Test Prep: Aim for the Joy

Hello LOL Readers!

I apologize for the long delay in posting and hope you are all well and ready for spring! 

As most of you upper elementary teachers are probably ensconced in preparation for the state tests right now, I thought I would blog some thoughts and ideas about effective test prep. I apologize to the primary teachers, but remember that you play a large role in preparing students for these tests as well!

Based on my experience preparing students for the state exams as a classroom teacher, literacy coach, and private tutor- here is the greatest piece of advice I can offer: build your students confidence by presenting all test prep tasks, questions, etc. as review of things they ALREADY KNOW how do to as readers and writers. For example, rather than reading a short response question about character traits or theme and teaching students how to attack it as if they are starting from scratch, begin by pulling out the charts you used during your character unit of study after reading the short response question with students. Point to these charts and say, "This question is a piece of cake for you! You are already experts on inferring character traits and themes in stories! All you have to do is remind yourself what you already know to help you answer this question!" Particularly for our 3rd graders who are new to taking the state tests, connecting to and using what they already know is essential for their success on these tests. 

My second biggest tip would be to make test prep somewhat fun in ANY WAY possible! Whether that means: creating or finding games to review test vocab, structuring your test prep block with a whole class mini-lesson followed by rotating through test prep centers in which small groups or partners work together on various tasks and activities, playing test prep Jeopardy (available in the Treasure Chest section of the TCRWP website), or even tying student hard work and success to small incentives that help to motivate your students...do WHATEVER IT TAKES to make it less miserable for yourself and for the students!

Below is a method that I created this year, which has been very helpful for teaching 3rd graders to compose strong short responses. In order to make it a little more fun (and to help the students memorize the steps), we turned these steps into a very simple cheer. Each time I work with the class on short response, I begin by selecting a student to lead the rest of the class in the call and response style cheer. We also end each short response session in this way. It is such a small thing, but it has helped tremendously to keep the students energized and focused. 

Short Response Cheer:
Leader: Ready For!
Students: A Short Response!
Leader: R is for...
Students: Read!
Leader: F is for...
Students: Flip!
[Continue with each steps]
Leader: Ready For!
Students: A Short Response!

Share your test prep tricks and tips by commenting below!

 

Throughout the month of December, I worked with the 3rd grade teachers at my school on deepening their students fiction reading skills through a unit of study on characters (based on the CCSS and the work of the TCRWP). One of the greatest challenges that we consistently face as elementary teachers is helping students to build a sophisticated vocabulary that allows them to deepen their ability to infer about characters. Students are much too quick to infer that a character is "nice" or "mean." Or, if they do attempt to use more sophisticated vocabulary, they often use it inaccurately because their level of understanding of the word's meaning is often just that it has a positive or negative connotation, without truly knowing what it means to be, for example, "supportive," or "ambitious." The Common Core Standards call for students to use "domain-specific words and phrases" so we must find innovative ways to do so.

This year, I worked with the teachers on a new way to help students not only build their vocabulary for describing characters, but also to deepen their understanding of what these new words really mean. After briefly introducing several sophisticated character traits by defining them with a more basic level synonym, we modeled how to delve more deeply into one particular trait by considering what a character with that trait might say, think, and do.


Then we assigned each small group of 4 to 5 students one character trait to explore deeply by discussing, acting out, and jotting down what a character with that trait might say, think, or do. After working with their group for about 10 minutes, each group was responsible for teaching their character trait to the rest of the class. By the end of this activity, students were not only exposed to many new sophisticated character traits, but they also began developing a much stronger understanding of what each trait truly means. This lead to more sophisiticated thinking, jotting, and debating about the traits that best fit the characters in their own independent reading books across subsequent weeks.  Check out some student samples from this activity below, and feel free to comment on how you help your students to develop domain-specific vocabulary across subject areas!

I don't know what it is about snow days that inspires me to blog! Maybe it's because snow days are the perfect chance to experiment with new digital literacy tools, and blogging is the perfect forum for sharing the results of experimenting. 

