Best Practices for Writing

Writing may be an area where it is not even taught at schools. From class discussions this week,  I realized how writing is taught so differently from school to school or not even taught at all. According to recent research, writing should be taught during a Writer's Workshop, across the curriculum, and differentiated. I have recently learned this and have implemented a Writer's Workshop in my classroom pulling from multiply sources. Our school does not have a set or scripted program; however, we do have the 6+1 Traits of Writing program. This program is taught using mini lessons of certain aspects of writing such as conventions, word choice, and fluency. We use picture books and authentic text to give students examples of what good writing looks like. Our kit was ordered right from Scholastic and is something to look into for your own school!
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/ruth-culham-writing-program/#.VThj9haRnww

I am going to take what I learned from this week and apply it to my workshop. There were five best practices that stuck out in my head.
1. teacher modeling/mini lessons
2. planning/prewriting
3. constructing a draft
4. revising and editing
5. publishing and sharing

These 5 strategies can each be used during my writing process. The other important thing to remember is that you don't always have to have your students create this glorious end product. It's okay if their writing is a short journal prompt focusing on "wow words" or conventions. If we start our students young with these best practices and correct way of implementing writing, then we can create some really great writers!

Age Appropriate Tools for New Literacies

Digital literacy tools are intended to enhance our students' understanding and reading comprehension skills. My biggest struggle is using all of the tools given and also using age appropriate ones. I want to be able to apply these tools given, but which ones? I decided to look into this more after reading on New Literacies. I came across this website:
http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/. This website has different teacher resources and tools that we can use that seem age appropriate for elementary students. Technology and the world around us is changing one day at a time, so we have to be willing to change with it. New Literacies are very important especially in the 21st century. I also really liked this image that includes all the New Literacies and what each one means. Hopefully this is a helpful guide for you. I will be using this in my classroom to remind myself of what they are and to challenge myself to be a New Literacy teacher!

Sustained Reading

Hanging in my classroom is a poster board that says, "What Stuck With You Today?' I do an activity with my students using sticky notes and this board. The students take a sticky note and post something up on the board explaining what "stuck" with them for that day. After reading and researching independent reading (IR) and Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), what I would write on my sticky note that "stuck" with me is that silent reading should be implemented into the classroom to encourage motivation, find the right books for students, and for peer interaction. What I took away mostly is the peer interaction part. When we think of silent reading, we think that it is specifically done silently. Well, I was wrong. Silent Reading should actually be called Sustained Reading without the silent part. Teachers should be walking around the room observing, taking notes, and conferring with students. Students should be reading, discussing with a partner(s), and forming "book clubs". If sustained reading is done the right way and not how most schools are implementing it, then we can be improving our students scores and seeing academic success. Students should also use reading logs to record what they are reading and to reflect. I challenge you to take what you have read from this blog and research independent reading on your own time to see all of the best practices! Here are great websites to get you started.

Blogging- http://kidblog.org/home/
Reading Log- http://www.k12reader.com/printable-reading-logs/
Sustained Reading- http://www.readingrockets.org/article/reconsidering-silent-reading

Schema Theory & Diversity

Based off class discussions and reading from the text, I learned of many new ideas and strategies to create a community in my classroom and to also help with building background knowledge. What I learned most about scheme theory is that we all start out knowing nothing and over time we encounter different experiences and interactions both internally and externally. We grow as an individual and learn more and more as we grow older. If we are unsure of our students cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, this can affect our reading instruction. It is very important to create a diverse classroom by getting to know our students and learn about what they've been exposed to. Some of the main stratigies to do this is by:

1. Build a classroom community.
2. Throughout the school year, integrate thevchild's diversity within the classroom.
3. Make home visits.
4. Open houses/school fair
5. Activate background knowledge with a KWL chart & graphic organizers
6. Diverisy texts.
7. Share personal stories.
8. Book walks.
9. Have students create a writing list of topics they know of and could write about.
10. Visual images.

All of these strategies are helpful within the classroom which I want to try a few on my own. I really liked the one where students create a list of topics they are very familiar with and also making sure to do this throughout the year. I decided to pinterest schema theory and found an anchor chart that you could do with your students. The link is http://compassionate-teacher.blogspot.com/2012/12/sandy-hook-and-schema-anchor-chart.html. There are also several graphic organizes that you could use such as popplet! You don't realize how what you already know can affect your reading comprehension in so many ways!

Week #3 Comprehension

Kintsch's Construction-Integration Model is a scheme theory model that activates students prior knowledge in the reading comprehension process. This model was very beneficial for me to read because it helped me to understand that reading comprehension is a spiral process. What we know about a topic before we read can help us tremendously with understanding the text. This model is reading text while activating prior knowledge and applying it by explaining what we've read. Kintsch says we then use what we learn and apply it to the next text and so on and so on. This is how reading becomes a spiral because we pull from all kinds of sources such as prior knowledge, making inferences, and text evidence. I have been trying to implement good reading strategies in my classroom this year, but now I feel like I have a better visual of the whole process from Kintsch's Construction-Integration Model that I can share with my students. I'm going to apply this model to my classroom by enforcing to activate background knowledge and making inferences and then applying their new knowledge across the content areas. To do this I will have my students use KWL charts, graphic organizers, and inference charts while reading. Some examples to do so can be found at the bottom of my blog! 

Popplet- app for graphic organizers 

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/printouts/chart-a-30226.html

Website for KWL charts and mini lesson plans 

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/sites/default/files/asset/file/graphic_organizers.pdf

Website for inference graphic organizer as well as organizers for all other text structures 

Differentiation of Phonics Instruction

After reading this weeks articles on phonic instruction, it got me to reflect on how I truly implement it into my own classroom. Last year when I taught second grade, phonics was implemented in our Superkids Reading Program. We did it everyday with all my reading groups. However, this year I am now teaching third grade with the same group of kids and I feel like I do not need to teach phonics to every one of my reading groups because of how high some of my students are. To differentiate, I incorporate phonics with my 2 low reading groups out of my 5 total groups. I decided to research more on differentiation with phonics instruction and found some great resources that I would like to share.
I didn't know if I was correct with my philosophy of not teaching it to all my students, and found that phonics should be taught through differentiation so that students can learn at their own pace. Especially after reading the articles this past week and learning more about phonics, I realize how complex it is and tedious. My students have a phonics workbook, but I do not like to just teach from there. It's important to use hands on activities and fun games for our students so that they stay engaged and that they want to learn and become better at phonics. This is the one area where I feel like I could improve on with my instruction and was happy to find some great apps, resources, and games. The one I liked best was a Boggle Board! I'm definitely going to try to implement this into my classroom. The Reading Rockets website list 10 great apps for phonics as well as other great games/activities. The link is attached below. I found a ton of great activities on Pinterest by just searching "phonics activities for third grade". I hope some of these resources will help you in your own classroom instruction!

http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101/phonics/literacyapps_phonics

https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=phonics+activities+for+3rd+grade&term_meta%5B%5D=phonics+activities+for+3rd+grade%7Cautocomplete%7C0