I have been using making words to supplement my school's very lacking spelling program. This is the first year I have been allowed to scrap the spelling program and use making words. I have had some complaints from parents that insist their child needs to have a spelling word list each week and be tested on the words each week. I send home the weekly word wall list and have explained how making words works. What else can I do to help parents understand that making words is an effective tool to teach spelling? The complaints are coming from parents with children that are poor spellers to begin with. I've tried to explain that I work with children based on their level and that a spelling list will not make them a master speller.
On 11/13/07, t wrote: > I have been using making words to supplement my school's > very lacking spelling program. This is the first year I > have been allowed to scrap the spelling program and use > making words. I have had some complaints from parents that > insist their child needs to have a spelling word list each > week and be tested on the words each week. I send home the > weekly word wall list and have explained how making words > works. What else can I do to help parents understand that > making words is an effective tool to teach spelling? The > complaints are coming from parents with children that are > poor spellers to begin with. I've tried to explain that I > work with children based on their level and that a spelling > list will not make them a master speller. > > Help, what can I do?
First of all, are the poor spellers getting BETTER? It is easier to communicate to your parents the effectiveness of your curriculum if you have actual data to back you up. ARe you assessing spelling, and how are you doing it? There are many ways to assess spelling beyond the weekly test. Are you keeping this data in a way that shows progress? If you have the data and have organized it into some type of line graph or run chart to show parents how their child's spelling is improving, I would recommend that you highlight this in your parent communication.
Second, if the poor spellers are not getting better, then perhaps your curriculum is not systematic enough. Relying on Making Words and Making Words alone is often not enough. THere are many other spelling activities you will find in the Month by Month books and Phonics They Use that will help with this. You may even need to pull these poor spellers together for a more intensive group in a time outside the blocks.
If you can provide even more details, we can provide more help.
Hi, I am desperately searching for book report ideas. I am a new english/ history teacher, and I am wondering what some of you do for book reports. I was thinking along the lines of assigning a points value to certain books, and the students have to read a certain number of points through out the year. I am lost however on how to keep track. Should they be writing reports, which to be honest I do not want to wade through, or would 3x5 cards be sufficient? If anyone has any ideas, I would welcome them all. Thanks, Bonnie
So we finally decided to adopt it school wide, k-6. Now we just need to know what books to get. I have a few upper grades books, Month-By-Month for the Upper Grades and Making Big Words, but I don't see many more books for the Big Blocks... any ideas?
I've looked on the Carson-Dellosa website and hardly saw anything. Is there another place these are available? Also the sequential phonics books are not on the website, just the month-by-month. We want to look at both. I just have the sequential prefix and suffix book, and the month-by-month for 1-3.
Thanks for the help! I am really excited that we are doing this. No more basal! No more TE with a script!
Do you have an sample K-5 schedules for a school with four classes per grade level. SR On 12/05/07, yippee! wrote: > Where are you located? > > On 12/05/07, deb wrote: >> I am on the website as a trainer. If you are interested in contacting me >> my email me at: >> >> [email removed]
We have been a 4 Blocks district for years and have had great success. Now we are having to implement RTI and everything we have done 4 Blocks wise is slowly being squeezed out.
I wish that my fellow teachers would read this along with our reading coach. Our RTI is using the 3 tier Reading First program and taking 1 hour out of the day for us. We(the regular and sped teachers) are to teach the different groups or tiers of students within that one hour for more intensive reading instruction. There are biweekly monitoring tests(Dibels) and semester tests (Dibels) given and adjustments made to the tiers and students based on the results of the tests but the hour out of our day along with 35 minutes each day for flex classes (PE, library, computer lab, art/music), and 30 minutes for lunch and another required 90 minutes noninterrupted Reading time interfers with a good four blocks schedule. I love 4 blocks and have been doing it for years but this year RTI has thrown a kink into it.
On 1/06/08, deb wrote: > Stephanie, I thought I was agreeing with you and honoring your response. > Sorry to sound like I wasn't! Chatboards are often a hard way to > communicate. deb
I agree that because we can't really hear the tone of a written message, we might misunderstand. I just didn't want you to think that I was disagreeing (Ha!) I guess this could go on forever. I might add some words about DIBELS, after reading another post: Many schools are now using it as their main, and often only data! I find this disturbing, because my good readers want to bring meaning to what they read, so of course, they will slow down at times as they are monitoring their comprehension. I have had many a third grade student be identified as "emergent readers" based on DIBELS who are reading books at a 5th and 6th grade level. One of my "fastest" readers struggles with meaningful comprehension. Some teachers in my district actually beat on the table to get the kids to read more quickly. The sad thing is, many folks are beginning to equate fluency with speed, devoid of phrasing, emphasis, and understanding. Oh well...off the subject, but some RTI approaches are using this tool without looking at other ways to assess what students are doing as they read and how we can specifically meet their needs.
