Tic Tac Toe Reading Partners

I was browsing through some materials I collected at a training I attended at some point in my teaching career. I found this handout meant to remind teachers of different ways readers can work together. I thought it would work perfectly as a Tic Tac Toe game because that's how a Pirate Teacher would use it--hook them with a game!
 


I had it copied on green paper so that it would stand out. Students put it in their Literacy Binders under the category Reading Strategies.

 

The students were on-task and active. They had targeted conversations and were cooperative.

 

During Independent Reading, students met with their partners and completed 3 of the boxes in the grid to complete tic-tac-toe.

 

So teach like a pirate and turn plain old buddy reading into tic-tac-toe partners!

Halloween Poetry Jottings

When Halloween falls on a weekday, teachers need to embrace it in order to make it through a successful day of learning! I took a break from our current unit, Following Characters into Meaning. Instead of reading from our unit read aloud Because of Winn Dixie, I used some holiday poems to keep students focused. They thought it was cool to stop doing Reading Workshop (they just didn't realize they were still doing it)! When you teach like a pirate, sometimes you have to hook students by letting them think they are getting away with something. If they want to think they aren't doing work because the activity is new and different, then by all means I will run with it! 

 

I selected a variety of poems: repetitive, acrostic, rhyming, free verse, musical lyrics, haiku. I chose poems that I thought fit the category of complex text. The poems had strong vocabulary, allowed students to practice oral reading fluency, contained literal and figurative language, and lead students to envision. 

 

Students read the poems with their reading partner. They made jottings focused on empathy, envisioning, and predictions.

 

 

Students placed their jottings on the back of the poems so that I can use these jottings to conference with them next week.

Giving Props to Pirate Teachers

My professional teaching goal this year is to teach like a pirate! Yes, I did get this idea from the book Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. After reading it I have a renewed vigor. I am a fun teacher, but the ideas he presented in the book have inspired me to use my creativity and energy to hook my students and keep them engaged.  Last school year I shared my ideas for teaching in a Balanced Literacy classroom. This year I will document my use of hooks from Burgess' book.

Today's Hook: Props

 

When my students walked in to class today this hat was sitting on a stool in the meeting area. I stood back and listened to the conversations the students were having about the hat. Some thought it was an early Halloween decoration. Some wondered if I was going to wear it. One boy thought I was going to read a Viola Swamp book. One student thought they were going to write a scare story. They were very interested in what purpose this hat was going to serve today!

 

I began Reading Workshop by asking students to touch their noses if they had watched a Harry Potter movie. About 75% indicated they had. When asked, a few students said they had read one of the books. So I gave my students a little background on Harry and explained why he was at this special wizard school. Then I told them I was going to read part of the book to them. I read  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 7 The Sorting Hat. I began at the part when Professor McGonagall explained that the children would be sorted into houses. I stopped when she said they should prepare themselves for the ceremony. I related the wizards being sorted into houses to the students in my class being sorted into reading partnerships.

 

The teaching point in my mini lesson for Reading Workshop today was that reading partnerships are important to our reading lives. I explained to students that reading partners will help each other fill out their reading logs, sign each other's reading logs, share and discuss books, ask each other questions, recommend books to each other, and help each other have fun reading. We talked about what it meant to be respectful, cooperative, kind, and responsible partners. We talked about the positive and negative outcomes of working well with a partner--just like the wizards in their houses.

 

I continued reading from Harry Potter Chapter Seven at the part when the sorting hat was revealed {some students pointed a the hat next to me}. In the book it was sitting on a four-legged stool {some students whispered that so was my hat}. I chanted the song that the sorting hat sang in the book and I ended when Professor McGonagall announced to the wizards that the sorting would begin.

 

I stuck my hand inside my sorting hat and pulled out pre-written slips of paper that listed the reading partnerships for our classroom. The students were completely focused and hanging on each slip I pulled from the hat! Using the sorting hat prop made this lesson so fun! The students were listening to every word I said and they could not wait to see which partner the hat gave them. I am looking forward to incorporating more props into my teaching.

Reading Notebooks

I've been wanting to use Reading Notebooks for years, but I wasn't able to figure out how to organize them or what to include in them.  I wanted a way to keep my students' responses in one place, but I wasn't for certain how to use Reading Notebooks for an exact purpose. 

This summer I received training in the Balanced Literacy framework from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. I spent time on Pinterest and reading other teaching blogs. I compiled my ideas and combined them all together into a template that meets my teaching needs. This is the Reading Notebook I have designed for my students to use.  They actively use it and so far so good!

 

I organized it into 3 sections: Independent, Read Aloud, Minilesson. Students put their jottings on sticky notes in the Independent section after they finish a book. They put the book title at the top of the page and then the jottings underneath. During Read Alouds students can stop and jot, stop and sketch, make predictions, and record other responses. In the minilesson section I can have students draw Thinking Maps to display information about the book, they can glue templates for activities, or they can write responses or questions.

 

This library pocket is on the inside back over. Partners can write notes to each other about their books. They can also put questions in there. I also use this pocket as a way to differentiate between the two literacy blocks that I teach.  My inclusion block does not have this pocket in their Reading Notebooks.

 

This pocket is on the inside front cover.  If students see a book they want to read but someone else has it they can write it down and put it in the pocket. The student's reading level is also written on the pocket.

 

As the culminating lesson of Unit 1 "Building a Reading Life" in Lucy Calkins' Reading Workshop, students decorated their Reading Notebooks to reflect their new reading lives. They used clip art, photos from home, and old Scholastic book order forms!

 

They listed their favorite book topics.

 

 

fluency tips

 

student self-assessment and goals foldable in the independent section of the notebook

 

 

empathy and envision reminders in the minilesson section

 

high five retelling in the minilesson section

 

envisioning jotting in the read aloud section

 

well, the spelling needs work, but these are jottings in the minilesson section after learning how to revise a mental movie after reflecting on characters' actions

 

 

I used a story wheel during one of my read aloud lessons and afterwards these students sat in front of the anchor chart and recorded one of their own in the Reading Notebooks in the read aloud section. I got the story wheel lesson from the Better Lesson website (click here to visit this extremely resourceful site).

 

 

During our character study students added a list of character traits to the minilesson section.  They also added the template for a biopoem--a more rigorous way of describing a character.

 

I will add more details and photos from our Reading Notebooks as the year progresses.

 

The Power of Partners

Lessons 11 and 12 in Lucy Calkins' Building a Reading Life focus on creating and using reading partnerships.

 



 

Students learned what they can do with their partner to discuss and interact with their books.  I modeled each activity and then they practiced. I've used reading partnerships in the past, but by providing students with specific ideas for how to interact, it made the partnerships more focused and purposeful. Students were on task for the majority of the time I heard great conversations about reading.

 

 

Show each other your sticky notes and talk about what you marked.

 

Read a favorite part to your partner.

 

Act out part of your book.

 

Partners reading the same book aloud.

 

Taking turns reading aloud together.

 

I created my partnerships by pairing up students with similar reading levels.  The books in their reading baggies are at their reading levels and partners have a couple of books that are the same. One partner is written in yellow and the other is blue.  This is so I can sometimes give the yellow partner a task and the blue partner a different task.  I find this more user friendly than having the students remember who is Partner A and who is Partner B.



 

This girl went to do her weekly book shopping in the classroom library and I questioned her choice to get two of the same books.  She replied, "I got my partner exact copies of my books so we can do it together."  I was so excited that she has made her reading life one that includes her partner!