by kids doing better on tests, reading less and less well
Dec 12, 2010
Although my students are doing better on test practices, I know that they are not becoming readers. With only 2 hours a day in my elementary classroom for Reading/ELA, my students seldom have time to actually read. Very few of them read at home, in spite of mighty efforts on my part to bribe them into reading! There are so many skills to teach that...See MoreAlthough my students are doing better on test practices, I know that they are not becoming readers. With only 2 hours a day in my elementary classroom for Reading/ELA, my students seldom have time to actually read. Very few of them read at home, in spite of mighty efforts on my part to bribe them into reading! There are so many skills to teach that class time is jammed with lessons, and because of time issues, too often teacher-directed lectures (because that is a faster, tho not as effective)way to cover more ground. I know that my students were better readers 20 years ago at this age than these children are, but these are much better test-takers. I worry that we are indeed teaching students that reading is an evil to be avoided. Even though I work hard to make it fun, interesting, and interactive, the truth is that we more to cover and less time...so students miss the richness of the reading experience. So sad, so sad. Kids need time during their school day to ponder, to wonder, to reflect. But state and national testing have added a new monster subject to the curriculum that devours that time.
I teach "gifted" k-5. As the years have gone by, I have fewer and fewer students reading above grade level. And this is gifted!! I'm supposed to be focusing on writing and grammar, but their vocabulary and general knowledge background is limited due to a lack of reading, so I am trying to squeeze in some reading with the writing and grammar.
Graphic Organizers: I'm needing help teaching a lesson for fifth graders. The teachers have requested I do a lesson on graphic organziers. What are the types, when to use each type. They want them to get several writing prompts and decide which one is the best to use and then use it. Any ideas? HELP! Thanks in advance!
I would think that that would be a series of several lessons, not just one. Especially for 5th graders. I teach high school and even with them, when we learn a new graphic organizer, I model it and they practice it, usually with partners or a group. Then, they practice it individually. And so on for every organizer.
Once they are successful completing the different organizers on their own--usually after several practices of each--then will have an assignment where they choose which organizer to use to complete the task.
I am trying to level a bunch of Sunshine Box/WRight group levels. Does anyone know where I can find a list of the book titles and their levels? I have correlation charts, but need the titles to determine Fountas/Pinnell levels.
I'm currently taking a class and need to interview Literature teachers. Do you have any good interview questions I can use re: Literature? Or were you asked any good interview questions while being interviewed?
Great question - the purpose is to understand how other teachers use Literature in their classrooms - different approaches, styles, choice of author. Does this help? Thank you for responding.
I'm assuming we're interviewing literature teachers - not history teachers - though they sometimes use literature in their classrooms.
If we say to a literature teacher, "How do you use literature in your classroom?" they will look back at us as if we're nuts. So let's not ask it that way. We can't even say "What role does literature play in your classroom?" because it's rather like asking an engineer how they use the train.
To get there would be the best answer and a literature teacher could fairly say the same. We use literature to get there.
Where is the question?... Some lit teachers will have never thought about that and others would speak volumes to you and each one likely have a different answer than the next.
Of course we teach literature because first we're required to. The standards - and every state has them - would offer a very lengthy list of what is hoped to be achieved by teaching literature to students.
Maybe best to say - (1) what do you emphasize in the literature as your class reads a book?
I really think that's the best way to phrase the question. And then- (2) why do you emphasize that? What ideally would you like your students to take away from their reading?
For example, I emphasize the connection of literature to life and society over the actual construction of the novel and the literary devices used in it.
And I'd like my students to see what's real in the literature we read. Literature to me is a mirror held up to society - is the reflection an accurate one? Or is it muddied or distorted?
Along the way, I emote and gush over the author and how they constructed the book, share details of the author's life and puzzle over how that impacted on the book.
I want my students to take away being better read people - educated people have read books... - and ideally I'd like them to have had a positive experience with literature in my classroom. I'd like them to consider for themselves whether continued reading on their own could be of help or merit them in life ( literature strengthens me - if I've read it in a book and then see it in life I can go "ah - Mr. Chips warned me of this day. He too met this challenge."
