Tomorrow is the last day of reading instruction until the new year. The kids will get to pick a book to take home as long as they agree to read it. Also, their holiday gift bags have two new books for their reading fun. Everyone is doing so well right now. It is so important to keep reading!

This was an interesting two days, following four days off. A few kids reminded me that I met with them yesterday but not today. Really. I can't get to 8 groups and all individuals in one hour and twenty minutes of reading time. My lower level readers are doing a wonderful job of choosing independent reading books. There is a small group of students who still think they can "pretend" read and no one will know they are faking it. Any ideas on how to get them more engaged???

Today we read our latest published stories to another first grade classroom. We heard kids using repeated phrases, rule of three, onomatopoeia, dialogue, important lists, and strong words to tell details. We will continue our study of mentor authors and strengthening our narrative writing before we move on to expository pieces. The kids did a great job sharing and listening. Repeated reading and studying of mentor authors and modeling the writing strategies has helped improve our writing.

Mondays are too crazy. I try to meet with all 8 reading groups. It is nearly impossible. So today I met with some kids this afternoon. That is not the best way to do groups in first grade. The solution may be to have 3 of the higher reading groups meet as a book club on Mondays so that I would only have 5 groups to teach. One on one meetings are going well throughout the rest of the week.

Why was this such a good day? It could be because my headache finally went away after 4 weeks. But also because I made a special note to give specific praise and comments in my whole class and conferencing teaching. VERY SPECIFIC... and the kids responded by working harder and more productively. Way to go, kids.

News flash: the more we read and write the better we get at reading and writing. Wow! The lowest reading group was at level A just a month ago and are now reading fluently at level D and are not slowing down. And the writing is great. They are using the rule of three, repeating phrases, dialogue, thoughts and feelings. It's so much fun to watch all this.

Our reading circles are going well. We only do them about three times a week and that keeps it fresh for the kids. The mixed abilities groupings seems to be motivating for my reluctant readers. Kids sit in a circle, knee to knee, and decide who will read first, second and third. Then they each read a page or two from their own selection. They are very positive with one another. In fact, R., a reluctant reader, found out he could read much harder books than he had been reading. He went from a GR level B to a GR level F in a week. Sometimes kids do better at teacher than we do!!

I have been trying to find ways to include more reading during the day, especially for my struggling readers. I have tried adding a 15 minute reading time in the afternoon. That was working okay. Then I decided to make reading circles of three kids each with varying abilities. This has been a great success. The kids love it. And they spend recess time choosing the book or magazine to share with their circle. Lots of groans when circle reading time is over. I will see if this makes a difference in the rate of acquiring reading skills.

It makes a big difference if I don't get to the lower reading groups more than once a day. This week was so busy that I didn't have time to do 2 a day groups and it showed. If I want to increase the pace of the learning, I will have to find afternoon time to meet with the lowest 20% of readers.

All of last week I met with the lowest readers once in the morning and then again in the afternoon. It seems to have made a difference. S. used strategies without reminders today. B. remembered words he should have known. So I will continue doing this. And the writing is amazing. We are doing more modeling than ever and getting good results. Some kids are even putting dialogue in their stories. Not a bad day!

Favorite adult books

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6135237.South_of_Broad">South of Broad by http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6942.Pat_Conroy">Pat Conroy

My rating: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75702309">4 of 5 starsThought his earlies books had better characterization. But then I realized he was writing the characters from the point of view of his main character.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2572181-mary-stetter">View all my reviews >>

I've been concerned about my belong expectation readers. This year there are 11 of them in my class. I try to meet with them at least 4 days a week in group and individually. Then the books we do in class go home to be read again. But I want to accelerate their learning. So I started meeting with each of them again in the afternoon. Surprise! They did not remember what we had done in the morning. After a few days of "2 a days" I've seen a difference in the rate of learning. It could be that knowing they will be asked to do a repeat reading in the afternoon that they are trying harder to retain what they learned or it could be that they need more one on one interaction. Whatever, I will keep doing this.

I didn't know what to expect from the students today after yesterday's huge celebration for being named a National Blue Ribbon school. Amazing! The kids begged for more reading and writing time. And the first grade writing is becoming quite sophisticated. We have lots of figurative language and we haven't even learned that as a writing strategy yet. So the lesson learned: hard work gets us more hard work and great results.

Who knew that being named a Blue Ribbon School was such a big deal? We had a wonderful celebration today. The first graders wrote about the ceremony with words like: "I had butterflies and caterpillars in my stomach."
"I was scared and happy and proud at the same time!"
"It was so cool that the high school band came to play at our party."
"We made it. Our mural was like a rainbow for our school."
Wow, that's all I can say.

Remember to meet with individual students daily, not just groups. I need this reminder. Today, E. appeared to understand the new reading strategy in her group but when we met one on one, she didn't have any idea what to do. So tomorrow I will continue meeting with kids one on one. My calendar of appointments is really helping.
S. wanted to write only Star Wars stories. This morning he surprised us all by writing a terrific story about getting a hamster. That's much more interesting!

We made a list of all the different kinds of lists we can make. I thought the kids would add to their lists from yesterday but most wanted to start a new narrative or add on to an old one. Writing life stories is very powerful for 1st graders. It is often the best part of our day. Every reading group is moving forward. We also did our first Venn diagram today. Great fun!

We made lists of writing ideas today. When we shared our lists, we came up with even more ideas for our writing. This was expecially helpful for the kids who never have any ideas. H. always says nothing happens to him but he made a list of 20 narrative ideas that will keep him busy for a long time. We are starting to become a tribe of learners.

Sometimes we have a day when nothing seems to be right. The traffic was backed up, the email box was full, the math papers were not yet checked. And then the students arrive. And nothing is going right for them, either. Yesterday was a great day; today, not so great. What to do? We talked about this. The kids decided we needed to practice how to do school! Wow, that was a surprise. But maybe they really don't know or are getting mixed signals. Whatever the reason, on Monday, we will practice how to do school.
The students' writing is beginning to include repeated phrases, onomatopoeia, and complex sentences.
Reading is taking a little longer to show big gains. We will keep working hard.

We had our first Writers' Celebration today. Of course, it rained all day and the kids never got outside. But we worked through the last recess and were ready for our visitors by 3:00. Sometimes I don't think the kids are ready and then I am so impressed when they do an amazing job sharing their first published stories. Tomorrow, they will be so excited to write more and publish more. Some of their future stories will be posted here!

Wow, that's all I can say. We had visitors today. Our state union president visited us because our school has been named a national Blue Ribbon school. We shared our published stories with each other. Now everyone wants to publish again this week. But our day isn't long enough to do everything the kids want to do. Maybe we could add Saturday school!

schema

Today we learned about using schema in reading comprehension. As the children were writing in their learning logs at the end of the day, J. told us what she thought schema meant:
"Schema is using what you know but didn't know you knew when you read a new story and then you connect to the story and find out that you really did know it with your schema."
I guess that's it!

Welcome to the learning spot.

Today we learned to pick our own books for our book boxes. This doesn't sound like much to adults but to six year olds, it's very exciting. We decided to reorganize our library and will spend time this week doing that. Pictures to follow!