Could anyone give me a name of a school or schools doing all of the Four blocks? We are thinking about doing this at my school. We would like to send some teachers for a visit.
On 12/04/07, sv wrote: > Could anyone give me a name of a school or schools doing > all of the Four blocks? We are thinking about doing this > at my school. We would like to send some teachers for a > visit.
There are 4 literacy blocks each day, ranging from 10-30 minutes, depending on grade.
These include:
-guided reading (reading whole class, with teach, on grade level material. Each child has a copy, students partner read, use a big book, or poem on overhead, etc.) -self-selected reading (reading silently at individual reading levels, reading with a teacher who takes anecdotal records, or occasionally reading with a small group of students who need an easier book in a small guided group. This also inlcudes a read aloud and discussion of comprehension strategies.) -writing (mini-lesson, modeled writing and the students can write on any topic they like. Students have conferences and edit, revise and publish one piece out of every few pieces they write.) -working with words (this is unique to the program... includes going over word wall words, making words activities which are letter tiles that are used for phonics instruction, rhyming, guess the covered word, etc.)
Each blocks gets equal time each day.
Hope this is helpful. Readng on the website or getting the Teacher's Guide to the Four Blocks will help.
On 12/07/07, Lynn wrote: > Can someone give me a simple overview of what 4 Blocks is > and how it works?
On 12/07/07, Jackie wrote: > There are 4 literacy blocks each day, ranging from 10-30 minutes, depending > on grade. > > These include: > > -guided reading (reading whole class, with teach, on grade level material. Each > child has a copy, students partner read, use a big book, or poem on overhead, > etc.)
To clarify with picky details.... grin!
Before Reading starts whole group To clarify the guided reading, comprehension block. It starts whole group. You teach the whole group a comprehension strategy or skill. You teach a prediction strategy or skill like cause and effect.
During Reading is FLEXIBLE grouping (sometimes whole group) THEN you do NOT leave your students in whole group. You decide. based on the text you are using you make a decision. Sometimes it is whole group, sometimes it is partners, sometimes it is individual reading, it is FLEXIBLE THOUGH... this is NOT whole group though because during the reading time the students are reading in a variety of DIFFERENT WAYS depending on HOW much support the students need for the text you the teacher have decided to use this time.
In TRUE Four Blocks Classrooms, children actually read every day.
After Reading is whole group after reading the students are PULLED back together to the teacher --- did we understand? Do you understand the concept? Did you learn it? Graphic Organizer might be filled in (or not)
Teacher has to then decide how will I teach guided reading tomorrow
> -self-selected reading (reading silently at individual reading levels, reading with > a teacher who takes anecdotal records,
or occasionally reading with a small > group of students who need an easier book in a small guided group.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --- Although teachers might do this, Pat and Dottie do NOT recommend pulling small guided reading groups since small guided reading groups goes against their philosophy. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This also > inlcudes a read aloud and discussion of comprehension strategies.) > -writing (mini-lesson, modeled writing and the students can write on any topic > they like. Students have conferences and edit, revise and publish one piece out > of every few pieces they write.) > -working with words (this is unique to the program... includes going over word > wall words, making words activities which are letter tiles that are used for > phonics instruction, rhyming, guess the covered word, etc.) > > Each blocks gets equal time each day. > > Hope this is helpful. Readng on the website or getting the Teacher's Guide to > the Four Blocks will help. > > > > > On 12/07/07, Lynn wrote: >> Can someone give me a simple overview of what 4 Blocks is >> and how it works?
I will likely be teaching a Gr. 1-4 class next year. It will be a very young class (heavy on 1's and 2's, lower functioning 3's, average 4's). I would love to implement the 4 Blocks method in this classroom. Any advice/suggestions as to how I could make this work?
Thank you Jessica and Deb! I know from my readings that I won't be able to do a "pure" 4blocks classroom. I hope to follow the 4 blocks method as much as possible. Thank you so much for the great suggestions.
