Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Vocabulary is a challenge to all of us...students especially. Here is a great article. Courtesy Choice Literacy. Enjoy!



The Big Fresh Newsletter from Choice Literacy
March 15, 2014 - Issue #374
Reframing Despair


To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.
                                      Stephen Covey

A budding third-grade scientist was required to record the status of trying to light a lightbulb. Here's what he and his partner recorded:
Status: Can't get it to work . . .
Status: Still can't get it to work yet.
Status: Still trying to get it to work.
Status: This stinks.
Status: It just did a spark.
Status: This stinks.
Status: We did it! Yay!
Special thanks to Choice Literacy contributor Michelle Kelly and her colleague Alicia for this gift in my inbox.
The young scientists' status report is an accurate paraphrase of my own coaching, parenting, or teaching notes. In the second observation, I love how the word yet is included and then dropped after that point. By the fourth status report, things have started stinking, and despair that they'll never succeed sets in. Then there's a spark! Ah, but the spark dies quickly and it seems that all is forlorn. Of course, that's when the bulb lights up. Yay!
Reframing despair as a "positive sign" instead of the "shape of things to come" is not only comforting, but true. When I'm working with teachers, I've learned to say "Good!" when they wail, "I can't do this anymore!" Then I follow up with, "If you've made it to this place of despair, you are already on your way out and you just don't know it yet." Each time they've looked at me like I was a little crazy, but I subscribe to musical artist Seal's belief that "We're never gonna survive unless we are a little crazy." When my crazy statement becomes sane reality over the course of weeks or months I hear back from them, "You know what? That was my breaking point. I had to get to despair so I could be here." And so another light ignites.
This week we look at vocabulary instruction. Plus more as always -- enjoy!

Heather Rader
Contributor, Choice Literacy

Heather Rader is an instructional coach in Washington State. Her Choice Literacy publications include the book Side by Side: Short Takes on Best Practice for Teachers & Literacy Leaders and the DVD On the Same Page. You can find her Coach to Coach blog at www.heatherrader.com.

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Here are two features from the archives on vocabulary instruction.
Katie Doherty describes how she implemented a student-selected vocabulary program in her middle school classroom:
Andrea Smith uses the Living Words activity to integrate word study, technology, and content literacy with her fourth graders:
In a new podcast, Katie DiCesare talks about the word study program in her first-grade classroom:
Pernille Ripp shares some lessons from her favorite mentors:
  
Franki Sibberson's new online course Text Complexity in Grades 3-5: Minilessons, Nonfiction Text Sets, and Independent Reading runs April 2 - 13. The course includes three webcasts, personal response from Franki, a DVD, Franki's newest book, and many print and video resources. For details on registering, click on the link below:

Monday, March 10, 2014

Here is some great information on mini-lessons that will help you tweak yours and make them more effective. Courtesy of ASCD SmartBrief

The Big Fresh Newsletter from Choice Literacy
March 8, 2014 - Issue #373
Reading Dogs

Animals are such agreeable friends -- they ask no questions, and they pass no criticisms.
                                                   George Eliot
Last summer, a friend told me about a program in which therapy dogs are used to support struggling readers in libraries and schools. The dogs are specially trained to work with young students -- to be quiet, patient, still, and "follow along" with the text as the child reads aloud.  The idea intrigued me, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to pilot in our school. So we reached out to a local organization of therapy dog owners -- people who are willing to come into schools with their dogs every week to read with students. One of our first grade teachers, Mrs. McNeal, was eager to support the idea, so we started with her classroom. 
Since then, the gentle and loving Zuri has come to our school with her owner every Wednesday afternoon to sit with first graders as they read. The students love it. They count the days in anticipation of their turn to read with her. When their time comes, they eagerly grab their book baskets, brimming with texts they've selected and practiced beforehand. They go to a quiet area outside the classroom and sit on a snuggly blanket with Zuri at their side. They read aloud to her for fifteen minutes, never needing prompting or redirection. 
The students visibly relax as they read with the dog. They love the feeling of reading to a pet rather than a person. They enjoy "checking in" to make sure Zuri really is listening. They like the sweet, reassuring look she gives back to them. They swear to Mrs. McNeal that when they read books about dogs, Zuri puts her nose right into the book and gives it a big sniff.
Zuri has been such a success that I began to imagine how wonderful it would be to have a dog at school full-time. I imagined that I would own the dog personally, keep him at home at night, and bring him with me to work each day. I'd have him hang out in classrooms or in the library during school hours. I begged my husband to consider it, but sadly, the conversation didn't go very well. My husband simply doesn't want a dog. Rats. Maybe someday I'll convince him? 