Next week, the gifted teacher and I will teach our staff how to use Educreations, which is a tool for creating and sharing video lessons that both teachers and students can use. Teachers can use this tool to: present a new concept, review a familiar concept, post on their website for parents and students to watch or review material at home, etc. Students can use it to demonstrate and teach how to solve a math problem, when and why to use punctuation, to record a book talk or book review, etc. The possibilities are truly endless, and it's really simple to use! Here is a simple Educreation that I created while experimenting with the tool today. The topic is writing mini-lessons. Warning: my voice sounds pretty funny.

 http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/writing-mini-lessons/15370777/?s=oUzQKN&ref=app

Please comment below on how you have used Educreations or a similar tool in your own classroom OR how you could envision using this tool to support current and future literacy work in your classroom.  

Thanks for reading LOL!

Hello Literacy Lovers!

I am looking out my window at the beautiful snow falling here, and for whatever reason, it inspired me to blog! Rather than blog about the snow, however, I wanted to share a short animated presentation that I created using one of my favorite new digital tools- Powtoon! Those of you who know me (which I'm pretty sure is all of you) know that I love nothing more than a good old fashioned gorgeous, colorful literacy chart! However, I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I cannot avoid digital literacy any longer, as this is where education is headed... so I am jumping on board and trying to learn/utilize digital literacy tools as much as I can.

I saw a presentation using Powtoon at a recent school board meeting and loved it so I decided to explore this tool for myself. It can be used in so many different ways to support literacy work in the classroom and is a tool that students can learn how to use themselves to enhance their digital literacy skills and to create animated presentations, movies etc. 

Here is the link to the first Powtoon that I created as part of a staff development session on Writing Conferences. Enjoy! After watching, please comment below on your favorite digital literacy tools and/or on how you foresee using Powtoon in your classroom to support liteacy instruction.

Writing Conferences Powtoon
 

The Power of Transference

Nothing is more exciting than seeing kids "transfer and apply." This is a great phrase that I learned from Shana Frazin, a staff developer at Teachers College. My interpretation of this phrase is: taking something that you have learned and transferring and applying it to another piece of work, subject area, or another part of your life. 

As a lover of literacy, I am always excited when kids can transfer and apply between reading and writing. Very often, I will try to make these connections and applications explicit for them (demonstrating reading-writing reciprocity), but the most exciting moments are when kids do this work on their own.

Quick example from the trenches: 

I have been working with the 3rd grade classes in my school on a character unit of study in reading workshop. Recently, we have been working on using sophisticated vocabulary words to describe the changing feelings that characters have across texts. 

Today, one of the 3rd grade teachers told me that suddenly, all of his students are "overjoyed" in their personal narrative pieces in writing workshop. We laughed because this is one of the feeling words that we are encouraging students to use in lieu of "happy" during reading workshop. Even though, "overjoyed" might be a bit dramatic for some of their small moments, how wonderful that his students demonstrated a form of reading-writing reciprocity..."transfer and apply" at it's finest!

What are your thoughts?

Please comment below to share instances in which you have seen your students "transfer and apply" either within or across subject areas. Or feel free to share ways that you are now thinking you could teach them to do so!

What is revision?

How often do we actually explain and define revision for kids? Or do we just say: "Here are some ways that writers revise," assuming that they know what we mean when we say "revise"?? The word revision, quite literally, means to see or look again. I think it is extremely important, when cycling through the writing process in any unit of study, to help students understand not just how to do that stage of the writing process, but also what that stage is really all about and why writers bother working through it. 

I have been working with a 2nd grade teacher during writing workshop, and most of her students are in the revision stage. Rather than starting by teaching her students ways that writers revise, we spent one workshop teaching them what it means to revise and what types of revision tools writers use (flaps, post-its, carrots, colored pencils, etc.) Once the students understood what revision was and made some of their own choices for how to revise their writing, we then began teaching them various strategies that writers use to revise. It has been amazing to watch the students understanding of revision evolve and even more amazing how much stronger their writing has become in such a short span of time!

Here are a few charts that we used to support the revision work in her classroom:

Need a Halloween costume for school?

I know that this is not literacy related but every now and then, I may stray from the blog theme! If you are having trouble thinking of a creative costume to wear to school on Halloween, check this out:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lilis2/halloween-costumes-for-elementary-school-teachers