A neat website that has premade packets that are ready to go. Includes flash cards with specific letters, worksheets, picture cards, and different games. Helpful to very young students learning their alphabet and looking to improve their reading as they are starting out. 26 Alphabet Packets Download, Print, and Assemble--Anytime, Anywhere Build a foundation for successful reading and writing with these research-based alphabet materials. Alphabet resources are one part of a comprehensive reading tutor/mentor program targeting essential reading strategies.

This is the cutest website ever! If I taught elementary school, I would use this starfall website. There are different links from the main page that will help guide a young students learning. I looked at the first topic which was about teaching the sounds of the alphabet to students. I loved all the graphics and how the announcer sounded out each letter clearly. Very great tool. Check it out!!!! Starfall.com opened in September of 2002 as a free public service to teach children to read with phonics. Our systematic phonics approach, in conjunction with phonemic awareness practice, is perfect for preschool, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, special education, homeschool, and English language development (ELD, ELL, ESL).

This past week I watched my three year old nephew Brady. We tried out the Starfall website together, and Brady loved it. He knows most of his letters in the alphabet, but he really enjoyed the picutres that came after each letter. Great website and it was wonderful to see Brady so excited to interact with the picutres.

This blog written by Maria Salvadore is very encouraging for adults that have young children or work with young children on a daily basis. This blog points out the facts that when young children are engaged with their reading, they are more likely to always remember the books they read at a young age. Parents and other adults will see what books become the child's favorite ones. These favorite books will be the ones that the child wants to read over and over again without skipping any parts of it. Teaching children the benefits of reading at a young age will most likely make them avid readers when they grow up. Reading Rockets' children's literature expert, Maria Salvadore, brings you into her world as she explores the best ways to use kids' books inside - and outside - of the classroom. Books entertain, educate, inform, engage, and more - more than we may realize. Readers meet others and see themselves in them.

This teacher's blog is all about Shakespeare and since this is one of my very favorite areas to study, I thought this to be the perfect link to share. This teacher to get his/her students more involved with the plays they were reading decided to type a line or a few lines of speech from a certain character from that play. Students then competed against one another to see who could correctly answer the questions on the online blog.

As I found this article on reflective journaling, I thought what a great idea for an English middle or high school classroom. The point is to have students sit and reflect about their learning for that day, week, month, and even the entire school year. By thinking back on their learning process students and even adults can begin to understand how their knowledge has grown over a specific period of time. The article quotes the following, "you don't know what you know till you've written it down." What is a reflective journal? A reflective journal - often called a learning journal - is a steadily growing document that you (the learner) write, to record the progress of your learning. You can keep a learning journal for any course that you undertake, or even for your daily work.

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to complete a post about different reading strategies that I have seen demonstrated in my host teacher's classroom. These reading strategies can be geared or changed so that they fit any grade level in my opinion. I have seen them used and have used them myself with my 7th graders in our English classes.

Basically the teacher would find a piece of writing or a short story, etc. This is used mostly in English, but could also be used in Social Studies and Science classes as well. Math I'm not sure?

1. Read through the piece of writing or short story twice. Usually I have my students read the story once quietly to themselves and then the second time around we read aloud together as a class. The reason we do it this way, is because the information within the story registers twice in their brains. Also sometimes students skip certain sentences or paragraphs, thus missing very important information in the story. So always have students read the story twice through.

2. Have students complete a T-4. This exercise is known as "Talking, To, The, Text, aka T-4. Students will go through the story paragraph by parargraph underlining words or phrases they are unclear on and want clarification on. They also can write side notes in the margins, which the students are highly encouraged to do stating what they like or dislike. I do tell them, that they must explain why they like or dislike something. Students can also relate something they have read in the story to another book or novel, television show, movies, or music they have listened too.
We then share as a class.

3. Guided-Highlighted Reading. It is best to pass out a set of hilighters for this activity. If students have their own great, or if hilighters aren't available then underlining the answers to questions works fine as well.

The teacher will need to prepare ahead of time some essential questions that pertain direclty to the story. Remember to include characters, setting, climax, and other story elements that will help students recall specific details about the story. As the teacher is asking these questions, students are using their hilighters to find the exact answer to the question that was asked of them. They are to only hilight the key words or phrases that complete the answers. This entire activity is helping the students learn how to skim and scan, basically pull out the needed information only.

4. Close and Critical Reading, in short a CCR. Here there are four main questions that students focus on.

First, What a text says? (Restatement)
Second, What a text does? (Description)
Third, What a text means? (Interpretation)
Lastly, What does the text mean to me? (So what?)

All of these questions guide the students through the entire story, drawing out specific details. The students are then relating the details from the story to other aspects of their life, other's lives, etc.

I hope this helps explain the process somewhat better or maybe this will give you ways to implement the four major steps in your own classroom.

Hi Michelle!!!

Yes, everything you mentioned for Question 2 is what we also have our students focus on. How is the text portraying the article? How is dialouge used between characters, etc. I completely agree with you that students struggle with Question 2 the most, lots of blank stares and sighs from the kids. They will eventually understand it better I hope.

