This past week was pretty good progress for my student, Hannah. We worked on free-verse poetry as a whole classroom with Katie, Meg and Leslie's students. This took up a majority of the class time to make sure they were able to complete their writing sample, so in a way it set us back with reading and doing further skill building. The writing sample helped me get a clear idea of some aspects to continue to focus on with Hannah such as voice. Also to continue to challenge her in moving outside of her comfort zone (beyond narrative writing). We are reading Skeleton Creek and I really want it to pick up for her, she was really excited initially to start the book, but she was mostly excited for watching the videos. I am trying to think of good activities to do during and after reading that are engaging and make reading more fun for her. If anyone knows anything that works well for them?
Maybe a grpahic novel(providing the visual interaction that the movies of Skeleton Creek may provide) that speaks to her personal interest? I started a graphic novel with one of my students about dancing. (She is a dancer.) She couldn't put it down! Also it clued me in on some other areas of reading comprehension that I would like to work on with her.) If you are working on free verse poetry there is a book that I got from the Fisher Library- Poetry Speaks Who I Am with an audio CD with some of recorded by the writer/performer. This week I was planning to have my students read a poem from the book, practice and perform it for us--then compare themselves with the performance on the CD. This would help prepare for our poetry sharing in the future!
As you already know, my group is also doing Skeleton Creek! You and your student are more than welcome to join our group tomorrow for the reading(if we are in similar places in the book). Maybe having her read with a group of students will help her become more engaged. They can discuss any comprehension questions they have throughout their reading as well as any predictions they may think of.
Thank Meg! Thats a good idea, we can talk today to see where our students our. I have a feeling Hannah may be further behind you guys though because I think she started the book almost 2 weeks after you guys because she was sick. But that could be fun for her to have a group and we can come up with different activities each week together.
Last week went well for me (mostly due to Lauren's influence I'm sure) I finished up my study with no real problems, save occasional talking fits, but those were happily all related to the topic. Ta'kara did well (again, probably Lauren's influence, plus we weren't using the book she dislikes much). Overall, the kids did well with the book and made some gains with what we studied. It was a little disheartening though when immediately after the lesson on characterization D'Ondre filled out an assessment form and he still primarily identified characterization as characters' feelings.
We tried to work on writing and had some progress. Ta'kara was able to produce a poem. The boys also produced something, but it was not really a poem. This is mostly my fault because I didn't have a model or structured lesson for them. So we know what next class will focus on! I want to take them tot eh computer lab to type up a poem (after brainstorming) because for some reason writing by hand seems daunting.
Kit that's great that you can identify exactly what you need to do to make it work better next time. If providing a model for them doesn't work, maybe with the boys individually to help produce the poem will work.
Kit - I'm glad things are going better! If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by Lauren's influence? Did she suggest some behavior management tips that might help us all (now or with future students)? I always feel like that's an area of my teaching that the more suggestions and tips the better! What type of poetry are you working on with your students?
Ashley - How has the whole group instruction worked out? Our room had talked about doing that at one point, but it seems our schedules/teaching styles/ability levels have left us only working with our own students.
This week my tutoring went well. I had my observation, and was worried my student would be nervous having two adults watching her read. I couldn't have been happier with her work, though! She was as comfortable as she ever is, even explaining to Lauren that we had to start without her because she was running late (Sorry Lauren - that's her being literal! Guess I shouldn't have said the exact time you were supposed to be coming!!). This week my student was randomly talkative about things not related to school work. She was telling me about her Puerto Rican heritage, and she and I spoke a little spanish back and forth with each other. It was nice to see her opening up about herself. I only wish she had felt that comfortable early on!
My student wrote an I Am Poem, that she'll be reading for the poetry night with parents. I'm thinking of voice - recording her practicing reading it to have her listen to her fluency as she reads. Any other suggestions of fun ways to practice reading the same passage (or in this case, her writing)? She's excited to preform and share her poem, but at the same time has expressed that she doesn't always like to read in front of other people. I want to make sure we practice it enough so she feels very comfortable reading it that night.
