Group items tagged

Resources for K-12 science lessons!  This is awesome and has everything from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Animal Farm reading with science. 

This site offers a variety of books to use in science.  It also includes books for math and social studies.  I enjoy using trade books in my classroom for all grades.  My fourth graders love when I read picture story books to them in any subject.  This site is a great way to find books that will fit the needs of concepts you are teaching.

Always great to have resources for bringing more literacy & literature to the other core subjects!

This article gives a listing of authors and books that would be of interest to someone who wants to learn more about science. It also gives a breakdown of what their books are about. This information is interesting to me because I am a science teacher. Not all students want to learn more about science, but I have had some students ask for recommendations for books they could read. I really like that I now have the ability to do so. I can already think of a few students who I know would like to read several of these books.

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The disclaimer below the title is exactly what you will find - even though I want to teach secondary, this blog has a ton of resources for teaching math and science through literature.  I never knew cute books existed that combined reading and math for young kids.  I have fun scrolling through the math and earth science tabs on the right side of the page.  I even wrote down a few titles to purchase for my daughter and me at home - after all, I really need a break from Umizoomi!

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Content Literacy Strategies: History/Social Science Here are descriptions of over 30 strategies and activities that may be used to teach the Historical and Social Science Analysis Skills from the History-Social Science Content Standards through children's literature. They were developed to support the Pages of the Past and Tales of Time literature lists. A really great site, and another one that I will keep and use on an assignment.

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This is a great website for students and teachers of any grade level. It's great for students in a jam and needing help or a more permanent system for helping students progress in multiple areas. Topics include math, science, humanities, finance, and economics ranging from basic to highly complex lessons. Students can track their individual progress; parents and teachers can target and monitor the progress of their children/students. It's free, easily accessible and a great tool for learning. Take a minute if you don't know about this website, it's really quite amazing.

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"APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, second printing."

APA 6th edition is the required style for your research papers. This page lists the most common formatting guides.

This site gives instruction on how to set up a scientific paper and how to read one. Students very often don't understand how to set up a scientific paper and this gives a breakdown of exactly how to do it. It also gives instruction on how to interpret results, and how to decide if all of the criteria that need to be in a scientific paper have been met. Students very often don't understand how all of this can be accomplished. This would be of use for students who were having trouble writing a scientific paper.

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Also very useful for how to read a scholarly article in any discipline, not just science! I'm going to tag this one to use with future classes. Thanks!

Journal # 1 Shedd, K.M., & Duke, N.K. (2008). The power of planning developing effective read-alouds. Beyond the Journal Young Children on the Web. November, 1-6. The article that I read is about the importance of reading aloud to students and the effectiveness of read-alouds. The study has found the effectiveness of read-alouds depends on a number of factors: * open-end questions * a careful selection of high-quality text * teacher excitement while reading read-alouds are important part of children's development of literacy skills. The article gave many suggestions on how to select books appropriate for grade level and for the audience. There were also ideas on how to get students involved before, during and after the read alouds. After reading this article, it made think about how I do read-alouds in my classroom and if I incorporate all the suggestions from this article during my read-aloud.

What do you think you might do differently as you do read-alouds in your classroom? I found it interesting and found myself reflecting on my practices. I love to read aloud to students, and as a classroom teacher, did it almost exclusively for the enjoyment and the experience of story for students. As I learned more about developing literacy, my read-alouds changed, and became more intentional. But after reading this article, I think I could do even more to plan for even more effective use of the strategy. I really like the idea of using the sticky notes to mark spots to question. (PS--I love Nell Duke. She really knows her stuff. Got to see her at the MRA pre-conference last year.)

I do read alouds throughout the day, which are books that we need to read for our Reading program, science or Paragon (history). At the end of the day I do author of the week, we talk about the author, illustrator, I go to the library every week and grab 5-7 books from the same author and don't really look inside the books to see if it is age appropriate. There has been a few times that the books have been over my students heads or too babyish for them. After reading the article I really need to take a minute and look at the pages and make sure the books are appropriate for my students.

