But please, see each group when they are on Day 1 of the cycle!

Connect to your guided reading: It's pretty likely that your word study groups will be different than your guided reading groups, but that doesn't mean that you can't do a little word study investigation within your guided reading. If you know anything about Jan Richardson's plans, part of it includes about 4 minutes of word study. This is a great time to dictate words or sentences (using words from their word sort lists) to do a little assessment of what kids are mastering (or not!). This will give you information about how you can better support the kiddos during your word study time when you meet with groups, too!

I hope this was helpful! If you have ideas how I can enhance something here, I'd love to hear them! Also, feel free to leave a question if something is confusing. Just because it makes sense in my head doesn't mean it does in everyone else's!

I'm also discounting my Word Study Implementation Guide by 50%! Check that out here!

Do you have some great tips and tricks for phonemic awareness or phonics? Be sure to link up with us and share them!

makeover madness!

As school ended this year, I was thinking about all the things I wanted to do this summer, including really working on my Teachers Pay Teachers stuff. Truth be told: I love to write and love to blog. I usually only do TpT stuff when I'm getting ready for a blog hop (side note: there's one this Friday!) and so I don't have lots going on with TpT. But, the #tptsellerchallenge is super motivating and I'm so happy to participate!

I created a Running Record freebie awhile ago and I just uploaded it as is - no cover, no TOU (I didn't even know about any of that stuff until just recently!) So, I've updated the freebie because I'm working on a complete set of running records to put up, too!

My freebie used to be just what you see to the left - just the resources. The thing is, I'm super good with creating quality stuff for TpT, but they don't look cute. So huge shout to Sparkling in Second, Third in Hollywood, Teach, Create, Motivate, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista for hosting!

If you like this freebie, you're going to love the complete collection of Running Records I'm currently working on. I've got the kinder and first grade ones done, and am diligently working on the rest! Stay tuned! And, check out my Running Records Tutorial if you want more information on them!

Have you checked out the #tptsellerchallenge? What are you redesigning this week for Makeover Madness? 

And just a reminder -- The Reading Crew is sponsoring Summer Blog Party beginning this Friday! Seventeen reading specialists share tons of resources for parents and teachers for beating the Summer Slide!

Hope to see you back this weekend!

timely parent engagement

Have you heard about Remind? 

Remind is a free tool for teachers to use to communicate announcements and other information with the parents of the students in their class. Teachers set up a "class" for parents to join and then are able to text parents without anyone sharing their personal phone numbers. Once the class is set up, Remind gives a little image that can be shared with parents to get them enrolled:

This graphic includes a secret number to access the class (in this case 81010) and then a code to text for parents to join.

Teachers share the graphic, parents text in the code, and then they are enrolled in the class updates. I've been using this since October with the parents of my Tiger Blogging Club. I text them once a week to let them know that we will be meeting (or in just a few cases when I had to cancel the meeting). You can set the message to go out right in that moment, or you can schedule it to go out later on. Either way, it's a very convenient way to share information with the parents of my bloggers!

Last week I also sent an additional message:

In this message, I asked parents to take a look at their child's blog and gave the link that has all their blogs listed. I kid you not, within 10 minutes, I was getting emails stating new comments had been left on the children's blogs - comments left by the parents I had just texted! In their research, Todd Rogers states, "What's really cool about this is that the messages reach parents at a time when they can act on them." That was exactly what happened to me last week!

Because of that article I quoted above (which my principal shared with me in November) a colleague and I are teaming up to start Tiger Tips for Parents. We created groups for parents to join - by grade level and by language - and plan on sending out weekly tips to parents at the various grade levels. We're thinking these tips will provide information about literacy, math, and content areas and our PBIS goals. Plus, with the ability to send links, it's an easy way to share great articles or blog posts we find online.

To set this up, we have explained everything on our Emerson Collaborative Blog. We'll share that link on our PTA Facebook page, via twitter, on our school home page, and through emails with parents to get the word out and have parents join. Once we get families enrolled, sharing Tiger Tips will be a piece of cake!

How else are you using Remind? Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions for us as we begin our journey with Tiger Tips for Parents!

growing fluent firsties

It's that time of year again - time for testing. Time for ACCESS for our ELLs and AIMS Web for our kinder and first grade kiddos. As someone who is new to elementary, I've been learning lots - I did ACCESS with kinders and have been looking at the AIMS Web fluency data with our first grade teachers. Today we were able to sit down and brainstorm some ideas for increasing the fluency in our little readers!

source

Of course, we have to start with the data. What follows are two reports we pulled from AIMS Web...

Here is the Tier Transition Report for one of our first grade classrooms:

This report shows the percent of the class at each of the three tiers. When we add the spring scores, we'll be able to compare both triangles (hopefully the Spring one will be all green!)

And below, you can see the Class Distribution by Scores and Levels Report:

In this classroom, we see four kids in Tier 3 and another five in Tier 2. Now that we have this information, what do we do with it?

But before we get there, let's remember that numbers can be deceiving. The report above only tells us how many words were read correct - there is no indication of the inflection of words or a rating on how their reading sounds - too fast? too slow? Like every assessment, there are always limitations, but used in conjunction with others, we can get a bigger picture of the whole child!

So, we've got this data, but now what? What do we do to help children improve their fluency? Here are just a few activities that are easy to implement!

Activities to Build Fluent Readers

Read Aloud
Obviously, firsties need to hear fluent reading every day. If you are not reading aloud to your kiddos, you have to find time to do so. If children never hear how a fluent reader reads, how will they know what kind of reading to mimic? This is only one of the many perks of reading aloud!

Repeated Readings
Another activity is to allow for repeated readings of short texts. This could be a poem or a part of a song or an excerpt from a text you've already read. Repeated Readings allow students to build their automaticity with text and their prosody. Automaticity refers to the ability to read quickly without thinking to much about decoding. Then, when that brain power is freed up, students can spend it thinking about the prosody, or the rhythmic, intoned qualities of the text. Readers read by tending to punctuation, dialog, and even read sentences in chunks, phrasing groups of 3-4 words together that go together. Allowing students to read short texts on a repeated basis allows for practice of inflection!

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Reader's Theater
I'm sure you know all about Reader's Theater - scripts that are built from stories where students all read their "part" like a play. By practicing these together, students can build their automaticity so they can begin to read with inflection. Plus, these are meant to be performed for their classmates, so the Sense of Audience really revs up their engagement!

Tech Time!
If you have access to technology, students can use their devices to record themselves reading. They can do this over time and then reflect on and evaluate their progress. They can also create readings for their peers to listen to! One of my fave bloggers, Colleen over at Literacy Loving Gals also shared a great website today on her Instagram - Vocaroo! This is a website that can be used to record readings and it looks so easy to use!

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as fluency goes - what are your go-to activities to build fluent readers? Let's keep the conversation going...leave me a comment below!

Have a great night!