Updated Anchor Charts

After a conversation with Cheryl and Tony I have updated some of the strategy anchor charts.  Tony brought up the point that when you use the word "good readers,"  any child who doesn't see themselves as "good" might struggle or shut down.  That's application of Marazano and Stiggin's research on effective feedback!  I've changed the charts to say "readers".  The fonts should also work better as well.  ;-)

2nd Grade Learning Targets Menu and Working Document

Here are the 2nd Grade Advanced Reader Learning Targets.  There are links for the menu, which is the one page document, and the working document for us to use as we collect notes on formative assessments and resources.

Tony and Cheryl, thanks for your hard work in putting these together.  If anyone else happens to be looking at these, they were put together with the Common Core Standards, which very similar to our current standards, did take some extra "unpacking."  :-)

2nd Grade Learning Targets
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_VBXnTxMgiVYTY5NWNiZTktYWU2Mi00ZjNhLWFlYWItNDk0ZmU2MTYwNGIx&hl=en&authkey=CIyXyoUM

2nd Grade Learning Targets Menu (one page)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_VBXnTxMgiVOWEzZjY3MzItZDc5NC00MzJjLWJlODAtYTgyNzk2OTQ5MjE5&hl=en&authkey=CLexsIsF

3rd Grade Learning Targets Working Document

Here's the link to the working document for the learning targets.  You can print it off and make notes about formative assessments, resources, and questions.  We'll use this document when we get back together in a month or so.  Please let me know if you have any issues downloading the link.  I can also get you a copy through email.

Angie
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_VBXnTxMgiVMzM3MTQyN2UtNTNkYi00NWMzLTg0ZmEtMjhlZWU2YTA5NzZl&hl=en&authkey=CLKMwpIJ

3rd Grade Advanced Readers Menu of Learning Targets

Ok 3rd Grade Advanced Intervention Teachers!  Here's the working document that we put together last week.  I'm almost out of battery so I'll have to send you the second document (for resources and assessments) tomorrow.  Please remember this is a working document.  If there are confusions....note that!  If you think that the learning targets could be better phrased...write it down to share with the group in a month or so.  Please mark it all up!!

Also, a note on the Common Core Standards that the state just adopted.  I've taken a look at these previously, but I will do another review with our reading targets in mind.  I don't anticipate a ton of modifications, but there may be a few.  I'll do a first comparison and then we can have a discussion about possible changes at a later date.

Let me know how I can help you as you move forward with these targets and kids!

Angie 
 
3rd Grade Advanced Readers - Menu of Learning Targets
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_VBXnTxMgiVMzE4YWYyMzYtY2ZkNi00ZGFkLTk2MGMtYzczNDI2MTIwYzI0&hl=en&authkey=CKiuzagJ

Updates After 3rd Grade Meeting

You gave me a list of to-dos after our 3rd grade advanced meeting.  I've got as many as I can updated on the blog.  If you are having trouble locating something, please let me know and I'll get it to you.  There are a handful of books that I need to get ordered.  After checking the budget and talking with Nicole I'll let you know when they are on the way.

And by the way...THANK YOU so much for such a great day of planning.  You all are so great to work with, we accomplished a TON.  It was so cool to watch you learning from each other what I've been observing in your rooms!  Have a great week.

Angie

3rd Grade Planning Update

Robin generously offered to buy you pizza for lunch!  I'll bring a salad.  Make sure to bring a drink or money for a soda.

Thanks Robin!

Advanced 3rd Grade Teachers Meet Friday!

I'm so excited to be planning with the 3rd Grade Advanced Reading Intervention teachers on Friday.  There are big and exciting plans for the day...at least from my perspective.  For our planning, please bring the following items:
* A resource or lesson that you've used that has really engaged the kids
* Any data that you have on the group (fluency scores, sight words, comprehension information...)
* The two books Strategies That Work and The Cafe Book
* Your lunch.  I'll have some healthy morning snacks and if you like we can order lunch in, but unfortunately I can't buy lunch this time.

We will be meeting at Middleton Heights at 8:00.  Park in the back lot and come in the backdoor.  I'll meet you by the office.

The Beginning...

Well this is a first attempt at keeping teachers and parents better informed on learning targets that we are working on with students and ideas for differentiation.  We hope that it will become a place that will be informative and useful.  Please bear with us as we build this blog and find way to make it most efficient.  Here we go.....

New Year's Goals - For Kids and Teachers!

Cleaning of the Christmas Break I came upon a little book that I have.  It's partially full (room for more) goals that I want to accomplish.  I started back in 2008.  Flipping through it I realized that I'd actually achieved about half of the goals I'd set out to do.  One being to lose weight and the other to travel to Italy I never thought would come so soon.

As I was reading Danielle Mahoney's Blog for Scholastic, I was really impressed with her Argentinian version of goals: Twelve Wishes.  She shows at the link below how to do this with a class, but I also think it's a great idea for teachers as well.

http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2010/12/forget-resolutions-set-twelve-goals-for-the-new-year.html#tp

Building Inference Skills

Seems like I've visited with quite a few teachers this year about colleagues this year about helping kids learn to inference.  Actually, many of us are very good at inferring, but explaining how we know, noticing the clues in the story, and putting all together is the more difficult piece.  Jelena Maxwell has had great success with her advanced third graders using ideas from On Target: Strategies to Help Readers Make Meaning through Inferences.  This study suggested using mysteries to have kids gather clues and their own background knowledge to try to solve the case.  It has been fun to watch them thoroughly engaged and enjoying every minute of learning to infer.  Below is a link to the website where Jelena has found a number of mysteries to use.  Let me know if you'd like a copy of the study listed above.  I'd be glad to send you the attachment.

Learning with Mysteries: The Fun Way to Learn in the Classroom.

Mystery Network ://www.mysterynet.com/learn/

What Harvard Tells Its Freshman about Reading and Studying

Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard

http://hcl.harvard.edu/research/guides/lamont_handouts/interrogatingtexts.html

This article came to my attention while reading Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement, by Harvey and Goudvis.  First, I just love the idea of 'interrogating' the text.  Grilling the text like a detective wringing every late bit of usable information out of a suspect.  And then, when I reviewed the article in full I realized the very real uses this could have (and does have) in our classrooms and what even our youngest students could be practicing as they read to learn and prepare, little by little, to be successful with academic reading. 

Below are the basic tenets of the article and a link  above to read it in full.

1. Previewing: Look “around” the text before you start reading.
"Previewing enables you to develop a set of expectations about the scope and aim of the text. These very preliminary impressions offer you a way to focus your reading."

2. Annotating: “Dialogue” with yourself, the author, and the issues and ideas at stake. 
"...throw away the highlighter in favor of a pen or pencil. Highlighting can actually distract from the business of learning and dilute your comprehension. It only seems like an active reading strategy; in actual fact, it can lull you into a dangerous passivity....Mark up the margins of your text with WORDS...Develop your own symbol system...Get in the habit of hearing yourself ask questions."

3. Outline, summarize, analyze: take the information apart, look at its parts, and then try to put it back together again in language that is meaningful to you.
"The best way to determine that you’ve really gotten the point is to be able to state it in your own words."

4. Look for repetitions and patterns.
"...indications of what an author considers crucial."

5. Contextualize: After you’ve finished reading, put the reading in perspective.
"Your understanding of the words on the page and their significance is always shaped by what you have come to know and value from living in a particular time and place."

6. Compare and Contrast: Fit this text into an ongoing dialogue.
"How has your thinking been altered by this reading or how has it affected your response to the issues and themes of the course?"