Technology

I had the pleasure of attending our district's technology meeting this afternoon.  Truthfully, I admit I was not looking forward to being gone.  My to-do list was much too long and I felt I needed to stay and intentionally plan a unit for another meeting I have on Friday afternoon with 5th grade not to mention the Kindergarteners I needed to finish assessing for reading levels.

 I have been on the tech meeting since I started with our district in 1993 (OM-has it been that long already??)  I was just thinking it was time to step down from the committee, but the meeting was MOTIVATING!  I love technology and I love learning new things with technology.   We had the pleasure of hearing the following teachers present.  These gals are providing great learning opportunities through technology for our H-D students.

*Mrs. Krull -Middle school tech teacher has done great things with keyboarding, researching, discovering and investigating many software programs and internet uses with her 400+ students!  Check out her fusion pages.  As a parent I loved seeing the resumes the 8th graders created-real life skills.

*Mrs. Johnson- a 6th grade math and reading teacher, check out her fusion pages-very impressive!

*Mrs. Hoegh- High School Consumer Science teacher began, The Bulldog Cafe, which is a wonderful business & learning opportunity for our students.  Check it out-she is doing wonderful things for our students.

*Mrs.  Aalbers- 1st grade teacher shared the many uses of Kidspiration- wonderful software for every elementary teacher to use in every content area!

*Leanne Tucker and Alicia Clark- Preschool teachers shared the sites Starfall and BookFlix.  Our students must be surrounded with technology.

My new learning via Mrs. Johnson:   What should I read next?   (Check out this website)

As literacy coach I hear this question from teachers, students and parents.  I am great at recommendations for young learners  but I struggle with older students as I have been a first grade teacher for the last 12 years.  This site allows you to enter the title of the last book read and it generates a list of ideas for your next read.  Check it out- AWESOME!  Can't wait to use it and share with my teachers I work with.

My personal wish for technology is to get an Ipad.  Oh the things I could do at school!!   The latest incentive is a new app coming out this spring- Fountas & Pinnell BAS Leveling Kit!  We could do all running records digitally- record, save and share teacher to teacher.   I guess I can wish- and maybe if Mr. Speake is reading this (as he is one of my four followers) he will know just what to buy me for my birthday. ;)

Thanks to all the teachers that regularly use technology-our students do not know a world without it!  Thanks to Mr. Morton, Mrs. Fridley and Mrs. Peterson our dedicated H-D tech team!

Happy Reading!  Mrs. Speake

The Fluent Reader

I absolutely love Mr. Rasinski's book,  The Fluent Reader.  Last week I had the opportunity to present a Fluency Session for our literacy professional development.  This is the time of year students fall behind their peers in regards to fluency and independent reading fluency. 

What is Fluency? The ability to read the words in a text with sufficient accuracy, automaticity, and prosody to lead to good comprehension.
This book is a must have for any elementary teacher!  Mr. Rasinski presents the latest research and shares many effective fluency strategies that are easy to integrate in a balanced literacy program.  He also includes a DVD with video samples and many downloads to get you started.  I read the book in just a few days and I was so excited to get a chance to share my findings with our PreK-5 teachers.  
Highlights from the book:
Read Aloud-motivating readers & modeling
Assisted Reading-scaffolding for your developing & struggling readers
Repeated Reading- ways to implement this strategy in fun & engaging ways
  great ideas to use assistants, volunteers, parents, older student tutors
Performance Reading- fun!  poetry, songs, chants, Reader's Theater
   many ideas, and ways to start instantly
Synergy- how to make lessons engaging, fun & powerful
Content Areas- integrate fluency throughout the day in many content areas
Assessment- how to best assess, rubrics, don't over rely on DIBELS! 


Video: Tim Rasinski on teaching reading fluency

Happy Reading! Mrs. Speake

Happy New Year!!

     I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and had time to relax and enjoy family.  I love having my two older children home from college.  We were all ready for slow moving days.  Staying in my P.J.s until noon, drinking coffee and reading......can’t get much better than that!