If you are a English/Language Arts teacher then this book is for you. Barry Lane is brillant and creative in this book entitled, After The End. How many times do students approach two minutes after they have received their writing assignment and claim to be completed with it? I don't know about other classrooms, but this happens many times with my seventh grade students on a wide array of writing tasks. What is their hurry to quickly get done and stay done? Too many students just want to complete their writing assignment, they do not really care if their work is of decent quality or not.

Barry Lane explains in his book that there are numerous ways to get students motivated and ready to write. In order to have good writing, there must be good questions.These questions need to spark interests in the students and want them to have to work at searching for the answer.
Lane says, "The art of asking questionsis intrinsically linked with the art of having something to say, of valuing your experience, and trusting enough to share even experiences, first with yourself and then with others."

This statement is powerful because first the writer or the student must be comfortable in their own skin. By questioning this happens and as other oustsiders question more is thought about and given better responses.
Lane offers so many useful techinques to try out in order to make the process of writing fun. If you were to use Build a Scene, he student would use two characters and have them engage in dialouge, while only one of them knows a really juicy secret. Skipping lines at the beginning of this exercise is suggested so that later thoughtshots can be entered into the extra room. Thoughtshots are in the moment thoughts that quickly come to the writer and are edited in the writing piece to help bring it to life.

Peer conferences can be effective if used correctly. Give students guided questions starters or promts to ask of one another's writing pieces. Something along the lines of; I wonder: ______ Questions: ______ Plan for action: ______ can all help guide students when they are peer editing each other's writing. This way you as the teacher help your students avoid useless chatter that won't benefit them.

I also really like how Lane demonstrates his use of Venn Diagrams and Mapping/Webbing. Here there are two really simple brainstorming activities, but he brings them to life with adding more details to them and being more elaborate as he discusses his writing topics.

Overall this book, After The End, shares with the teacher that revision is something that constantly is in the works. When you think you have ended you really have only just begun. I fully intend on using many of these writing techinques in my own classroom and hope that they will motivate students to do better and try harder at making their writing something to be proud of as they write.

http://www.amazon.com/After-END-Teaching-Learning-Creative/dp/0435087142

Website: www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/reading.htm

This article that I found for this week's class gave very helpful hints on how to promote reading with the family. So many families today are busy running here and there. They are technology connected and reading in my opinion just gets thrown on the back burner. The article states that reading skills are important to their success in school and work. Reading also allows children to wander off into imaginary worlds that are new and exciting to them. Language is also developed along with reading, so the two go hand in hand.

The article also went on to give helpful suggestions on how to make reading more interactive in your home. Lead by example. Are you as the adult in home reading each day? If not, make this a common practice in your life. Your children will begin to see you read, whether it is a book, newspaper, etc. Reading in front of your children will show them that reading is an activity that you enjoy doing youself.

Read together as a family. Some of my fondest memories are my Dad and I reading together when I was a little girl. I loved to read princess books with my Dad because even though their was a villian I knew the noble prince would save the princess. The point is that reading with your young children bonds you to them and creates lasting memories that will last a lifetime.

Take your children to the library. Even though books can be bought everywhere online now, still taking you children to the library is necessary even in today's society. Children see all the different areas of books and how they are organized.

This article also stated different locations where an adult or parent could go if they wanted to seek help with reading better for themselves. Many community colleges, city civic areas, and human services programs offer some form of this program.

In conclusion, make sure you are reading to your child and encoraging them to read on their own as well. Reading expands language, develops comprehension, and promotes questioning from kids. Reading is a confidence booster and a great one at that.

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr081.shtml

This article was very benefical to me. First off I loved the title, Are Students Ever Too Old? In this case the question was asking, when are students too old to read too? The stance the article takes on, is that students are never too old to read aloud to one another, with an adult, or in a group setting.

Students these days are becoming more tech savy which in a sense is great. We are advancing our world and bringing those advancements into the classroom. However, students are relying less and less on themselves to read. They can simply google search a book or article and there is some kind of audio that reads the text to them. While this isn't a horrible aspect, children, teens, and even adults need to be able to read on their own.

Reading with adults is what needs to be happening at school and at home in the evenings and weekends. Also just because school is out in the summer, doesn't mean reading should stop or slow down, which is usually the case. My Mom constantly made each of us kids read for an hour each day during summer vacation and I'm so happy and thankful she did. I truly enjoy reading and probably always will.

Teachers have discovered that reading out aloud with adults ie; parents, teachers, relatives, or older siblings even has helped children develop their literacy skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening. The kids growth in reading ablilities and vocabulary excelled at a faster rate than those kids who did not read.

Illustrations encourage students to predict and imagine what may occur later on in the story. They are able to draw comparsions together to infer a possible conclusion of the book.

In the end, reading with adults does benefit the kids and makes them better readers in their future years. So keep reading everyone!