For reading, sometimes reading it aloud using different expressions sometimes increases interest levels in reading the passage. I have done this before and it aloud students to get creative.
Laura- I had an idea about practicing read aloud poems which I posted under Ashelys's comment. For your student since she is so literal and seems younger- I would suggest (Like Katie said using different voices. To make it into an activity you could make a grab bag with descriptions of voices written on slips of paper in it like: funny voice, scary voice, teary voice that she could choose. Model using a simple poem with a different voice and invite her to take a turn.
Hey laura for the group lesson it has gone pretty well for writing, different people lead the lessons and that way some people can still sit with their student to work further with them. Also if you discuss your mini-lesson with your group it can always be adapted to specifically meet the needs of your student. I like the whole group thing, especially having one student I think she feels more connected and lets the kids open up with others in the room.
It is a little scary realizing how much time is actually left with our students! This past week I really concentrated on poetry with my student. We worked on the poem that would be going in the magazine and also being read at our final night together.
Our classroom started out as a whole group for the brain storming process for the poem. Once my student got all of her thoughts down in her journal she went right to town on her poem. A big concept we worked on was incorporating poetic devices into her writing. Similes was a big one. I kept prompting her by asking her for comparisons and for detailed descriptions on things.
I think this was benifical for her because her product turned out wonderful! She also enjoyed writing it and was very proud of her work. This was good because I have been trying to tap into her confidence!
I agree, it is scary how little time we have left. Doing a whole group lesson I think is a really good idea. I bet all of your students' poems are going to be awesome!!!
This past week my students (Shannon and Jeana)and I focused on sharing and refining our poems. We started by reading through the 6 Plus One Rubric and talked about the differences between a 1 and a 6. We reviewed 3 different poetry performances with the poem text provided. Then we "rated" the poem using the Rubric. (This was to provide a model to assist with our self monitoring goal.) I asked the students to share their poems. One person read and the other person listened. Instead of rating the poem, I had the listener think of one thing they liked about the poem and one thing that they would change. Afterwards, we discussed that we liked the use of larger vocabulary or "big words" in the poems that we listened to and could use that in our poetry. The students edited their poems with the changes we discussed and looked for areas that the could better describe using vocabulary. Using the paint swatch concept for vocabulary I had the students write down the word they would change, think of a better describing word from their own vocabulary (write that down), and then locate a word from the thesaurus. Both of my students did not know what a thesaurus was or have ever used one! After a quick lesson, they found a what a useful tool it was! They started to insert some of the words that they had thought of on their own and some that they found in the thesaurus when editing! For Jeana we started a new book for Guided Reading which is a graphic novel about a young girl's introduction to dancing. I couldn't get her to stop reading! However, it did clue me in on some struggles with reading comprehension. She gets a lot of the details but misses the big picture which is very interesting. I would like to observe more of this because it doesn't fit into her previous observations. I am thinking maybe she missed some frames in the graphic novel? Regarding the parent teacher conferences/poetry perfomance- I thought I would bring in a bin for my parents on parent teacher conference with all of the activities that we did and books we read so that if they would like to purchase the books or use the same activities they would have a visual of the materials. Also, I have given the girls each a binder to keep their writing and reading things in. This will be something that they can keep as a reading/writing resource for the future!
RAchel, great idea to go through the rubric with your students. It's very important that they always know what they are being graded on. It sounds like it helped.
Last week went alright for me. It took a lot of energy to get my students to focus. While reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the students did a nice job of self-correcting. They also helped correct their peers as well.
I have seen improvement in my students writing. I feel that having them free write for the first ten minutes of the session is helping. After they write I will work with them and tell them strategies that might help their writing.
All three of my students seem to lack adding details to their writing. I am trying to find different strategies to help them expand their writing. Writing is a struggle for my students the more writing I have done with them the more comfortable they seem to be with it.
My main concentration of last weeks tutoring session was poetry. I was glad my room was able to complete a short poetry lesson as a whole group. With the variety of schedules and lessons we are each undergoing, it is difficult to find time to work as a whole group. It was something new for us, and the students really enjoyed it (at least mine did!). Although I was not expecting the poetry writing to take the entire class time, it did. Unfortunately I was unable to complete the reading instruction I had planned but that was not a problem becuase I could tell how invested my students were in their poetry pieces. It's hard to believe that time is winding down already. I'm not sure how I'm going to get everything I had planned done!
