Best way to teach Language Arts

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Upper Elementary Teachers Chatboard

Best way to teach Language Arts

by gph

Jan 10, 2009

My students receive reading instruction separately, and I have to teach language arts skills. In your opinion, what is the best way to do this? Mini-lessons on a specific skill and then do creative writing everyday? Or do you spend more time with a specific skill (say, for example, possessive nouns), and practice that skill for most of the class period? What do you feel is the most effective way to teach ELA? Thanks

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m Make sure it is not just creative writing...students need to be able to write technical pieces, narratives, compare and contrast, etc. Try to liven it up by practicing skills in different ways or the kids will get bored very quickly. In my room we use the smartboard and airliner, kinesthetic activities and lots of cooperative learning to practice s...See More

Jan 11, 2009

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Tayy Teach the skill through mini lessons then show them how to apply the skill in their writing. For example, after teaching a few mini lessons on various skills, I conduct a writing workshop. During the writing workshop, students learn to write paragraphs, essays, research papers, etc. They would be expected to apply what they have learned during the ...See More

Jan 12, 2009

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Amanda We do mini-lessons for grammar, literary analysis, writing, and speech. The kids produce multiple projects related to these areas (crosswords, dramatizations, flip-books, graphs, charts, diagrams, dioramas, etc.). We also turn practically everything into some type of cooperative game.

My fifth graders frequently speak two or three language...See More

Jan 15, 2009

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Very interested in your ideas Amanda - Please share some of your ideas, if you feel comfortable doing so. For instance, name the topic of your direct teaching and then a little about the specific project and game that goes with it. My students need a more engaging way to improve their skills especially in grammar and the other topics you listed. Your ideas would be sincerely ap...See More

Jan 24, 2009

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Amanda Here is a simple one, but it requires a lot of teacher prep -

1st, go through magazines/websites and clip interesting images (no words) 2nd, glue them to a sheet of paper (max of four images per page) 3rd, secure in laminate and hole punch for a binder

You now have a resource binder that can be used to trigger ideas for sentence ...See MoreHere is a simple one, but it requires a lot of teacher prep -

1st, go through magazines/websites and clip interesting images (no words) 2nd, glue them to a sheet of paper (max of four images per page) 3rd, secure in laminate and hole punch for a binder

You now have a resource binder that can be used to trigger ideas for sentence combining, story starters, comparative adjective usage, etc.

4th, decide on your mini-lesson (say FANBOYS). Directly teach about coordinating conjunctions, and introduce the acronym to help with retention.

5th, divide the class into teams to create simple sentences about each image on a page

6th, have the teams work to combine the simple sentences into compound sentences using coordinating conjunctions

7th, the teams select their best combination and "publish" it on a sentence strip

8th, share out

9th, assign kids to bring in interesting (and school appropriate) images of their own to recreate the entire process

10th, have them teach the idea to a lower grade level...when the lower grade group can produce compound sentences on their own, everyone in the team gets an "I did it" sticker (you can order those from websites)

11th, if all of the teams are successful, reward with a group reward for the class (turning the task into a TV style game) The kids select an emcee, pick images to use, make FANBOYS cards for each word, etc.

Have to run, hope this helps.

On 1/24/09, Very interested in your ideas wrote: > Amanda - Please share some of your ideas, if you feel > comfortable doing so. For instance, name the topic of your > direct teaching and then a little about the specific project and > game that goes with it. My students need a more engaging way to > improve their skills especially in grammar and the other topics > you listed. Your ideas would be sincerely appreciated. You > sound very creative and that's the type of ideas I need. > > On 1/15/09, Amanda wrote: >> We do mini-lessons for grammar, literary analysis, writing, >> and speech. The kids produce multiple projects related to >> these areas (crosswords, dramatizations, flip-books, graphs, >> charts, diagrams, dioramas, etc.). We also turn practically >> everything into some type of cooperative game. >> >> My fifth graders frequently speak two or three languages >> fluently, so sometimes we look at the rules of grammar for >> their other languages. That makes it more challenging for > them. >> >> The trick for me is to always use direct instruction first, >> followed by a project, and ending with a game. That pattern >> seems to work well, and nearly all of the kids later recall >> the lessons for things like benchmarks.

Jan 25, 2009

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