Classroom magazines have become an invaluable resource in my classroom for exposing my students to informational texts. Our language arts curriculum lacks quality non-fiction selections. Classroom magazines, such as Time For Kids and Scholastic News have been great for exposing my students to engaging and current non-fiction material. However, I use to struggle with the best way to work them into my language arts block. This post explains what I have done to make the most of all those classroom magazines. Each year, I am so excited when our magazines start to arrive. However, they use to quickly start pile up, week after week, and I found myself squeezing them in whenever I could. Looking back, I realize that I was using them as filler. My challenge this year was finding a way to integrate them into my language arts program in a way that was more meaningful and focused. So, here are several ways that I have been using magazines in my classroom this year. Focus on Text Fe...
Students always get excited when a holiday rolls around, especially if it falls on a day they're in school. Although the holidays do make teaching a tad more difficult (especially if a party is involved), they do lend to discussions about family, friendship, heroism, and love. I typically spend the days leading up to a holiday reading picture books to my students. This is a good way to teach various reading strategies and skills with some literature that your students are excited about. Below is a list of books, targeted at various grade levels, that would be appropriate to read for Valentine's Day. You can choose one to read every day, check out a bunch from the library and let students choose to read them throughout the week, have a parent volunteer read one to the class, or even have students read to younger grade levels in the school. If you'd like to read a short summary of a specific book, just hover over the bookshelf and it'll take you Amazon. :) She...
How. Do. We. Get. Students. To. Stop. Reading. Word. By. Word? For a few of my students, fluency is an obstacle that we are trying to battle. I think it's more of a full fledged war at this point! I used to think that as long as my students could read and comprehend what they read, then the rate, in which they read, didn't matter. It might have been hard to listen to, but not extremely important. Needless to say, that thinking didn't last long. Fluency is extremely important. Fluency becomes even more important the older students get. If a student reads slowly, this can result in a ripple effect. If it takes them too long to read a text in class, this in turn can cause them to fall behind. Then grades, self-esteem, and the desire to learn begins to plummet. So, how does one tackle fluency? Listed below are five ways for students to practice along links to reading passages, poetry, and readers' theater scripts that you can print off for practice...
I love putting a simple spin on "everyday" activities to make them more engaging for my students. Every year I notice that I have a hard time getting many of my students writing. Let's be honest...sometimes getting a student to write more is worse than "pulling teeth"! After lots of experimenting, I found these 3 activities made my students want to write while improving their skills at the same time. 1. Morning Journals Why I love it : Builds stamina and confidence. I start off by giving each of my students a journal and let them decorate it. Each morning I put a topic on the front board for them to think about. My students then write about either the topic on the board or anything that is on their mind. My only rule is that they write! Each day, I collect a small group of journals. I take a few minutes out of the day to quickly read through and respond to their journal entries. If they don't want me to read a page, I ask them to fol...
Common Core Standard: W.3.5, W.4.5, W.5.5, W.6.5 W.3.3c, W.4.3.c, W.5.3.c, W.6.3.c W.3.3d, W.4.3.d, W.5.3.d, W.6.3.d W.4.3.e, W.5.3.e, W.6.3.e Do your students like to copy rough drafts to their final drafts without revising? I think that is how most upper elementary students think about writing. Get it done and be done with it. Or as some of us say in the south: My name is Pam Olivieri from Rockin Resources and I love writing with my students! Last year, our test scores rocked and my students developed a love for writing. Are you wondering how to have the same results? The key is to teach mini lessons in the order they are needed in writing and be excited about writing! They will want to imitate your enthusiasm! Then practice, practice, practice and keep them accountable for all the lessons previously introduced. One of the steps of the writing process is revising. The following 8 steps will help your students revise their essays and you will see them smile...
I love teaching author's purpose...maybe it's the cozy PIE image it conjures up, or maybe it's the fact that for most kids, this is a concept that they "get" for the most part (with a little bit of explaining and some hands on practice). It's kind of the opposite of long division that way, if you know what I mean! :) So, how do I teach author's purpose? I follow an 8 step recipe: 1. Use Mentor Texts Mentor texts are my go-to strategy for almost anything to do with reading and author's purpose is no exception. I round up some great examples for each of the three PIE strategies (Persuade, Inform, Entertain) and read them to the class over a few days. Sometimes we can even read just a few pages for the kids to get the gist of what the author was trying to do. Doing this as a whole class is always great because it reinforces the kids who are on the right track, and it helps the kids who are lost in the woods, to get some help ...
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