The focus of this week session was poetry. The students were provided prompts to guide their writing. They did a brainstorming activity where they would write down words and ideas that came to mind after hearing the prompt. Then, they examined their lists and chose which prompt to use for their poem. The students were encouraged to write a free-verse poem, but could pick any form of a poem. My students did well with this. Two of them did struggle to begin and were reminded to use the ideas that they brainstormed. One student created a draft copy, made corrections and revisions, and then wrote a final copy. All of the students were able to make revisions and corrections. One of the kids wrote a very funny poem titled “Waste.” It is entertaining and well written, but I am just not sure if it is appropriate. He did not use any inappropriate language, but it is about poop. I will check with his parents to see what they think. It may become a re-write… This took up most of the session, so I wasn’t able to get through most of my lesson plan. I worry that the semester is more than half over and I feel like I am not making any progress!
Unfortunately, we had no focus this week because both of my students were absent! We were planning on writing a Haiku poem but I guess everything will have to wait until next week. I did work with a Practicum 1 student who also didn't have a student. We took on three students who's tutor was not there that day. I think we did a really nice job entertaining them. There was one student in the group that really tested our patience! I used this time to practice management of young students. One activity we did was play Scrabble Slam and the kids loved it. We modified it a little bit but the kids did so well. It was interesting because we had both only been with this group for about an hour and both tutors could identify some reading and spelling strengths and weaknesses of the three 1st/2nd graders.
This past week was pretty good progress for my student, Hannah. We worked on free-verse poetry as a whole classroom with Katie, Meg and Leslie's students. This took up a majority of the class time to make sure they were able to complete their writing sample, so in a way it set us back with reading and doing further skill building.
ReplyDeleteThe writing sample helped me get a clear idea of some aspects to continue to focus on with Hannah such as voice. Also to continue to challenge her in moving outside of her comfort zone (beyond narrative writing).
We are reading Skeleton Creek and I really want it to pick up for her, she was really excited initially to start the book, but she was mostly excited for watching the videos. I am trying to think of good activities to do during and after reading that are engaging and make reading more fun for her. If anyone knows anything that works well for them?
Maybe a grpahic novel(providing the visual interaction that the movies of Skeleton Creek may provide) that speaks to her personal interest? I started a graphic novel with one of my students about dancing. (She is a dancer.) She couldn't put it down! Also it clued me in on some other areas of reading comprehension that I would like to work on with her.)
DeleteIf you are working on free verse poetry there is a book that I got from the Fisher Library- Poetry Speaks Who I Am with an audio CD with some of recorded by the writer/performer. This week I was planning to have my students read a poem from the book, practice and perform it for us--then compare themselves with the performance on the CD. This would help prepare for our poetry sharing in the future!
Hey Ashley,
DeleteAs you already know, my group is also doing Skeleton Creek! You and your student are more than welcome to join our group tomorrow for the reading(if we are in similar places in the book). Maybe having her read with a group of students will help her become more engaged. They can discuss any comprehension questions they have throughout their reading as well as any predictions they may think of.
Thank Meg! Thats a good idea, we can talk today to see where our students our. I have a feeling Hannah may be further behind you guys though because I think she started the book almost 2 weeks after you guys because she was sick. But that could be fun for her to have a group and we can come up with different activities each week together.
DeleteLast week went well for me (mostly due to Lauren's influence I'm sure) I finished up my study with no real problems, save occasional talking fits, but those were happily all related to the topic. Ta'kara did well (again, probably Lauren's influence, plus we weren't using the book she dislikes much). Overall, the kids did well with the book and made some gains with what we studied. It was a little disheartening though when immediately after the lesson on characterization D'Ondre filled out an assessment form and he still primarily identified characterization as characters' feelings.
