Celebrate Student Writing

Celebrate Student Writing

Are you the only audience of your students' writing? If that is the case, it may be time to make some changes.  What do I mean? Students will be delighted knowing that they are writing for a wider audience.

Through writing celebrations, you can accomplish the latter.  As an added bonus, you will see that celebrating student writing adds value to their hard work in writing.

As a teacher, I’m always trying to find ways to keep my students engaged.  If you are struggling to see your students engaged in writing, then maybe it’s time to spice things up a bit! How about taking one day to celebrate writing and acknowledging your writers? You will be surprised at how something as simple and fun as celebrating writing will keep students engaged in writing.

Develop Successful and Confident Writers

One of the ways in which I celebrate student writing is through the presentations of their writing.  After they have shared their writing with the class we allow some time for students in the audience to share what they liked about that student's presentation. Students love to hear others compliment their hard work.  It’s encouraging and it's definitely a confidence booster!

 

We can develop successful and confident writers through something as simple as celebrating finished writing.  There are many unique ways for students to publish their writing and celebrate their final product. After all their hard work brainstorming, mapping out their thoughts and then writing a draft, why not spice up the final step?

 Another way we spice up our final step in writing is by publishing final drafts using the iPad “Pages” app.  Students love to see their final draft typed up.  One thing they love is researching images online that go with their writing and adding them to their final draft.     

While typing final drafts can be a very exciting way to celebrate writing, we also try to spice up final drafts with pencils.  Recently, I introduced our final draft special pencil.  It’s a pencil with a feather taped to the end of it.  This was a unique idea I found while browsing through Pinterest.  Students think it’s a big deal!  They use this pencil to “help” them write very neat.  Not only does it motivate them to use their best handwriting but it’s also a way to celebrate that they are finalizing their work.

I hope you find some of these writing celebration ideas to be useful in your classroom!

Inspiring Minds,

Melissa Hernandez

Help! So many Words

Help! So Many Words...

Teachers need other teachers!  For many of my early years of teaching kindergarten,  I struggled with how to teach my students high-frequency words in a systematic way. It was a daunting task,  and either my students got it or they didn’t. Then…

I went to visit an instructional coach at Vineyard (shout out to Denise Rapa).  I saw a student’s folder and something inside piqued my interest; colorful lists of words in an organized fashion.  I had to learn more!  But first, a little background into why high-frequency words are so important for beginning readers...

Comprehension begins to break down when students are focused on trying to decode or sound out words.

High-frequency words are words that students encounter frequently in reading and writing.  It is critical that readers and writers develop automatic recognition of high-frequency words, a skill that leads to fluency.  Students need to be able to read about 300 high-frequency words "instantly" without hesitation because these words make up 65% of all written material. Many high-frequency words are called "Sight Words".  Sight words do not follow regular phonetic rules.  They do not follow easy spelling patterns (example: cave, save, wave, gave, have).  As a result, these words are more difficult for students to master.  Asking a child to "sound it out" is pointless with this type of word and generally causes increased frustration for beginning and struggling readers.  Young readers need to recognize these words as a "sight word".  In order for students to retain a difficult word, they need many opportunities to experience and manipulate it.  

“The most valuable resource teachers have is each other. Without collaboration, our growth is limited to our own perspectives.”

-Robert John Meehan

The task of teaching high-frequency words to young children can be easily managed when there is an organized system in place!

Had I not seen the Rainbow Words that day, I’d  probably still be struggling. I took it back to my team and we started the system within the month. The first-grade team asked about it. Other school sites asked me about it. Then, the school district had seen the Rainbow Words system be successful at various sites and decided to incorporate it district-wide, however, different schools had different lists. A kindergarten team got together one summer and aligned the then-new Wonders adoption list of 40 high-frequency words in order of introduction (mostly, until you get to the green and blue lists) within the program and tests were added into ESGI for easy assessment.  Color words were added-the yellow list (usually a simple list for students).  All 40 Wonders words are located within the first 6 lists (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). In total, the OMSD 100 Words have 102 words (the remaining words are from the Dolch lists). So much success was found that a 200 list was added (also available in ESGI). I have even made a set of 300 and 400 lists.  Each year, at least ⅔ of my class has mastered the OMSD 100 Lists. I have accommodated some students who struggle and made a 50 list (5 words per list).  I don’t even start the actual system of testing twice per week until after the first parent conferences.  I like to explain to the parents about the system and give them some materials to help their child be successful.  By the time the system starts in my classroom (end of November), most kids can pass the red and orange lists the first week, and they are motivated to learn more. If you read anything here that has piqued your interest, please reach out to me!

Happy and Positive Teaching!

