Amy at teach mama posted this week today about word sorts and lists this great resource for making your own:
This is from the Rockingham County Public Schools in Virginia. A little digging through their site revealed pages of great links for teachers - with even more resources. Check them out!
The April/May issue of Reading Today has a nice list of Children’s Book Reviews by Susan Dove Lempke that highlight great books for playing with language. I just added these titles to my wishlist…
by Anna Dewdney
by Chris Raschka
by Jack PrelutskyReading Literacy Instruction with Digital and Media Technologies by Diane Barone and Todd E. Wright (subscription required), I came across lots of great technology resources.
Todd Wright's Classroom, at Fernley Elementary School in Fernley, Nevada incorporates technology through laptops provided for each student that they can use both in school and at home. Some sites the authors suggest in the article:
Flashcard Exchange - This site is a little unpolished, but it is a quick and useful resource for creating flashcards, rote memorization, and self-quizzing. Teachers can set up the flashcards for students to access.
Gaggle.Net - A nice site that provides email for student use. Teachers can block & monitor all student communication.
KidBiz3000 - While this is a service that a district would need to paid for, it does seem to be a good resource. Students are paired with ability-specific non-fiction articles. First they receive an email that provides a background knowledge prompt, then after reading they participate in polls, respond to multiple-choice questions, and open-ended response questions that would be good preparation for standardized tests.
Nettrekker - A search engine that prescreens web sites, rates them by reading level, and provides a student-friendly search environment.
QuizStar - Also subscription-based, this site enables teachers to create quizzes, attach media files, and manage your class's scores.
United Streaming - Another subscription-based site. They have thousands of educational videos for online streaming.
The Writing Fix - Wow this site has lots of stuff on it! It will take time to sift through it all. So far I see loads of writing prompts, mentor text lessons specific to the 6+1 writing traits, and numerous opportunities for writing across the curriculum. A must see site.
While the text is simple and low on details, it is a good source for helping younger readers determine importance. It is organized by the seasons of the year, and this text pattern activity would help structure students’ note taking on the important events that take place.
Download Text Pattern Lesson for The First Thanksgiving
Download Text Pattern Chart for The First Thanksgiving
If this is an introductory lesson to the time period, then questioning would also be a useful strategy. Student questions generated from this text could be a nice foundation for further study.
Inference skills can play a key part in understanding this text. There are many words and situations that the reader can decipher the meaning of by using context and picture clues.
I wrote a strategic lesson for using inference with this text for one of my classes:
Download Inference Lesson for Sarah Morton’s Day
Download Inference Chart for Sarah Morton’s Day
Connecting is another important reading strategy to employ with this text. Students will be surprised at the hardships of Sarah Morton’s life, but they will also find many ways they are similar to Sarah. Further, if you are reading this as part of a unit on Pilgrims or Thanksgiving, they should make many connections to what they have already learned in this unit.
There is a companion to this book, Samuel Eaton’s Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy
I received my November 2008 The Reading Teacher today and I thought I'd try to use this blog as a way of archiving ideas I get from the articles.
The first article is "For the Love of Words: Fostering Word Consciousness in Young Readers" by Michael F. Graves and Susan Watts-Taffe. (subscription required) This article discusses ways to promote word consciousness - "an awareness and interest in words and their meanings" - in the classroom. There are many good ideas in this article that would work in any classroom:
- Word Wall Favorites: students bring in favorite words to add to the word wall and classmates respond with synonyms, related words, ideas etc.
- The Word Station: An area in the classroom devoted to the love of words filled with dictionary, thesauruses, word games, riddle books, etc.
- Repeated read alouds in the early grades provide an opportunity to focus on complicated vocabulary and interesting words.
- Word Card Files: Files of subject-specific words students can refer to in their writing.
- Fun word play games like Applause Applause, Get It?, Word Associations, and Idea Completion (see article)
- Activities that focus on slang and how it has changed over generations. Students can interview parents and grandparents to learn about the slang they used when they were young.
Web Sites this article suggests for word activities:
- Between the Lions: This site has basic word games that focus on adjectives and synonyms. Suitable to grades 2-4.
- Vocabulary Parades at Debra Frasier's web site
Lesson Links:
- Vocabulary with Franklin: This lesson for first and second graders focusing on learning new vocabulary through many different modes - readers' theater, word games, and writing activities.
- Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms: For 3rd & 4th grade, gain familiarity with adjectives and synonyms through webs, organizers, and picture books.
- The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play: 6th - 8th grade. Students review the parts of speech, use them in poetry, and create their own magnetic poetry kits.
Books to Add to the Wishlist:
- Donavan's Word Jar (Trophy Chapter Book)
- The Boy Who Loved Words
- Frindle
- Why the Banana Split
- Double Trouble In Walla Walla
- Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster
