Partner Reading

This week we started Partner Reading in Daily 5 (finally!) We went over why we Partner Read (to practice fluency, check comprehension, learn from each other etc...) and how to do it (sit EEKK, read the whole time, each student read book at their just right level etc...)

I hate to say that I was expecting it to not go very smoothly.

I mean, first week back from Spring Break? First week back with their classroom teacher vs. student teacher?

Not the best odds for a whiz bang showing.

But, they surprised me!!!! It went like clockwork.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

They were all beyond excited to get to read with a partner and I hardly had to do any re-teaching at all. Yay!

Check out how the boys above are reading.

Sitting EEKK (elbow to elbow and knee to knee).

Focusing on the other student while s/he is reading.

Book boxes on outside of their bodies.

Practicing "Do you want help or a hint?"

They were so into it. They were practicing "I Read, You Read" where each student reads one page and then the other reads one page.

It. Was. Awesome.

Go readers!!!!!

Cheers!

Olwyn

Book Boxes Have Arrived!!!!

Earlier this week, we chose and filled our Book Boxes for the start of our reading life in Division 13.

Now, I haven't yet had the opportunity to test all the students for their "just right level" for reading but that isn't going to stop us from looking at and reading books!

Students got to choose a book box (I found some really nice ones at Dollorama for a great price! Gotta love Dollorama!), decorated their name label and then chose 5 books to read/look at during reading time.

Tomorrow we start Read to Self using the Daily 5 training techniques. It will be long, tedious work but totally worth it in the end when students are working independently and I can work with small groups and one-to-one on reading.

 

 

Happy Reading!!!!

 

 

Ms. Hughes

 

 

p.s. The class got to 3 minutes of quiet read to self today! Yay!!!! The first time we only got to 45 seconds before someone was off task but the second time (after another review of expectations) we made it to 3 and could have probably kept going (I wanted to stop with success!) The goal? 20 minutes of independent reading by Day 18. Fingers crossed!!!!

So, I keep having people ask me how it is going in the new school. Well, does this quote give you an idea? (Just kidding!!!)  Although there were a couple moments on that first day....

What can I say? This week has brought lots of changes, new routines in a new space, trying to apply old routines in a new space, dealing with the (ever constant) talking when they need to be listening (same old, same old!!!!), not being able to find things because they are still packed in a box somewhere and not enough sleep!

As to the actual physical space...I love it! It is open and bright. The spaces just call out to be used (although they also call out to be run in which we are working on!) I feel good when I am in them. It feels all shiny and new like a Christmas present the day you first open it.  I am loving having the use of two spaces each morning. And am so looking forward to teaching the other divisions starting next week.

Of course, I still have a lot of boxes to empty and I haven't quite wrapped my head around the schedule (or where everything is stored) but I know it will come in time. After all, it took many, many weeks to pack up. It will take as long (or longer) to unpack!

I just hope we can keep it looking shiny and new for a long time. I have already had to send out a plea for boxes of baby wipes. It is the one thing I can think of that will be safe for the kids to use to clean off their puzzle piece carpet each day. And I am needing a broom desperately. Suddenly we can see all the dirt and muck that the kids were tromping into the old building. Only there it was hidden by the carpet! YUCK! Now, it is just there to see. I am thinking that indoor shoes (slippers with rubber soles or slip on runners with velcro) are going to be the way to go. Clean shoes, clean floors. At least in theory!!!

Today we did read to self for 16 minutes during Daily 5 time. Students were reading in the yellow studio, the DaVinci studio and the Community Commons. It was really cool to see! And they were on task (for the most part) so I managed to test a student yesterday and today! Woohoo! I should have the RAZ kids set up by Halloween. Tomorrow we are going to start doing another area of Daily 5: Word Work. We are starting with work on our spelling words thus far. (Speaking of spelling words...Our review week pretty much bit the dust. Not enough time or energy. We will go to week 7 next week) I saw this great storage system for Word Work on the blog Seusstastic today. I wonder where I can get one? I need it!!!!!

