Thursday, October 11, 2007

Reading Strategically

I'm excited about reading this year in room 19. I have done more than ever in teaching children explicitly how to use reading strategies and I am really impressed at how well they are applying them. Today we read the story "The Girl who Loved the Wind" in the Open Court anthology, and the students were allowed to pick any strategy to use as they read. They showed a particular fondness for "Asking Questions" -- and darn good questions they were! -- but they also make predictions and did "Making Connections" quite well too! I am confident that when we begin our literature circles later this month they will be quite adept at using the strategies on some really high quality books.

Students are also doing incredibly well with their independent reading. This was the first year that I made the students write daily entries about their reading, and it has been a great boon to comprehension and accountability. Everybody is reading and showing evidence of comprehension, too. I have not yet been responding as much as I would like with suggestions for other books, but that will follow in time. Independent reading, according to education researchers, is the single best predictor of academic success, and it looks like our students in this fourth grade class are well on their way to finishing high school and entering college!

We went to the auditorium to work with Mr. Lawton today in music. They had a lot of fun with the boomwhackers, but I unfortunately forgot to bring the camera along. We'll have some pictures soon of them playing with these tuned plastic tubes. Mr. Lawton, like me, as some background in the Orff-Schulwerk method of music education and I am really excited by all the great things he is starting to do with the children this year.

Home Studies: (1) Finish the multiplication worksheet. This was a little unplanned review, but the students were quite restless after lunch, and they needed some very structured work to help them focus. Most are almost done with this. (2) Do as much as possible with the math packet. They have a couple more days on it, but if they can finish and correct it before the test day I have more opportunity to work on misconceptions.

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