Last (3) - why have you chosen the books you assign in class.
(the answer might be - school curriculum insists upon it)
But in my case it's because I want to choose books that will invite student interest but yet be representative of a country's classic literature and also include works of modern literature including what we're now sometimes calling 'multicultural literature.'
I teach grade 8 (I teach English, math, science, social studies, and art for the same group of kids) in a native community. My kids are for the most part very low level but great kids to work with. This is my first full-time teaching job.
We have been off school for 4 weeks due to an illness in the community and then 2 weeks for Christmas, so we will be returning after approx. 6 weeks off. I have so much material to cover according to curriculum.
I have a lot of control over my schedule of classes.
I have 2 English classes/periods a day.
1st period of the day is English and we start with spelling and then move on to the main topic. We have been working on nouns, adjectives, and verbs. I kept it quite general. Nouns we talked about the difference between common, plural, and proper. Adjectives describe a noun, and a verb is the action.
I am almost done with this topic, need to review and quiz them.
It is very hard to get some of my kids to do any real writing. None of them will speak up in class (common issue and is not just a problem in my class), so I do most of the reading in class.
Next, I was going to do "what is a sentence and types of sentences" since there writing in their journals (if they do it) is for the most part one big sentence or a couple sentences in a paragraph. Then move on to punctuation. Then I want to look at how to write a paragraph and small essay. Then look at how to complete research and jot notes which I might put into my other classes as a multi-dimensional learning. Like how to do research for a social studies project.
My other English class is a novel study right now. We have read the first four chapters in the novel "Holes" by Louis Sinclair. I want to bring this beyond read the chapter out loud, answer questions, use the dictionary to find definitions. Any suggestions?
On 12/20/10, ESL teacher wrote: > What kind of a reservation is it? The cultural differences > between our Native American communities and the rest of the > country are Huge. It is not all that long ago that Native > Americans lived a very different kind of life before they were > brought to live on reservations. The history of interaction > between Europeans (that's us), the US government and the Native > American tribes is not a pleasant history. > > And it's thrown its shadow down through the generations. I'd > advise that you read up on the people you're with. I once > worked with Vietnamese whose education prior to being with me > was purely memorization-based. They memorized pages and pages > of writing and that was education. I don't do memorization and > they couldn't make sense of what I was doing at all and I > couldn't figure why on a test all they would do was memorize > the textbook. > > I know the prescription is often written in stone but > incorporate their language as often as you can. I'd also ask - > if they don't/can't/won't write -what's really then the point > of teaching noun, verb, adjective? The point of teaching the > abstract grammatical concepts is to incorporate them into one's > writing. >> >> And if they won't speak, why would they write?? To me the > first goal would be to have these students feeling more > comfortable. Try some of Louise Erdich's poetry or Sherman > Alexir - both are Native American poets. Many students of > non-European heritage often feel that in a school classroom all > they're doing is studying someone else's rules, someone else's > history. > > If your reservation is like many of them, alcoholism is a big > issue. Our traditional school curriculum was not designed with > the Native American children on reservations in mind. It was > not designed to make meaningful connections with this kind of > children. > > I think your interest in bringing the novel study to be more > than read the chapter aloud is admirable but the key to this - > and to pretty much everything - it seems to me is helping them > to feel comfortable, connected and to open up a bit. > > You might read Sister to the Sioux written by a teacher who > worked on a reservation. There's a book and a film both called > Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. Watch the film for its insights > - again about the teacher working on the Sioux reservation. > > >> >> It is very hard to get some of my kids to do any real >> writing. None of them will speak up in class (common issue >> and is not just a problem in my class), so I do most of the >> reading in class. >> >> Next, I was going to do "what is a sentence and types of >> sentences" since there writing in their journals (if they do >> it) is for the most part one big sentence or a couple >> sentences in a paragraph. Then move on to punctuation. Then >> I want to look at how to write a paragraph and small essay. >> Then look at how to complete research and jot notes which I >> might put into my other classes as a multi-dimensional >> learning. Like how to do research for a social studies project. >> >> My other English class is a novel study right now. We have >> read the first four chapters in the novel "Holes" by Louis >> Sinclair. >> I want to bring this beyond read the chapter out loud, >> answer questions, use the dictionary to find definitions. >> Any suggestions?