 



I won't lie and say that this move has been all wine and roses (though I will admit that there has been wine involved every evening upon returning home!) but, overall, it has gone more smoothly than it could have. So, thank you to all the families who have helped to make the transition smooth for the children (and teachers!) Keep checking in because there is more to come in the next few days. That day of costumes and candy is fast approaching!!!!

Ms. Hughes

 

Friday Favourites

Again on a Saturday! This is becoming a very bad habit!

This has been a long week! What with the move so close and all, I am pretty darn tired and not sure if I can think of one thing to tell about this past week (much less five!!!) but I'll give it the old college try!

1. Creating our math glyph about our feelings regarding leaving the old school and moving into the new school. I took some photos (sorry about the blur!) of the charts and a few of the finished glyphs.

 

Aren't they wonderful? I was so pleased with how they turned out. I put them up for the walkabout tour today and they are fab! Please check them out when you come to school on Monday and see if you can figure out which one YOUR child made!

2. The final walkabout for the old school. It was such a great turn out. I met a lovely lady who was in grade 1 in 1936! She had such wonderful stories!!! Did you know that they used to have a gramophone outside the office to get the kids back to class after recess? Apparently they came marching back in to a song called "Captain Boogie"!

3. The cardboard box "classrooms" the kids are creating. We made charts of needs/wants for our new class. I was very surprised to hear that the students think centres are a want and not a need. I, for one, think that centres are a need in grade 1. Learning through play is vitally important at this age.

4. Enjoying the last of the sunny days before the weekend rain started. It was really nice to be able to take the class out for a play on Thursday afternoon.

5. Learning how to do Partner Reading for our Daily 5 time. We have gotten to 5 minutes! It will be back to Daily 5 Boot Camp once we get into the new building but I am very pleased with the progress so far!

Have a happy weekend!

Ms. Hughes

Daily 5...

What is it? And why do I use it?

I have been using the Daily 5 model to teach reading for around 5 years. When I first started (after being fortunate enough to attend a day long workshop with the two sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, who created it) I followed it to the letter. Bought the book. Joined the website. Joined Yahoo groups just for Daily 5. Wore the t-shirt. Used the pompoms. You get the idea. 

But, as the years have passed, I have kept what I loved, thrown out the rest and added in a bunch of my own methods and techniques for teaching reading. I was already using teaching methods that were successful for teaching reading. I didn't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. It works for me and it has worked with the classes I have taught.

The aspect from the Daily 5 that I have loved from the very start is the way that they train the kids to be independent and build stamina. I have talked a bit about this before (remember my "teaching routines can be mind numbingly boring " post?) and, just like every other routine, getting the kids to meet expectations and criteria in Daily 5 is a slow but oh, so necessary step in the learning process.

We start by creating an anchor chart with expectations and criteria for Read to Self. The one below is one I found on pinterest (there are A LOT of teachers out there using Daily 5!!) and is pretty much what ours looks like (just prettier!)



Then we practice meeting the criteria. I have a student come up and demonstrate doing meeting all of the criteria correctly. Then (and this is key) I pick a student to come up and show us doing it wrong. Well, you can bet I have a lot of volunteers for this one! They all want the chance to not do what I want them to do!!!!

The Sisters say to pick the child in the class that you expect to have the hardest time following the criteria. I call that student up and they read to self all wrong - books are upside down, they wiggle around, they talk to everyone, they stand up, etc etc etc. THEN I immediately ask the same student to show the class meeting the criteria correctly. And, whamo!, just like that each and every child in the class (including the one demonstrating) knows that this child (who usually has trouble during group activities - talks, distracts others etc) CAN read to self properly. Everyone can do it. This is very powerful stuff.

Then all the kids go off to practice read to self and build their reading muscles! I make sure that everyone has chosen a good spot where they can be successful and then the timer starts. On day 1 this year we got to 30 seconds before someone in the room did not meet the criteria. This means that they either talked to someone, stood up and moved, stopped reading etc.

