Teach. Stop. Reflect.

Artifacts for my Summative Engagement Students know what they are learning and why they are learning it!  Students feel excited to come to LLI, because lessons are geared to fit their individual needs and lessons include researched based teaching strategies such as modeling, positive reinforcement, immediate & descriptive feedback, and cooperative learning. Our Reader's Theater performances really are important to both our students and their families!  The scripts are FUN and therefore the students are able to "get into character" and become silly!  The scripts increase fluency and reading comprehension in all students.  Even parents are engaged because they help students practice their role every night and they will be invited to the final performance! Every time a student increases their reading level, they are praised!  They get to write their name on our data bulletin board, color in their data chart, and receive an award.  This helps them st...

Close Reading Video Students asked questions...followed along...took notes...drew pictures...thought critically...analyzed the text...made predictions...etc!

Students can share what they are doing and why it's important.  I never have to get on to them to continue reading- they do it because they are interested in the book and interested in making growth in reading SO THAT they can be prepared for LIFE!

Every Thursday of the week, we get together with all third graders to help them Close Read.  This has been SO helpful!  They enjoy taking notes, thinking, talking, and drawing.  I believe that the more they do it, the more normal it becomes for them, and by the time testing is here...they will be experts! I'm trying to remember that they might not know the meaning of many words, and so I want to do a better job of helping them use context clues to figure out the meaning or how to simply skip it and find "keywords" in the paragraph. This is something I think we should start doing at the beginning of the year, rather than halfway through the year.

Wow! Reader's Theater really helped the students with fluency- but especially with confidence! A few things were eye opening: -What students can accomplish with practice -How a good script can encourage student motivation and participation -Partner scripts help first graders stay on track -Scripts don't just have to be about Christmas or the holidays- they can be about other holidays or anything in general- the students just in general loved doing something different!  Yet, they were still reading! -Kids love helping with the props! -With each TA having a job, such as the "prop person" or "backstage person"...they feel just as included! -Certificates help make it feel REAL! We will definitely do this again next year.  This was a WIN! :)

I've recently had the opportunity to model Yes Ma'am in a few classrooms in our building.  It's been really nice to teach to an entire class once again.  Writing always seems to be the hardest subject to teach.  I've always had trouble with it because I write naturally, so it's hard for me to be able to explain to students.  However, the more I model and take things step by step, the better the students do.    I think the biggest thing I learned is to put my writing into steps for the kids.  Step 1 is to Read.  Step 2 is to Think.  Step 3 is to Write.  Step 4 is to Reread.  They are starting to memorize these and use these steps in their writing.  As long as they are taking their time to think and reread their work, they are usually able to come up with correct sentences.  Coming up with correct answers, though, takes explicit instruction with making sure the students are using "Keywords" from the question (Jonah, lea...

Walkthroughs are super important!  They are quick, help students see my face and know who I am, and help me determine what's going on with TAs.   I want to catch them doing something awesome and be able to praise them for it!  I can also help establish a presence to keep TAs on the right track.  I can see what's really going on during their instruction time! I don't have a free hour yet- but I'm thinking of using at least one instructional period a month to make time for this.  It's SUPER important!!