ReplyDeleteWe tried to work on writing and had some progress. Ta'kara was able to produce a poem. The boys also produced something, but it was not really a poem. This is mostly my fault because I didn't have a model or structured lesson for them. So we know what next class will focus on! I want to take them tot eh computer lab to type up a poem (after brainstorming) because for some reason writing by hand seems daunting.
Kit that's great that you can identify exactly what you need to do to make it work better next time. If providing a model for them doesn't work, maybe with the boys individually to help produce the poem will work.
DeleteOk, Kit, what did I do to influence your kids? Did I scare them? :) What are your "take=aways" from your lesson? That's what's important.
DeleteKit - I'm glad things are going better! If you don't mind my asking, what do you mean by Lauren's influence? Did she suggest some behavior management tips that might help us all (now or with future students)? I always feel like that's an area of my teaching that the more suggestions and tips the better! What type of poetry are you working on with your students?
ReplyDeleteAshley - How has the whole group instruction worked out? Our room had talked about doing that at one point, but it seems our schedules/teaching styles/ability levels have left us only working with our own students.
This week my tutoring went well. I had my observation, and was worried my student would be nervous having two adults watching her read. I couldn't have been happier with her work, though! She was as comfortable as she ever is, even explaining to Lauren that we had to start without her because she was running late (Sorry Lauren - that's her being literal! Guess I shouldn't have said the exact time you were supposed to be coming!!). This week my student was randomly talkative about things not related to school work. She was telling me about her Puerto Rican heritage, and she and I spoke a little spanish back and forth with each other. It was nice to see her opening up about herself. I only wish she had felt that comfortable early on!
My student wrote an I Am Poem, that she'll be reading for the poetry night with parents. I'm thinking of voice - recording her practicing reading it to have her listen to her fluency as she reads. Any other suggestions of fun ways to practice reading the same passage (or in this case, her writing)? She's excited to preform and share her poem, but at the same time has expressed that she doesn't always like to read in front of other people. I want to make sure we practice it enough so she feels very comfortable reading it that night.
For reading, sometimes reading it aloud using different expressions sometimes increases interest levels in reading the passage. I have done this before and it aloud students to get creative.
DeleteLaura- I had an idea about practicing read aloud poems which I posted under Ashelys's comment. For your student since she is so literal and seems younger- I would suggest (Like Katie said using different voices. To make it into an activity you could make a grab bag with descriptions of voices written on slips of paper in it like: funny voice, scary voice, teary voice that she could choose. Model using a simple poem with a different voice and invite her to take a turn.
DeleteHey laura for the group lesson it has gone pretty well for writing, different people lead the lessons and that way some people can still sit with their student to work further with them. Also if you discuss your mini-lesson with your group it can always be adapted to specifically meet the needs of your student. I like the whole group thing, especially having one student I think she feels more connected and lets the kids open up with others in the room.
DeleteLaura, I was really happy to see her opening up so much. She's come a long way with you in that area. Good job!
DeleteGreat suggestions everyone!
It is a little scary realizing how much time is actually left with our students! This past week I really concentrated on poetry with my student. We worked on the poem that would be going in the magazine and also being read at our final night together.
ReplyDeleteOur classroom started out as a whole group for the brain storming process for the poem. Once my student got all of her thoughts down in her journal she went right to town on her poem. A big concept we worked on was incorporating poetic devices into her writing. Similes was a big one. I kept prompting her by asking her for comparisons and for detailed descriptions on things.
I think this was benifical for her because her product turned out wonderful! She also enjoyed writing it and was very proud of her work. This was good because I have been trying to tap into her confidence!
I agree, it is scary how little time we have left. Doing a whole group lesson I think is a really good idea. I bet all of your students' poems are going to be awesome!!!