The second (and I mean the very second) that someone stops following the criteria I stop the entire class. We put our book boxes away, come back to the carpet and start all over again. Review the criteria. Have someone demo it properly. Have someone else demo doing it wrong and then properly. Choosing our spots again. Starting the timer. Stopping again the second someone stops meeting the criteria. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

We have been working on this for a week and a half or so and have now gotten to 5 minutes of independent, on task reading to self. I mentioned it in my Friday Favourites this past Friday. If you read that you might not have realized how much of an accomplishment getting to 5 minutes was! We had to practice read to self for about 3 hours to get to that 5 minutes!

This week I am hopeful that we will get to 10 minutes. I might be expecting too much but I am getting so impatient! I really want to be able to start working with individual children so that I can begin doing reading assessments and helping them to grow as readers. But I know, know that I have to keep it slow and steady and we will get there. Eventually.

Of course, once we are at 10 minutes with read to self, we will then continue to build time until we get to 20 minutes. And, then we will start practicing word work or partner reading the same way we started read to self. Model, model, model, try, model again, try again ad nauseum until it becomes second nature.

This goes on for each of the Daily 5 areas (I actually don't do all five - I like to do writing as a separate lesson) that we learn. I am thinking I need to come up with some other name for what I do than Daily 5 since, with the exception of the method of training kids to be independent workers, I am really not up to date on what the Sisters are doing in Daily 5 these days. I will have to think of a new acronym for my reading program. Any ideas?

Ms. Hughes

Finally Some Photos!!!!

It seems that I promised a life time ago to post some photos of our word work activities. I finally managed to remember to bring my camera home from work to download photos.

Last week was the first full week where they had to use the tic-tac-toe word work sheets. Since we missed one day of Daily 5, I let them only do 2 jobs on the board instead of 3. Every day at the start of Daily 5 I did my little spiel about how they needed to go to word work and get two jobs done. Even with me telling them EVERY single day to get the jobs done or they wouldn't get choosing time on Friday, I still had 15 students who had not completed their work. Some of them had spent over an hour at word work during the week and gotten NOTHING done!!! Not even one job or even half of a job done! Nada! Zippo! How is that even possible?

Ohmigoodness, I am convinced that the majority of the class just heard blah, blah, blah, word work, blah, blah blah!!!!!  I could have just torn my hair out and screamed when I was marking the Daily 5 books. I mean, what were they doing all week?!?!

The shock on their faces Friday morning when they realized that I was dead serious about taking away their choosing time was priceless. And the speed at which some of them started doing their word work this week was pretty funny, too! My fingers are crossed that I will not have to take away any choosing this Friday.

So, what does word work look like these days? Well we are doing jobs that require specific words using our weekly words (this week they are all with short vowel e). The tic-tac-toe sheet looks like this:

The words on this one are the more difficult level words.

Short vowel e at the beginning or inside words.

Here is a sampling of the work sheet options:

Rainbow  Writing

Clipboard Cruising

Shopping for Words

Stamp A Word

Boggle

This week we will be learning how to do Super Sentences and Magnet Words. Students will then be able to make a tic-tac-toe in three different directions.

In other subject areas, today the grade 2's started their interviews for Social Studies. One of our learning outcomes is to learn about the roles and responsibilities of people who work in our school. To that end the grade 2's have been in project teams for a week preparing questions to ask in their interviews. Today 3 teams did interviews. We had interviews with one of our kindergarten teachers, the principal and the vice-principal. Everyone did an awesome job! I am videoing the interviews so that the class can watch themselves later. I was so proud of how they all conducted themselves while our guests were visiting.

We did some really fun art today around the story Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner.

We did pictures of snowmen doing different activities at night using oil pastels then we wrote about what they were doing. They turned out great! The imaginations in our class are pretty stellar. We had snowmen golfing, racing cars, playing wii, skating and more. I will upload photos soon but, in the meantime, I am going to do a bulletin board beside the office to show them off.

Anywho, that is it for now. I am off to eat some dinner and scour pinterest for more ideas. I swear it is more addictive than caffeine!

Ms. Hughes

A Word About Word Work

Last week we learned some new word work activities to do during Daily 5 in preparation for beginning Word Work Tic-Tac-Toe. (I forgot my camera today but will take pics to post soon so you can see what each activity looks like.)

Today students got their first Word Work Tic-Tac-Toe page. The tic-tac-toe board looks like this:

Find as many words as you can that have the same letter in them. Clipboard Cruising	Word Work Game Play a word work game with a friend.	Magnet Words Build your spelling words using magnets.
Rainbow Words Print your spelling words using a different colour for each letter.	Stamp each of your spelling words one time. Stamp A Word	Scoop & Spell Take one scoop of beans. Make as many words as you can. Print the words on the worksheet.
Shopping For Words Print each of your words. Figure out the cost of each letter and word. Then finish the worksheet.	Super Sentences Write a sentence for each of your spelling words. Use details!	Boggle Words Use the boggle game to get your letters. Make as many words as you can.

Except the tic-tac-toe board the kids have has pictures to go with each item on the board. It didn't copy over for some reason. Oh well! 

Beside the tic-tac-toe board is a list with this week's words on it. The list has 10 words - 8 regular words and 2 challenge words. This week all students are working on words with a short vowel a sound (as in cat and dad). I know that the words are going to be too easy for some students.  As time goes on, students will likely have different lists so that they can work on attributes of words that are relevant to their developmental level. For the next few weeks, though, we will all be doing the same lists as we learn how the Word Work Tic-Tac-Toe system works.

During Daily 5, students are now required to complete one row of tic-tac-toe word work each week. They have to do the activities using this week's words unless it is an activity where they make up words (like Boggle) or search for words (like Clipboard Cruising). Some weeks there will be different tic-tac-toe choices such as alphabetical order or word sorts etc.

As a supplement to the word work in class, I have signed up to use the website Spelling City. At the end of the day today I showed the class how to get to our word list on this site. Here are the steps:

1. Google Spelling City (or click on the link above)

2. Go to Spelling City - it is the first link that shows up when you google it

3. Click on Find A List

4. Search for the list by entering my name Olwyn Hughes

in the search box. Make sure that the second box says you are searching by teacher name!

5. Click on my name at the bottom of the screen. It will be in bright blue.

6. Go to the box that says Vocabulary and Spelling Lists (it is about half way down the page)

7. Click on the list you want.

Spelling City has lots of activities. Students can take a test, practice flash cards and play games to practice their words. Students need to make choices from the Free Choices column (I do not have a premium membership).

When you follow the instructions above, you will see that right now there is only one list (Short Vowel A) but we will be having a new set of words every Friday afternoon. I will do my best to have the students write their list into their planners each week (we didn't do that this week as I was sick last Friday).

The goal with these word lists is NOT to have students memorize words and take a test once a week. The goal is for students to practice using words that follow different word patterns and then assimilate that learning into their reading and writing. I will not be giving a weekly quiz. If your child really wants to take a quiz, then I suggest they do the test on Spelling City on Thursday evening each week before getting the new week's words on Friday afternoons.

The class was very excited to get their first Word Work Tic-Tac-Toe board today and I am hoping that they will find Spelling City to be another fun way to practice learning more about word patterns.

Thanks for all your support at home!

It is funny how 4 day teaching weeks seem significantly longer than the regular 5 day week. Maybe it is because we are trying to jam even more stuff in? Or maybe it is just indicative of my needing to sleep more!!!!!

We made a Halloween project with our grade 4 buddies last Monday. I have seen these before and they always look so difficult to do. Imagine my surprise when I learned how easy they are to make!

We have also been very busy learning more Word Work activities in Daily 5. We are now doing the following:
 - word sorts

This is the simple version where the students cut and paste (or copy) the given words into the correct columns. We were doing a vowel sort this week.

This is an example of a student working beyond the basic activity. She has looked all around the room and in books to find as many words as she can for the vowel sort.



- word tally

Students choose a book and then read it, making a tally mark every time they find one of the words on the list. Eventually, I will have them create their own word choices but, right now, I am giving them basic sight words to find.