Erin Grebel

Universal Access

Universal Access

Many teachers have a goal to increase student participation, thus increase student achievement. We want students to learn new things, to master the standards, and instill inquiry to further their education. We know that mastery of standards is a very difficult goal to achieve because kids acquire knowledge in different ways and take educational leaps at their own pace. But we, as educators, should keep HOPE alive in the classroom and know that our students will achieve mastery according to their potential. How do we do this? We teach subjects having Universal Access Time, but what does that exactly mean? Universal Access in education is a concept that encompasses planning for the widest variety of learners from the beginning of the lesson design process; it should not be “added on” as an afterthought. (California Mathematics Framework, Page 661 Universal Access, CA Department of Education)

Universal Access is a time to engage all learners in differentiated instruction.

As we monitor and assess our students, we begin to identify their learning needs and can begin planning instruction to meet those needs. I try to have Universal Access time for both Language Arts and Math, but being that TIME is my worst enemy in education it is difficult to maintain consistency in both. I take the more important one for me, which is Language Arts because I truly believe that reading is the foundation of all learning. With education becoming more rigorous, we now see more reading and writing in the math curriculum as well, hence even if our students are high achieving mathematical learners, but can’t read and write, they will become discouraged and lose focus in the math curriculum as well. 

Teachers in the most exciting and effective differentiated classrooms don’t have all the answers. What they do have is optimism and determination. ~Carol Ann Tomlinson

I plan for Language Arts UA time, five days a week for one hour per day. As a grade-level, we teach routines and procedures for the first couple of weeks of school, thus students should know where to find the essential classroom resources (in case Mrs. Sanchez ever goes missing).  During this time we begin to assess our students using a Phonics Diagnostic, Fry’s Sight Words, and Scholastic Reading Inventory along with Wonders’ Fluency and Comprehension passages. Yes, it takes A LOT of time (about 2 weeks total), it may not seem like a lot, but with the curriculum pacing, it really is. Now don’t get me wrong, the time is well worth it! Yes, more independent work will be done, whole class, but you will get to know each child in your class on a one-on-one basis; you will know their needs and conferencing with goal-setting (mapping our small steps to success in 4th grade) will be facilitated through the process.

After the assessments and conferencing, my grade-level team meets to discuss student achievement levels and group them accordingly. We aim for 4-5 groups, making sure that we meet the ratio of 8:1 or less. I then go back to my class and teach about the importance of TEAMWORK (you can read about this in one of my earlier blogs). The students realize that no matter what occupation you choose in life, we will always work in teams. They realize that they ALL have unique talents they will add to their team, that can lead to having specific roles in the team, but most importantly know that they will not agree on everything. We learn that there may be problems in our small group time, but we learn about respecting one another and agree to disagree; focusing on the goal and not on the problem.          For one month after the assessments have been done and teams have been set, I sit down with one group per day and lead group discussions(that also lead to a writing assignment), all pertaining to the theme of the week. We have good academic discourse where we add positive feedback and ask pertinent questions. Throughout this time, you are modeling positive leader characteristics and continue to reinforce the importance of teamwork in achieving a common goal. The on-level/beyond teams will begin to be very independent, while your approaching teams may need guidance. By then, you will realize, “This is it! I achieved my goal with Universal Access groups!” While my independent groups receive instruction and just go with, I am able to provide 30 minutes of intervention to my struggling learners. The attention provided and collaborative effort now provides greater chances of academic success. Stay tuned for my February Blog, in which I will give you examples of what each group does during Language Arts Universal Access. Live, Love, Teach! Hilda Sanchez

Leveled Readers Online (Technology)

Maximize Wonders ConnectED

and Leveled Readers

As the year has gone by and I have had wonderful visitors come into my room to observe Universal Access, a question that keeps coming up is, “How do your students access their appropriate leveled reader online?” This post is to show just how to do it!

Not enough leveled readers in your library?  Well, why not assign it digitally and then ALL of your students can have access.

We all know how important, critical, and crucial reading is at all grade levels and ages.  It is also vital that students are reading texts that are most appropriate to help build their skills.  Wonders Online provides four different leveled readers for students to access.  The Lexile range is based on, “Approaching Grade Level, On Grade Level, Beyond Grade Level, and English Language Learner.” You can find exact Lexile levels for each book on the back or by clicking “details” next to the book online in your “Resource Library.” It is these levels that some teachers may not realize you can specifically assign to your students so that they can individually get what they need.  Click this link (directions) to follow the steps on how.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” --Dr. Seuss

What can you do with leveled readers in the classroom?

Once you have assigned the leveled reader to your students, they can then hear a complete audio version of it (great for intervention).  Students can type in and answer all the comprehension questions directly into the book, and the great thing is, you can see their answers on your end under the “Binder” drop-down.  Click here to see directions on how to do that.  I use my leveled readers during my Universal Access time the most.  Allowing my students to access these online has been a game changer!  You can also use them as supplemental text during your week, literature circles, text for students to take home and read, or just extra text for your fast readers.   The possibilities are endless.  I hope this helps and if you have any questions, please let me know below!  Happy reading!

Tech-ing with a purpose,  

Tiffani Bossieux