DeleteThis past week my students (Shannon and Jeana)and I focused on sharing and refining our poems. We started by reading through the 6 Plus One Rubric and talked about the differences between a 1 and a 6. We reviewed 3 different poetry performances with the poem text provided. Then we "rated" the poem using the Rubric. (This was to provide a model to assist with our self monitoring goal.) I asked the students to share their poems. One person read and the other person listened. Instead of rating the poem, I had the listener think of one thing they liked about the poem and one thing that they would change. Afterwards, we discussed that we liked the use of larger vocabulary or "big words" in the poems that we listened to and could use that in our poetry. The students edited their poems with the changes we discussed and looked for areas that the could better describe using vocabulary. Using the paint swatch concept for vocabulary I had the students write down the word they would change, think of a better describing word from their own vocabulary (write that down), and then locate a word from the thesaurus. Both of my students did not know what a thesaurus was or have ever used one! After a quick lesson, they found a what a useful tool it was! They started to insert some of the words that they had thought of on their own and some that they found in the thesaurus when editing!
ReplyDeleteFor Jeana we started a new book for Guided Reading which is a graphic novel about a young girl's introduction to dancing. I couldn't get her to stop reading! However, it did clue me in on some struggles with reading comprehension. She gets a lot of the details but misses the big picture which is very interesting. I would like to observe more of this because it doesn't fit into her previous observations. I am thinking maybe she missed some frames in the graphic novel?
Regarding the parent teacher conferences/poetry perfomance- I thought I would bring in a bin for my parents on parent teacher conference with all of the activities that we did and books we read so that if they would like to purchase the books or use the same activities they would have a visual of the materials. Also, I have given the girls each a binder to keep their writing and reading things in. This will be something that they can keep as a reading/writing resource for the future!
RAchel, great idea to go through the rubric with your students. It's very important that they always know what they are being graded on. It sounds like it helped.
DeleteGood ideas for parent night and for the girls.
Last week went alright for me. It took a lot of energy to get my students to focus. While reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the students did a nice job of self-correcting. They also helped correct their peers as well.
ReplyDeleteI have seen improvement in my students writing. I feel that having them free write for the first ten minutes of the session is helping. After they write I will work with them and tell them strategies that might help their writing.
All three of my students seem to lack adding details to their writing. I am trying to find different strategies to help them expand their writing. Writing is a struggle for my students the more writing I have done with them the more comfortable they seem to be with it.
My main concentration of last weeks tutoring session was poetry. I was glad my room was able to complete a short poetry lesson as a whole group. With the variety of schedules and lessons we are each undergoing, it is difficult to find time to work as a whole group. It was something new for us, and the students really enjoyed it (at least mine did!). Although I was not expecting the poetry writing to take the entire class time, it did. Unfortunately I was unable to complete the reading instruction I had planned but that was not a problem becuase I could tell how invested my students were in their poetry pieces. It's hard to believe that time is winding down already. I'm not sure how I'm going to get everything I had planned done!
ReplyDeleteThe focus of this week session was poetry. The students were provided prompts to guide their writing. They did a brainstorming activity where they would write down words and ideas that came to mind after hearing the prompt. Then, they examined their lists and chose which prompt to use for their poem. The students were encouraged to write a free-verse poem, but could pick any form of a poem.
ReplyDeleteMy students did well with this. Two of them did struggle to begin and were reminded to use the ideas that they brainstormed. One student created a draft copy, made corrections and revisions, and then wrote a final copy. All of the students were able to make revisions and corrections.
One of the kids wrote a very funny poem titled “Waste.” It is entertaining and well written, but I am just not sure if it is appropriate. He did not use any inappropriate language, but it is about poop. I will check with his parents to see what they think. It may become a re-write…
This took up most of the session, so I wasn’t able to get through most of my lesson plan. I worry that the semester is more than half over and I feel like I am not making any progress!
Unfortunately, we had no focus this week because both of my students were absent! We were planning on writing a Haiku poem but I guess everything will have to wait until next week. I did work with a Practicum 1 student who also didn't have a student. We took on three students who's tutor was not there that day. I think we did a really nice job entertaining them. There was one student in the group that really tested our patience! I used this time to practice management of young students. One activity we did was play Scrabble Slam and the kids loved it. We modified it a little bit but the kids did so well. It was interesting because we had both only been with this group for about an hour and both tutors could identify some reading and spelling strengths and weaknesses of the three 1st/2nd graders.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're noticing strengths and weaknesses like that. When you know what you're looking for, it can be very obvious.
Delete