The ability to read well is the most important skill children can acquire. Reading ability and the desire to read vary significantly among groups of children, however. This article discusses the results of a study taken in 98-99 of kindergarteners. It provides information on how schools and families can improve the reading skills of native English speaking children, particularly poor elementary school level boys of color. It states that boys typically learn to read at an older age than girls, take longer to learn, and comprehend less easily than girls. It talks about reading genres that boys prefer, such as adventure, science fiction and fantasy and books that have characters like themselves. They discuss the value of reading aloud to students and in providing silent reading time along with a wide variety of books for boys to choose from. Lastly, it gives suggestions for parents and communities to provide opportunities for young people to help engage them in regular reading.

Based on reading this article, what strategies might you incorporate in your classroom/school? Have you previously engaged in any practices to increase boys' reading?

I always try to do a survey with students for likes/dislikes, strengths/weaknesses. I use this information to help students find reading material they are interested in and give them a choice when reading. I also purchased books like Guiness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe It Or Not, and MythBusters to put on my informational book shelf. Boys seemed to have liked these books very much.

Mike Schmoker's "Focus" is a tremendous commentary on the elements of good instruction and the current state of education and teaching.

This reference text is divided into two sections: "What we teach, How we teach, and Literacy" and "Curriculum, Instruction, and Literacy in the Content areas." If one was to read this book, you would not necessarily need to read it "cover to cover." I believe that Section I is important for all teachers or those who have a hand in education. Section II, because of the way it is divided, could be read based on interests. There are specific discussions about how to integrate literacy into content areas. I felt that the discussion of literacy in mathematics and science was extremely interesting. Mike Schmoker's message was calling educators "back to the basics." As I read, I found myself scribbling in the margins, because the comments being made were so true they were almost "taboo." Schmoker contradicts the current "educational bandwagons" that so many administrators and districts may jump on. He quotes Pfeffer and Sutton, saying "leaders resist simplicity; they are often irrationally enamored by novelty and complexity" (p 16). It was refreshing to read such a strong argument for "pure, effective teaching." Regardless of the technology or other tools in the classroom, without a firm grasp on the ways to provide clear instruction, students will not learn. I have already used sections from this text in my building's PLC time. Though I have not used a specific strategy, I opened the dialogue about what should "be in a good lesson." Schmoker encourages the "five minute limit" where lectures cannot span longer than that before students are given a moment to talk or write. Formative assessments need to be used throughout daily lessons in order for the teacher to be guided into the next portion of the lesson. I have started to integrate more of these checks for understanding into my teaching, and I have found that I catch more misconceptions sooner than I would have normally. I also see that sections I felt required more time were grasped at a faster rate than anticipated

Herbert , Thomas P., and Alexander P. Pagnani. "Engaging Gifted Boys in New Literacies ." Gifted Child Today . 33.3 (2010): 36-45. Print. This article discussed the issue of the achievement gap between boys and girls reading abilities and habits. Girls have reading habits that are recognized and rewarded in schools, while boys read more nonfiction, science fiction, and action novels that are not valued as much. The article discusses how boys do not find dialogue, character interaction, and other literary devices as interesting as girls, and prefer to read for the sake of gaining information, and have plots that are action driven rather than character driven. Although the achievement gap between boys and girls with reading comprehension and leisurely reading is well known, the article points out that less attention is given to this achievement gap than the one that occurs in math. Herbert and Pagnani discuss how high quality new literature is out there for boys to read, and can be incorporated in the classroom. This approach can lead to boys having a higher reading, writing, and comprehension level. I found this article helpful for several reasons. First, I think it is imperative that teachers change their thinking about what is considered quality literature. You can hook boys with things that interest them, and then guide them slowly into literature that is considered part of the literary cannon later on when you have built up their confidence level and academic abilities. The reasoning behind boys literature preferences needs to be not only understood but respected by educators in order to teach them effectively. Secondly, my English classes are ten to one girls, and this scares me as I read this article. As many already know, people tend to teach the same way that they learn. If women and girls have the same reading preferences and appreciate the same things about literature, than many boys will be left to the wayside in English classrooms. I hope to learn more