Pamela
On 12/28/07, deb wrote: > Jessica gave you some great ideas. You definitely need to > divide the kids into a couple of groups, not be age. > > Learning to read > > Already reading > > :) deb >
On 12/28/07, deb wrote: > Jessica gave you some great ideas. You definitely need to > divide the kids into a couple of groups, not be age. > > Learning to read > > Already reading > > :) deb >
I was just wondering if any of you have heard of Louisa Moats, Debbie Diller, and Anita Archer. These 3 women are held up to us as the ultimate in researched-based literacy instruction. They are the female "gurus" of No Child Left Behind and the Reading First initiative. Our reading coach (we are now a Reading First School--ugggh!) is always quoting them like they are gods. For 2 years now we have been learning about their ideas and methods in our Reading First academies (professional dev. we are mandated to attend each summer) Four Blocks has been forced out of our school and yet sooo many of the ideas of Four Blocks and Patricia Cunningham (like the word wall, Guided Rdg. inst. etc.) are being held up to us now as the way to teach but with the RF stamp on all of it. But when I talked to one of the big kahunas at our RF academy he said 4 Blocks is not researched based and so we can't use it. But they are stealing so many of Cunningham's ideas and calling them theirs. What gives???
On 12/30/07, mcr wrote: > I was just wondering if any of you have heard of Louisa > Moats, Debbie Diller, and Anita Archer. These 3 women are > held up to us as the ultimate in researched-based literacy > instruction. They are the female "gurus" of No Child Left > Behind and the Reading First initiative. Our reading > coach (we are now a Reading First School--ugggh!) is > always quoting them like they are gods. For 2 years now > we have been learning about their ideas and methods in our > Reading First academies (professional dev. we are mandated > to attend each summer) Four Blocks has been forced out of > our school and yet sooo many of the ideas of Four Blocks > and Patricia Cunningham (like the word wall, Guided Rdg. > inst. etc.) are being held up to us now as the way to > teach but with the RF stamp on all of it. But when I > talked to one of the big kahunas at our RF academy he said > 4 Blocks is not researched based and so we can't use it. > But they are stealing so many of Cunningham's ideas and > calling them theirs. What gives???
Yes, I have heard of all three women. I don't know if I would call them "gurus" of RF or NCLB, though, although I know Moats is thought of very highly by the people who put RF together. Moats is very respected in the field of phonics instruction. Diller is very big into centers and small- ability-group reading (disguised as "flexible"). The last, Archer, I know very little about, but what I have seen of hers seems to be a synthesis of others' works. Of course, synthesizing others' works is nothing to sneeze at, and I may not be familiar with much of her work.
When that person said Four Blocks isn't research-based, you should've looked her in the eye and said, "You are wrong." Four Blocks is research-based; it is a framework that was developed based on sound research practice. Each of the components are BASED on RESEARCH. What Four Blocks may not be is RESEARCHED. In other words, very few have put together scientifically based research studies on the program AS A WHOLE in order to determine its effectiveness. Cunningham and Hall published a few articles in Reading Teacher about the effectiveness of Four Blocks with the classrooms they worked with. Another teacher has published a study on using the Four Blocks framework with students with mental retardation. Cunningham also published in Reading Teacher last year the results of using Four Blocks in high-poverty schools. Only the middle study with the MD students would probably qualify as "scientific research," but the truth is Four Blocks has been researched very little as an entire framework. We must be very careful, as educators, in the use of the terms Research-Based (the fave buzzword) and Researched.
What the person probably meant was that Four Blocks is not on the "list" of approved reading programs that meet the requirements of RF. As with anything this political, lobbying to get your name on the accepted list is about money and connections. If you follow the names behind RF, you will see a long trail of connections from the National Reading Panel to the University of Oregon to certain publishers. I know Cunningham and Hall have been working recently to get more research behind the model; I'm not as sure of the success they will have in the current climate.
It is true that many of the components RF asks for most followers to implement are also present in the Four Blocks. You can be a Four Blocks school and use RF, but you have to have someone in your court who knows both well and are willing to work hard. deb did this, but it wasn't easy. Her results, however, speak for themselves.
RF is about MONEY, although I'm sure I don't have to tell you that. In three years, this too shall pass, (you may get the mysterious fourth year though), and you will be on to the next thing. Or maybe not. Maybe you will do what is right all along. ;-)
brad
PS. Don't get me started on the Emperor's New Clothes, or as they like to call them the Five Essential Components.
> You can be a Four Blocks school and use RF, but you have to > have someone in your court who knows both well and are > willing to work hard. deb did this, but it wasn't easy. Her > results, however, speak for themselves.
On 11/13/07, t wrote:
> I have been using making words to supplement my school's
> very lacking spelling program. This is the first year I
> have been allowed to scrap the spelling program and use
> making words. I have had some complaints from parents
that
> insist their child needs t...See More