I have also introduced building new words using the letters from another word but forgot to take pics. Next week we will start clipboard cruising and probably stamping words.

In math, we did a glyph this week. It is a scarecrow glyph. I like to do it in the fall. It makes such a great wall display! And gives me such a good indication of which students have good listening skills and which ones need work!

Well, that is it for now. Have a great weekend!

 

Ms. Hughes

Introducing C.A.F.E.

Today we learned about the Reading C.A.F.E. in Daily 5. I have it up on a board that looks like this... It is the "menu" of reading strategies that good readers use all the time. I want the class to be aware of the strategies and start to see which ones they are good at and which ones they need work on.

C is for Comprehension. A is for Accuracy & Awareness. F is for Fluency. E is for Expanding Vocabulary. I have wanted to add this dimension to the Daily 5 ever since I first read about it on the Daily 5 site. I have had the best of intentions each year but somehow have just never got it together. Well, this year is THE year!

We learned about two strategies today for Comprehension. One is the Picture Walk which readers do to determine if they are interested in a picture book and also to give them a hint of what the story might be about. This strategy is one of the prediction strategies.

And we started to learn about the 5 Reading Powers. We started with the strategy of making text to self connections. I read the story Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by JudithViorst and shared my connections with the class. It is hard to get the idea of us "thinking about our thinking" but it is so important to put our thinking into words to help us be better readers.

The class all liked me sharing stories about my childhood that came up as my connections. I loved the chorus of "me, too" that I heard when I was telling them about my sneaky older brother who would tease me until I yelled and then I would get sent to my room while he just sat there looking innocent!!!! Obviously the sibling relationship hasn't changed all that much in 30 years!

Tomorrow I am going to re-read the story and have the class give their connections. I know that they were already thinking of them because so many hands went up when the story was finished. They were not happy to have to wait a whole day to hear the story and get their turn but the bell was about to ring and lunch was calling!

I am loving, loving, loving how into reading this group is. Reading has always been such a huge part of my life and I love being able to share that love with my students. The world may be moving towards books on computer devices but I don't think that anything can ever replace the feeling of holding a book in your hands and feeling like the author is speaking right to you. Of flipping through the pages as fast as you can read because you can't wait to find out how it ends. Of walking through a library and seeing all the wonderful book spines just waiting for you to reach for them and pull them out. Nothing can beat the feeling of reading a book. Nothing. 

Ms. Hughes

We set a record today!

For the first time since I have been using the Daily 5 structure for our reading block, a class has reached 20 minutes of reading independently in 4 days! WOW!!!!!

What a difference it makes having grade 2's in the class. The stamina that they have built up in grade 1 is great. They are wonderful role models for the grade 1's. I was able to pull three of the grade 1's to do a letter recognition and phonological awareness assessment. Soon we will be able to start guided reading groups! Usually we are well into October before we reach this point. I can feel already that this year is going to be an awesome year for Daily 5!

Ms. Hughes

First Day of Daily 5

Yesterday we had a mini - lesson on picking books for our book boxes. We learned the I PICK chant. Check out another class doing it here:

It was really cute watching the kids all trying to follow the other kids in the video.

Then we went and picked books. I have not put out my levelled books yet so students are choosing from the wide variety of picture and chapter books in the class. We have been learning about the three ways to read. Those that can read words are doing so and those that are beginning readers are practicing reading the pictures. They are keeping their books in these great boxes that I recycled from my Dad's office.

They will easily hold all of their reading books, poetry journal and guided reading bags. We decorated two 8 1/2" by 11" sheets of paper and glued them on the outside to personalize them.

Today we started Read to Self. The class did a great job! We got to 5 minutes with all of them staying in one spot the whole time, starting to read right away, reading the whole time and being very quiet. The goal is to get to 20 minutes of doing read to self. They already have more stamina than most classes so we will most likely meet our goal fairly quickly. The sooner that they are able to do this independently, the sooner I will be able to start working one on one with students assessing their reading levels. I already have a pretty good idea of where they each are but I would like to do a formal assessment to help with making the groups for guided reading.

Ms. Hughes