Reading Strategies

I'm sharing a strategy that I'm using with one of my struggling readers. I hope some of you will find it useful!

One of my students LOVES reading but she also LOVES to guess the words, which she is really great at. I was finding that she was "reading" the words while making direct eye contact with me. I was constantly reminding her to cover the word and sound out the letters one at a time. She really didn't like me telling her to sound it out, and often got frustrated.

So, today I told her we'd be playing a reading "game". I gave her five stickers and told her that every time she guessed a word, I would steal a sticker. I wouldn't take a sticker if she attempted to sound out a word and got it wrong. However, if the word is "tree" and she says "ball", then I would remind her to look at the first letter for a clue and then take a sticker. She really loved the idea and she was REALLY motivated to sound out the word instead of guessing.

You could differentiate this by giving students more or less stickers, depending on their reading level or how easily they get frustrated. If they're not into stickers, something small like gum or iPad minutes could also work!

Evaluating Credibility of Online Sources

In our classrooms, it has become a part of our tasks as educators to develop 21st century learners, who have the skills they need to be digitally literate. Using the internet as a tool to answer questions, research, and find information has become embedded across the curriculum and grade levels. It seems that sometimes we assume that our students should have these skills, simply because they have grown up in a digital age. However, these researching skills need to be explicitly taught to students if we want them to be successful and engaged in their learning.  

One skill that I have really noticed students need instruction in is analyzing a source for credibility- they will often believe everything they read on the internet! One activity that I do with my kids to help them realize that not everything they read/see on the internet is true is show them fake sites.

The first thing I always show them is this video, which looks incredibly believable because it is made by Google.

We always talk about why they think this video might be real or fake, and talk about the fact that just because information comes from a big name source, doesn't mean that it is always going to be the truth. 

Another site I show them is about a Tree Octopus. You can click on the image below to check out the site. Again, we discuss why this site is real or fake, and clues they can use to find this out. 

There are lots of these fake sites out there on the web, and a list for classroom use can be found at Teachbytes. Another good site is http://allaboutexplorers.com/, which has some good lessons for having students realize there is lots of false information out there. It emphasizes the importance of using more than one source when looking for information.

Some questions that you can use with your students for evaluating sources include:

• Does the information come from a respected author or organization
• is this information credible?
• is it up to date?
• do other articles or sites confirm this information? If not, what is different and why?
• is the material biased?
• if there are different sides to this topic, does the author cover them all?
• if you trace the links, ownership, or other materials in this source, what do I learn?
• (Harvey & Daniels, 2009, p.135)

I also realized that when I have students researching, it needs to be more than a fact finding mission. This type of learning isn't promoting higher level thinking. Instead, our class is going to use a question to guide our research, and students will be encourage to explain what they are thinking as they are searching for information. I always want students to be synthesizing and making meaning from the information they are gathering.The sheet below is what I will be having students use while researching. You can click on the image below to open it and make a copy for yourself if you would like. It is adapted from the Harvey & Daniels book referenced below. 

References

Harvey, S., & Daniels, H. (2009). Comprehension and collaboration: Inquiry circles for

curiosity, engagement and understanding. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Listening Activity

This is a simple activity that is designed to help students practice their listening skills. Many of my students this year struggle with following directions. They often forget what I say shortly after I say it, often due to the fact that they just aren't paying attention. During this lesson students must focus on step by step directions that the teacher reads aloud. Here's how it works. First make sure each student has their pencil crayons out. Then hand out a colouring sheet to the kids and instruct them to leave it face down on their desk. This is the picture that I used: 

Once you are ready to begin, ask the students to turn over their sheet. You will have a predetermined set of directions with you that you will read aloud one at a time. An example  might be: "Colour the bush green and draw three apples on the tree.". The trick here is to make sure students know you will only read each step once and that they are not allowed to ask you to repeat a step. They have to be listening very careful to what they need to be doing! In my class I gave a small treat to any student who got everything correct. Below is an example of some directions.

These particular activities are great because they allow you to choose either one, two, or three step instructions. You can find more like them here:

 http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/FollowingDirectionsDirectory.html

You can also find many different versions of these online, and it would be easy to create your own!

I hope this is something you can use in your own classroom to help your students learn to be better listeners.  

