Reading

I still need to finish my summary lessons on Monday

While independent reading, mark with a sticky a part that made a great picture in their mind. Later they can go back and reread and sketch it or do that for homework.
 * Wed** - Visualizing Use handout called "Sketch to Stretch" Read a descriptive quote and show them a sketch you drew of it. Explain why you drew what you did and how it made you feel. Explain how creating pictures and movies in your mind can help you understand the text better. Have them close their eyes and visualize a second descriptive quote. Read it a second time and have them sketch it quickly. (I have a copy of a couple quotes from Sarah, Plain and Tall and another one that are pretty good. I also think Winn Dixie has several great parts that would be good to use. The War With Grandpa had great visualization in the part that describes Peter's new room at night. I will copy quotes for you for Wed.


 * Thursday** Text to Text Connection You can use the Name books if you used them earlier for retell, etc. and explain how the main characters all started to dislike their names after their peers made fun of it. And how they felt very sad and bad about having the name they did, until someone important in their lives made them see how wonderful their name really is.

Could also use Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and The War with Grandpa. They may at first think it is because the main characters are close in age and named Peter. As well they have an "annoying" younger sibling. I would point out the bigger connection is that both characters feel unappreciated and that noone in their family cares how they feel.

I was online and also saw the books by Patricia Polacco, Sunday Chicken Eggs (I can't remember the name off hand right now - I will double check it) and Rachenka's Eggs (which could also incorporate some great vocabulary) could be used as a text to text and text to self the next day. (I HAVE THESE BOOKS IF YOU WANT TO BORROW THEM)- Diane


 * Friday Text to Self Connection** (Key here is to show them that an emotion or feeling has to be connected.) Could go back and use First Day Jitters and make a connection of how you felt on the first day. Or could use the previous read alouds to connect to a time when you felt as if noone cared about you in your family when a younger sibling got all the attention. Use whatever works for you.
 * I was doing some planning today and went in another direction other than connections. They know what they are but they don't make very good connections. I was working on Reading is thinking. I thought I would go from general to specific. I will get to the above lessons but probably later next week. I need to see how this week goes. -D


 * Week of 10/6**

Questioning: Using Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting (I have the chart paper with the blown up copy of the front cover and index cards with questions to do the mini lesson. We can take turns using it.)

Thin v. thick question (Using more of Fly Away Home)

Inference (Using Fly Away Home)

Symbolism: (Using Fly Away Home)

Text to World Connection (Using Fly Away Home)

Week of 10/6 Will work on coming up with lessons, books and rubrics with Sandy on character study - thank you Sanyd

Also - if you did not do it last week, this week we need to do the monthly recording of average # of pages read. I will start it off as a morning meeting activity...having them do the first three questions that basically ask how many different books they read...I will let them share the titles and some reviews of them with each other...then during reading I will do the rest with them.

Focus on Fluency -- Diane and Michele, I left fluency packets in your mailboxes, so this should piece it all together. (Michele, this is what we discussed)
 * __Week of 10/13 (really Tues. 10/14)__** - S.

Tues. - Explain to students that fluent readers have better comprehension... when it sounds like a conversation in our heads, then we can better make a movie in our minds. Quick model of what fluency doesn't sound like and then what it does sound like. Ask students to notice and name what you are doing: smooth, clear, steady pace, reading with feeling and expression, paying attention to punctuation, character voices (might be nice to pick a passage with different people talking.) Have partners work with a partner to practice fluency. Make sure to have them practice rereading so they notice how much better they read the second time. We could use our poems from Poetry Wednesday for this. Wed.- How does punctuation boss you around? Make the stoplight and then pose the questions listed on the Fluency Study page. Again,have students practice with a partner noticing what they are doing when they see punctuation marks. (During morning meeting, you could do a chorale read of the poem and then have each student read one line. Thurs. - Today, students can practice "Punctuation points the Way" and they can add punctuation to see how it totally changes the meaning which is a nice follow-up to why they need to pay attention to it. Then they can practice reading those sentences properly which is a little tricky. Fri. - Today, maybe we can do two things. First, we can talk about inflection with "I have red Nike sneakers." - the one that Bette had told me where emphasis determines meaning. This is fun. Using their indep books, maybe each student can read a page to their partner and then assess themselves and their partner with that little checklist that Julie provided. (I prefer this to the Fountas and Pinell one because it's a little simpler) I will copy it and blow it up -- this can go in the assessments section of the reading binder.

With strugglers, I plan to practice the same thing each day. I copied a short text (from Judy Blume - The Pain and the Great One) and I think I'll actually have the students first read it silently and then practice reading aloud in the group with the focus being on reading fluently. Then, I'm going to have them tape record themselves -- could do something like: tape a cold read, tape a reread, tape a difficult text, tape a just right text... This will take all 4 days.

Michele, I know we also talked about questionning -- could do that during character (or just before) next week. It might be nice to have a solid week of fluency. We could read __Yo Yes__ at another point in the day.

Read aloud - I think I might read Crash -- I know Winn Dixie is great for character - other recommendations for character?

Characterization lessons to follow -- Michele and I will work on those this week.

(Follow unit map I gave you - taken from __Sandy's character unit__ from last year... as well we have copies to follow of Sandy's detailed write up as to what she did for each lesson. Use the picture book Rough Faced Girl for the lessons. Students will stay in their independent leveled texts this week.)
 * Week of 10/20 Character Study Unit - M**

Monday - Using Rough Faced Girl, stop along the way to have kids turn and talk about character traits. Fill in Character Traits Map as a whole class. They will then go into their independent books and do the same with their own texts.