     It's hard to believe its a new year already.  I decided to take time to challenge myself professionally.  I have made a list of books I want to read.   As I began my masters program a few years ago I realized how lazy I had gotten staying in tuned to professional readings and current research.  I get excited to read new professional books and to learn new strategies.  With my new role in literacy its nice to be able to focus on one area.  As a teacher, each year you will have different learners and you must have many strategies that work to help all of your students be successful.  Your PD time will NOT be sufficient or personalized.  YOU must be in control of your continued learning and striving to be successful. 

     What are you reading as a teacher?  What do you want to learn about?  I challenge you to re-think reading professionally.  Look at it as motivation and excitement that you can find new things to enhance your teaching. Feel good about taking time to learn!  SO join me in the reading challenge. . . . .

My Reading List: (click on the title to find out more)

Conferring: The Keystone of Reader’s Workshop (taking time to talk to readers 1:1 is so important and it can be done, hoping to learn how to do this better)

Read It Again! Revisiting Shared Reading  ( I am currently in the middle of this-quick read & great reminder to create a love of reading with our young learners!)

Developing Essential Literacy Skills: A Continuum of Lessons for Grades K-3 (this talks a lot about creating a balanced literacy approach and closing the gap grade to grade-exactly what we are trying to do at H-D)

Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook   (hope to get insights how to help older readers be accountable for their reading...fits great with our workshop goals and conferring with readers)

Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook  (fits in well with our writer's workshop model but I keep hearing how hard it is for our older students-how do we get them to write more? write freely? )

The Failure Free Reading Methodology: New Hope for Non-Readers  (I received this on my Kindle from a friend, wondering if he has ideas for our many older non-readers!!)

I also love having my Kindle!  I can download samples of the above, read the first few chapters and then decide....

I love AMAZON...... buy the books used or become an Amazon Prime member! 

Happy Reading!  Mrs. Speake

P.S.  We are actually in school tomorrow!! What happened to our holiday observation of the 1st???  Bummer! :)

Did you say METACOGNITION??

     Yesterday a parent stopped by to share some good news!  Her son came home sharing the new word he learned in Kindergarten - "me ta cog ni tion"!  Of course the parents said - what does this mean??  He slowly said - "thinking about your thinking!"  Woo hoo!

     The elementary students are learning reading comprehension strategies for their developmental level.  Metacognition is the latest buzz word in psychology.  Metacognition enables us to be successful learners, and has been associated with intelligence (e.g., Borkowski, Carr, & Pressley, 1987; Sternberg, 1984, 1986a, 1986b). Metacognition refers to higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive (thinking) processes engaged in learning.

      We are teaching the process of good thinking strategies for reading.  Kids know that good readers think about what they are reading.  If we don't engage our brain when we read it is "fake" reading and only "real" reading helps our brain grow!  The thinking strategies we are teaching can carry over to math, science, social studies and writing.  We must engage our brains with everything we do.  Plus young kids love to say big, juicy words.  Its the hook that makes the learning stick.

     Tanny McGregor wrote a wonderful book, Comprehension Connections.  We are  implementing many of her ideas K-5.   Many of the teachers at South Side will readily share -  we are learning right along with the kids and it's exciting.  Raising our expectations and raising our students to be life-long learners.

Is there anything better than picking up a good book and reading?
Happy Reading!   Mrs. Speake

Building Community

Beginning a new school year is an exciting time!    As I follow a variety of blogs I love seeing photos of classroom makeovers or reading new management ideas that will help create positive learning environments.  Building community with students has become such an important part of our job. Students come from all backgrounds and to help each become successful they need a teacher’s unconditional love. (respect, kindness, encouragement, fairness)   

What a task we have!  

I saw this poster and loved it!  What a great poster to hang in the classroom and use as a belief statement.  I also think it applies to our teaching community as we work together.

As the new literacy coach, I hope I can help connect teachers and facilitate a learning environment as we strengthen our literacy program. Together we can create the best elementary program for our kids.  We each have areas of expertise and sharing these strengths with one another can only make us better teachers which also means more student success!

Happy New Year-

Ronna

If you go over to Mrs. Petite's Teaching Passion  blog.  Mrs. Petite is sharing

this poster she created.