Bookopoly

I have been on a bit of a gamification kick lately, especially since I am just finishing up a big inquiry project on the topic for my course right now. If you are interested in reading more about gamification, this is a link to a bunch of articles I collected during my research:
https://www.diigo.com/outliner/7fthyf/Gamification?key=btmqbfhx0

My latest creation is a board game that I have dubbed Bookopoly (which apparently is actually a thing...so much for being creative!) As you might notice, it is designed to look like the classic game of Monopoly.  My students have been struggling with their AR reading this year, and it has been really hard to motivate them to read their books. Hopefully engaging them in a fun game will help kick their reading into high gear! One important aspect of this game is that it is designed to allow students of all reading levels to be successful!

Click on me to see the property tile template

On my Bookopoly board, each property tile is named after a location in a kids book (well, mostly anyway!), and has a specific XP value assigned to it. Just like Monopoly, they get more expensive as you go around the board. The idea is that students will earn XP points by doing different reading tasks, and then will be able to buy properties on the board with their XP points. They can also upgrade their properties by purchasing houses and castles. To make it even more fun, students will also try to earn a variety of badges. Badges can be earned for a bunch of different achievements, from reading a graphic novel to buying your first house. 

The descriptions of the badges can be found here if you are interested. 

Below is a table of achievements and the corresponding XP points students can earn. 

But of course, there has to be some way to track the XP points that students are earning and spending, so welcome Math outcomes into the equation! Students will be responsible for tracking their income and spending on a sheet, pictured below, keeping a running total of the amount of XP they currently hold. 

Students will be given a booklet that includes sheets to record their properties, collect their badges, as well as their XP bank logs. Hopefully this helps with our AR issues this year!!!

Candy Corn Contest

Here's a great October reading activity! The "Candy Corn Contest" is a book about a boy who is trying to win a jar of candy corn from his teacher by guessing how many candies are in the jar. In the book the students get to enter guesses when they read a page from their library books. I read the book to my students, and then have them answer comprehension questions about each chapter. For each question they enter correctly, they get to enter an estimate into the draw. Whoever guesses the correct amount (or the closest) wins the jar of candy! 

Coming soon to a library near you!

I So, I was looking at Twitter the other day...

And I came across a really great article on Edsurge https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-12-14-using-audioboom-in-the-classroom-to-improve-reading-fluency. 

The author discussed how they used an app called audioboom to improve student fluency by having them record books. I loved the idea, and so now the grade sixes are embarking on a quest! Over the course of the school year, you will start to see QR code appearing inside the back cover of the library books. When scanned on an iPad, students will be brought to an audio recording of the book being read. Grade six students will be recording the audio to help them practice their fluency and expression. 

The reason we have decided to start creating audio recordings of the books is so that some of the lower students in our classrooms might still be able to listen to the book if there is no one available to read with them that day. All they will need is an ipad with a QR scan app and their headphones. Also, we know that Daily 5/CAFE has students listening to reading as a part of it, and that many of our Div I classes are using this program. Right now, we are going to be focusing on books at the 1-2 levels, and then working up from there. 

So, keep your eyes posted for these books! When students record a new audio book, they will be our database on our Google Site. This is where we will be keeping track of the titles we have recorded. The link is below

 https://sites.google.com/a/sperd.ca/aesbookproject/. 

PS: If you happen to have a title in your room that we have done a recording for, feel free to print of the QR code and tape it in your book as well! 

P.S.S. Teachers if you are interested in having your kids record audiobooks, let me know and I can show you how to do it and give you access to the folders etc. The more the merrier!! 

Candy Crush!

In my class this year we are doing something called "Candy Crush Friday!". Every Friday before lunch I give the students five questions, covering a variety of things that we have learnt about throughout the week. Each question that the student answers correctly earns them one candy. They have to crush the answers in order to earn the candy! Sometimes I have candies that are all worth one point. Other times I've had a variety of candy and made some worth more points than others. By doing this I am able to get an idea of who understood the major concepts from the week. And as an added bonus, the kids absolutely love doing this! They remind me about it all week to make sure that I have the questions ready to go Friday :) 

Our Grade 4 Word Wall

Our Grade 4 Word Wall.

Last year I tried using a regular word wall, but I wasn't using it regularly. This year I decided to try something new. We are using a word wall that focuses on word families.

We pick a common sound like "ight" and as a class come up with words that would fit into this family. The kids are pretty good at creating the words when they have the sound. We come up with eight and then pick two words to focus on. We define them and then the students are responsible for creating a sentence using the word. This also helps review proper sentence structure.