Tuesday - Explain the difference between primary and secondary characters. Have them imagine Rough Faced Girl without the mean sisters and how would it change the story. Students will see that the placement of these characters is deliberate and helps move the story along. Students will look for these types of characters in their own texts.

Wednesday - Define static and dynamic characters. Students will identify these types of characters in the RFG and then in their own independent books.

Thursday - Look at how the author makes the characters believable. Use RFG and then they will do it in their own independent books.

Friday - Nonfiction day.

Due to the river walk we did not get in Thursday's lesson. We will demonstrate this (how the author makes the characters believable) instead during our read aloud throughout the unit.
 * Week of 10/27 Character Study Week 2** M

We will be giving out / assigning partner books on Monday. Partners will need to decide on a specified amount of pages to read each night and create two postings each night. We will use Sandy's "Nightly Postings" sheet for this.

Lessons for next 3 days taken from a Read Write Think lesson found by Sandy Will copy character trait maps and charts from lesson 2 and 3 for our classes

Ask students to think about the main character as you read and model your thoughts. You can stop at the point that Magda, the main character, see the "4 Sa. CAT" sign. Could use the same character trait map that we used last week to write down findings. At the end, the class using all the clues from the map, has to come up with a predominant character trait for the main character. (We may want to hand out a list of character traits before they come to the minilesson.)
 * Monday:** Infer character traits using __A Bad Road for Cats__, by Cynthia Rylant. Introduce that good readers get to know the characters in their books and that understanding them helps readers comprehend the text and enjoy their books.

They will then do this in their partner books during independent reading time.


 * Tuesday**, Infer how a character changes across a text using __A Bad Road for Cats__, by Cynthia Rylant. Finish reading the story while filling out a new character trait map on chart paper for the next part of the story. Put the two maps side by side and model your thoughts about Magda and how she has changed since the first session. Show students how you are using inference to do this. Show them the "How and Why Characters Change" chart. Have the students discuss their observations of Magda and how she has changed. Fill out the chart together but leave the last part blank.

Give them a blank chart to fill in with their partner after independent reading.


 * Wednesday** Infer why the character changed using __A Bad Road for Cats__ by Cynthia Rylant. Bring up the "How and Why Characters Change" chart and refer to the last part. Review her traits at the beginning, the end and how she changed throughout. Ask them to brainstorm why Magda might have changed, what caused this transformation, etc. And to be sure to use evidence from the book or their own lives to support their answer. Ask them to confer on which reason was most likely to have caused the change, and chart it.

Ask the students to use their individual charts for their partner reading books to infer reasons for character changes after independent reading.


 * Thursday** Sandy and I will be at a PD day so we thought it would be good to use it as an assessment day. I will copy reading passages and assessments from the TFK teacher's handout for all of us to give this day.


 * Friday:** Nonfiction day. Since the kids will have done reading and assessments on Thursday, we thought this day they could instead get together and read articles from the TFK and then orally present them to the class.

**//Week of 11/3 - S//** S__ee my notes added next to yours - M__ Michele, I'm just adding a little here to confirm what we've talked about -- correct me PLEASE if I've got it wrong! I may be behind. Mon: ML - How to talk using the bookmarks that we should each have in our room - I made them 2 years ago and they are on aqua colored paper. They can practice talking about a short text or a class picture book. It would be best if they could talk about how characters changed and reference the text. Maybe even use the class read aloud? Students should continue to work on how characters changed using their indep. book and we can meet with groups. __Yes - I was also thinking of having them do something I saw where they divide their journal either in half or in quadrants depending on how many people in the same book. They write something they noted about the character along with evidence and maybe a prediction. They then switch journals with their parnter or group members and respond in the other person's journal. They can then read and respond to that. I will explain that the types of things they are responding to in writing is how I would like them to eventually respond to verbally.__ __For homework I may ask them to pick a quote that they feel was most important in their reading and why - could be for any reason. On Wednesday - they can again respond in writing in their journals and then talk about it.__M Tues - pd Wed - We had originally talked about starting first part of the One Green Apple journey lesson, but it might be disjointed. How about if we do the monthly reading reflection today instead? I think I'd like to have this done prior to conferences. - __I belive we decided One Green Apple will be best for the following week. We can continue to work on the conversation piece and the monthly reading reflection is good for this day too.__M Thurs - Give Rally Test - __Yes__M Fri - Nonfiction Friday - I want to do another one of these and I want to do some small group work for those who need help with responding to these questions. - __Sounds good!__M

Week of 11/10 - M

Below is just a quick summary of what we spoke about on Friday... (I may give out a question for homework on Monday due Wed, and then Wed just have them do postings along with a connection to the book for Friday. We can use this homework as a "preassessment" to talk about and teach connections the following week.

Mon - Review again how to talk deeply to one another about their books. Will also give out Wayside School reader's theater scripts this day to read aloud to them and then maybe together with partners.

Tues. No School

Wed. - One Green Apple - Follow the lesson "characters usually want something" from Julie's handouts

Thurs. - One Green Apple - Follow the lesson "are others in the book supporting/helping or hurting the character along on their journey" from Julie's handout

Friday - Nonfiction - TFK + assessment question(s)

Week of 11/17 - M

Character Project Week

This week I am going to have the students working on character book projects.

Monday we will come up with project ideas and basic rubric as a class and then they can work on them the rest of the week. If any are finished by Thurs and Friday they can present them.