I am teaching D'Nealian but do not have any books or resources so I am just using what I find online. I was wondering if there is a specific recommended order in which to teach the letters? Should I go A-Z, or most common letters first (e,s,t, etc) or should I go with the easiest ones first and progress from there?
I do have a suggested sequence in my "Seeds" book (kindergarten) simply to teach words at the same time the children are learning to print. As each new letter is taught, there is a list of words that can be made with letters taught up to that point. You can find info about teaching printing on my website under Free Resources. Everything there is a modification of D'Nealian -- no slant and no monkey tails -- which leads to much neater printing. That's just my preference.
Grace
On 12/28/10, Amanda wrote: > I am teaching D'Nealian but do not have any books or > resources so I am just using what I find online. I was > wondering if there is a specific recommended order in which > to teach the letters? Should I go A-Z, or most common > letters first (e,s,t, etc) or should I go with the easiest > ones first and progress from there?
I haven't used it in class, but my son, a fifth grader, loves the series and so do his friends. They have learned a lot about cultures around the world. I have read some of the series and think it would be great for upper elementary. However, struggling students may need lots of support.
Would someone be so kind to tell me if the following sentence is correct:
Five year old Hilary lost her father, the only person she could depend on, in an office building crash and blames her dad’s Jewish boss for it, because of this she develops a profound hatred towards Jews over the years, but then, ironically, after a motorcycle accident, she wakes up in a Jewish hospital and slips off into a turbulent coma where she becomes Chana, a Jewish girl experiencing the horrors of WWII, once she fully wakes from the coma back as Hilary, she’s a completely changed person
On ...See Morewith agreement. Correct tense in your last sentence. Also, first sentence is still too long. Better to make that two sentences. This sentence, "Because of this, she developed a profound hatred towards Jews over the years..." Did she develop a hatred of Jews over a period of time, or was it the one instance? That sentence is confusing.
On 1/01/11, Mehdi wrote: > On 12/31/10, Edited wrote: >> At five years old, Hilary lost her father, the only person she >> could depend on, in an office building crash and blamed her >> dad’s Jewish boss for it. Because of this, she developed a >> profound hatred towards Jews over the years. Then, >> ironically, after a motorcycle accident, she was brought to a >> Jewish hospital where she slipped off into a turbulent coma. >> While in the coma, she became Chana, a Jewish girl >> experiencing the horrors of WWII. Once she fully recovered >> from the coma (back as Hilary)she’s a completely changed >> person. >> >> > Thank you very much!
We don't use our reading series consistently, so I don't want to use benchmarks out of that since the tests correlate with the sections. Another reason I don't like using the tests from the reading series is because they are hard, seriously hard. I know, set high expectations, make the practice harder than the state test, etc. However, all the reading teachers in my building feel the same way. There have been questions we've been stumped by. Last year, my GT kid's highest score on just a unit test, not even a benchmark, was consistently in the 70's.
I have been using the pretest on Study Island, but it's hard when I have kids absent since everyone takes it during our computer time. Besides, I'm kind of a "paper" person. I was thinking about using S.R.A.'s???? If you don't use the benchmarks from the reading series, what do you use?
I would like to hear input about the Daily 5 and the Cafe Menu. What do you like about it? Or what did you try and didn't like? How do you use it in a 4th grade classroom? Thanks!
On 1/09/11, language teacher wrote: > O I'm fifth/sixth but just had the training this last week. > Our elementary is implementing tomorrow. So far from the > training, I think I'll like it. Lots of questions, still > though! I think it will take lots of discipline from the > students and lots of planning and resources on my part to get > started. > > > > n 1/03/11, Kathy wrote: >> I would like to hear input about the Daily 5 and the Cafe >> Menu. What do you like about it? Or what did you try and >> didn't like? How do you use it in a 4th grade classroom? >> Thanks!