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tyylee - Hi, Alison and Amethyst. What is the Reading Recovery topic tonight?
Mary/PA - We can talk about any RR topic
Mary/PA - We didn't set a topic last time
Amethyst - Can we talk about selecting a focus for lessons?
Mary/PA - Amethyst, selecting a focus is a good topic. I always look over the rr to see what the child didn't do that he should have
tyylee - I like to look at my Running Records and Writing and see what the child needs to learn to do or is not doing that he/she should do and make that the focus of my lesson.
Mary/PA - How are lessons going?
Amethyst - I had my second lesson today, I haven't been within thirty min. yet
Mary/PA - Amethyst, that's a struggle we all have
tyylee - Finally had a break through last week and my two lowest children are finally really looking at the print and starting to make letter/sound connections. It is about time since this is week 9.
Mary/PA - tyylee, some kids do hang on to their old ways very tightly and it takes them a long time to let go...I'm glad your kids are doing this now.
Alison - Whoo Tyylee, I've been worried about the same thing with my two lowest. There is hope. We are in week 6.
Amethyst - Mary, Have you ever worked with guided reading groups?
Mary/PA - Amethyst, only as a regular classroom teacher.
Amethyst - and this focus should stretch across the lesson?
tyylee - Amethyst, I teach guided reading or Literacy Groups the other half of my day.
Gigi/MO - Amethyst--So do I!!
Amethyst - OK,... I have so many questions, I know I'm jumping from one concern to another.
tyylee - The Focus should be something like using Beginning Sounds, or Using Meaning Cues, or Looking at the endings on words rather than specific sounds or letters. This was it is easier to carry through the whole lesson.
Mary/PA - Amethyst, yes. If your focus is to look at print, you would be prompting "What do you expect to see?" "Does it look right?" "Get your mouth ready." ... things that draw the child's attention to looking
Amethyst - Light bulb moment, thank you tyylee
Gigi/MO - Amethyst--Fire away with the questions!! Hope we can help!!
Amethyst - There are so many prompts to use in RR, I don't remember using so many different ones in guided reading.
Mary/PA - We prompt for the use of strategies.
Amethyst - It's taking a while for me to select one, I need to refer back to the daily running records.
tyylee - the longer I teach RR and Literacy Groups the more I find my prompts carry over, especially when I teach present or former RR students in my groups. A also use the prompts when I do the Running Record Child of the day as a part of my Literacy Group time
Amethyst - I feel like I'm constantly interrupting and perhaps not waiting long enough for my student to respond.
Mary/PA - Look at what the child is and is not doing, strategy wise.
Gigi/MO - It is very hard to give some wait/think time but sometimes when you do they DO figure it out!!
tyylee - Ah, the age old problem of mine, knowing when to give the child time to think and process. Sometimes I write a note to myself on my plans to ''Give time to think!"
Gigi/MO - I think there is a fine line between helping them be fluent but yet giving them some think time TOO!!
Mary/PA - You have to be sure that the child is actually thinking...not sitting and waiting for you to tell...prompt for quicker attempts
tyylee - I find I do better when I keep my eyes focused on the plan paper and not on the child. It encourages the child to look at the print for help, not at me.
Alison - Mary, do you have a good prompt for quicker attempts?
Gigi/MO - Tyylee--I agree!!
Mary/PA - Also, be sure the child has a plan of attack...knows what to do and how to do it. With the kids that we work with, this has to be taught explicitly..they often don't come up with this on their own the way the children who are not having reading and writing problems do.
Student - Hello, i am a senior in high school, and i need information on the topic "a day in the life" of an elementary teacher! Can anyone help me out??
tyylee - I find that my children tend to try one thing and if that doesn't work they are stuck. I have to teach and reteach them to use a variety of strategies.
Mary/PA - "Do something.", "What do you see?", or I make the beginning sound, or I point to the beginning of the sentence and tell them to give it another run. - If the wait time seems to not be going anywhere. If the child is doing something, wait, unless what he is doing is reinforcing a bad habit or unproductive behavior.
Gigi/MO - Mary--I agree with you too!! And most of the time, they have to be told to do something more than 2-3 times!! I think I want them to know it after a few times and after all Why do we have the students that we do? Probably because they haven't just PICKED IT up!!
Student - Can anyone just give me a brief overview of a real teacher's morning, afternoon, and night? I know some of this but i need actual research as well!
Gigi/MO - tyylee-Guess we were thinking along the some lines!!
Alison - I have a question regarding the prompt "Does it make sense?" May I ask it?
Alison - Have any of you ever worked with a child who appears to not understand what that means? If so, what did you say?
tyylee - Try ' Did that sound right? Or would we say it that way?
Gigi/MO - Sometimes I say--Would you say it that way?
tylee - Or did that sound ok or did it sound silly. I agree, some children don't understand 'did that make sense"
Frog - I sometimes say "Can you understand it, or can you explain it to me- then they realize it does or doesn't make sense.
Gigi/MO - tylee--We are right together with each other tonight, aren't we?
Alison - The child is 6. Ah, Tylee...Good. When I say "Did that sound right?" She responds to the structure.
Mary/PA - Alison, I have 3 students now how have very weak/low oral language skills. They don't know if something makes sense. Their language consists of hims instead of his, twisted around sentence structure and the like. For these children it helps to give them choices..eg. Which sounds right..."He took hims dog for a walk." or He took his dog for a walk."
Gigi/MO - I often have kids that say IT did "sound right" when it didn't!!
Alison - This little one is a fluent English speaking Hispanic child . I speak enough Spanish to help her comprehend most of what she does not understand. However, the phrase "Does that make sense?" really doesn't translate well. Keep those ideas coming. I'll try them.
Frog - Especially with my little ones- 'Can we make it sound better works'
tylee - I find that sometimes just reading it back to them the way they read it helps them to hear that it doesn't sound right and needs to be fixed.
tylee - Try ' Did that sound right? Or would we say it that way?
Mary/PA - Alison, can you think of an example when this came up in a lesson?
Frog - Sometimes- depending on the text- you can question the child's sentence structure by poking fun and ask what a hims is
Alison - Gosh, Mary, I'll try. I don't have my records here. I'll need some think time.
tyylee - I should be going, six o"clock will be here before I know it and I need my 'beauty rest'. Goodnight all.
Alison - I'm drawing a blank here, but it would be something similar to this... The car sat on the mat. It is not a vocabulary issue. When I ask her if that makes sense, she just nods. I'm not sure she know what the phrase does that make sense means.
Mary/PA - One of my kids would do things like read, "I wave to my friend the driver truck." instead of "I wave to my friend the truck driver." She didn't notice that is didn't sound right, make sense or look right. She hasn't done this since she has gotten better at looking at print. She will have to rely more on the visual cues because her own language is so weak.
Frog - I struggle with sentence structure also, but my kids write 1-2 sentences a day to start the day and I model, repeat, practice, and correct for the first 10 min. of my class- I would say that with more practice and exposure to written language as verbal language- she will improve
Mary/PA - Alison, so what she says looks very close to the word she should have said...What would she say if you had her tell you about the picture?
Frog - I also say sometimes- if I walked up to you on the street and said that- would you know what I was talking about? That helps when you can divert the sentence to mean something other than the intent
Frog - What a great idea- Dictated stories from pictures for the little Hispanic child Alison
Alison - She is very accurate in talking about the picture. The words may or may not look very similar in structure, but I have to prompt her to look at the picture again when she makes these errors.
Mary/PA - I have to go, thanks for coming
Alison - Oh, Frog. I like that one. Thanks for all your help. I must go too.