In the meantime, we'll continue to welcome Zuri into our school to work with our happy young readers. In her quiet way, she is helping us all to teach, learn, and grow.

This week we look at minilesson possibilities. Plus more as always -- enjoy!
Jennifer Schwanke
Contributor, Choice Literacy

Jennifer Schwanke is a principal in Dublin, Ohio. She also blogs about her personal pursuits at http://jengoingbig.blogspot.com/.

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[For sneak peeks at our upcoming features, quotes and extra links,  follow Choice Literacy on Twitter: @ChoiceLiteracy or Facebook:
 
Here are two features from the archives on designing minilessons.
Franki Sibberson presents 10 Principles for Planning Reading Minilessons:
The previous essay is an excerpt from Franki's book The Joy of Planning, on designing short series or "cycles" of minilessons:
Shari Frost writes about the importance of Putting the "Mini" Back in Minilessons:
This video from Sarah Brown Wessling at the Teaching Channel shows the revision process when a lesson plan fails
Franki Sibberson's new online course Text Complexity in Grades 3-5: Minilessons, Nonfiction Text Sets, and Independent Reading runs April 2 - 13. The course includes three webcasts, personal response from Franki, a DVD, Franki's book The Joy of Planning, and many print and video resources. For details on registering, click on the link below:

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Here are some great ideas on how to fight "cabin fever" in the clasroom. Enjoy! Courtesy of ASCD SmartBrief.



The Big Fresh Newsletter from Choice Literacy
March 1, 2014 - Issue #372
Sensing Spring

Each day has a color, a smell.
                                Chita Banerjee Divakarumi 
The calendar turns to March, and everyone longs for spring. Here in Maine, we expect to be buried in snow for at least another month. But the mind is powerful, and one thing more than almost anything else can instantly trick it into believing sunny days and fresh flowers abound.
That thing is a scent. Diane Ackerman says this about scent in A Natural History of the Senses:
Our cerebral hemispheres were originally buds from the olfactory stalks. We think because we smelled . . . Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines, hidden under the weedy mass of many years and experiences. Hit a tripwire of smell, and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.
If the learning feels a little tired and stale in classrooms this time of year, could it possibly be that the scents surrounding kids and teachers are part of the problem? After months of being closed in and surviving the flu season, it's likely time for a scent reset. Lewis Thomas explains the connections between smells and memories:
 The act of smelling something, anything, is remarkably like the act of thinking. Immediately at the moment of perception, you can feel the mind going to work, sending the odor around from place to place, setting off complex repertories through the brain, polling one center after another for signs of recognition, for old memories and old connections.
What memories do you want to conjure up in your school today? Linens fluttering on a clothesline outdoors, cinnamon in hot cider, coconut oil on a tropical beach?  Spring may be a few weeks away (or more) from appearing outside your classroom windows, but bringing the freshness of spring inside is just a plug-in away.
This week we're celebrating the fun of March Madness with different takes on literary bracketology. Plus more as always -- enjoy!
Brenda Power
Founder, Choice Literacy


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[For sneak peeks at our upcoming features, quotes and extra links,  follow Choice Literacy on Twitter: @ChoiceLiteracy or Facebook:
Here are two features from the archives to help you explore the many possibilities for book brackets in your classroom. 
Tony Keefer describes the March Book Madness process with his fourth graders, and how it bound them together as a reading community in new ways:
Gretchen Schroeder has suggestions for bracketology with adolescents in Madness, the Spring Slump, and High School Readers:
The Book Riot blog has a fun twist on book bracketology. Teddy Steinkellner's bracket pits favorite characters against each other:
 
Franki Sibberson's new online course Text Complexity in Grades 3-5: Minilessons, Nonfiction Text Sets, and Independent Reading runs April 2 - 13. The course includes three webcasts, personal response from Franki, a DVD, Franki's newest book, and many print and video resources. For details on registering, click on the link below: