Meeting the Needs of Advanced Students

     As much as I love Daily Five, I do miss the guided reading groups from the past.  I felt I accomplished a lot when I got to see two or three groups each day.  There are times that I would like to meet with more than one group, but I haven't been able to get my head around how I could make that happen.  That is until I purchased this new book by Evan-Moor:

 (This book comes in several different grade levels.  

Click HERE and it will take you to Amazon for more information.)

     I am a big fan of Evan-Moor's learning game books.  They have books for Reading, Vocabulary, Science, Writing, Math, and Geography.  All the materials are in full color and ready to use, which makes the games extremely quick and easy to put together.  They are also one of the few publishers that have learning games for the upper elementary grades.  

     In addition to the learning games in this book, it has answer keys and, most importantly, short assessments for each game.  It was the assessments that really got me thinking.  My advanced students are very hard-working and conscientious.  They are willing and capable of playing a game independently, but just having them play a game unsupervised does not hold them accountable enough.  So, using this resource, I decided to assign them a game each day, have them complete the matching assessment, and check themselves using the answer key.  The short assessments will keep them accountable for learning and the self-checking component will make it less work for me. :)

     The end of the year is a great time to try out new strategies that you may want to adopt for the entire year next year.  It's especially important during the "doldrums" after high-stakes testing to keep students motivated for the rest of the year.  Changing things up a bit can breathe new life into you students.  

     What kinds of things are YOU trying out in the last few weeks of the year?  How do you use learning games in you classroom?  How do you keep students accountable for information learned through game play?  I'd love to hear from you!

T.E.E.R.

No, dear reader, I did not misspell the title of my post.  T.E.E.R. is an acronym to help my students reach new heights in answering open response questions about the main idea in non-fiction.
It all started with the book Close Reading of Informational Text by Sunday Cummins.

 

In this book Cummins gives a lot of great lessons for teaching students how to find the main idea in non-fiction.  She like to emphasize the strategy of synthesis, which she teaches by using a framed photograph.  Showing the students a framed photo she asks:  Of all the photos I own, why did I decide to frame this one?  Students start with the details in the picture and then use synthesis to help them understand the significance of these details.  This leads to why the picture was framed.

As I was reading this book, I did some synthesis of my own.  We have been learning about non-fiction text structures for the past two months.  I realized that knowing the text structure gives us a huge clue as to the main idea.  By adding the strategy of synthesis, we can understand the significance of the details in the text.  And, finally, we can show off all these strategies by using T.E.E.R.:

T = TTQA (turn the question around)

E = evidence from the text

E = explain why this evidence is significant

R = restate the TTQA

 I combined all of this information on a poster for my students showing how we start with a "mission", then use the text and a strategy to create a well-written open response.  Although I have talked about all these things before, I have never combined them with this kind of explicit teaching before.  The initial results have been outstanding!

What kind of skills can YOU combine together?

To conclude, no post would be great without a FREEBIE.  I created this worksheet to help my advanced students improve their sentence fluency.  I listed eight words that begin complex sentences.  These are words like although, after, if, since, and because.  Students fill in the rest of the sentence after the complex modifier.

 

Notice and Note

     Jenn Jones over at Hello Literacy recently wrote about a new book Notice and Note:  Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst.  If you haven't read it, I highly recommend that you add it to your professional reading.  It gives a very clear picture of what close reading of fiction texts should look like in an intermediate/middle/high school setting.  I found ideas that I can implement in my classroom immediately. 
     The book explains six "signposts".  These are common literary devices that authors use to get the reader to stop and think.  When students see one of these devices, it is time to take notice and jot a few notes.  I knew this is just what my struggling readers need.  They know how to use reading strategies.  They can predict and infer when I ask but, left on their own, they don't use these strategies because they don't know when and where to use these them.
     I love the idea of signposts.  Poor readers often speed through texts, never slowing down and savoring the moment.  They are "plot junkies"- always rushing through text to find out what happens next.  By showing them where authors have intentionally put  stop signs, yield signs, and Rest Areas, I hope I can improve their overall comprehension.
     And so on to today's freebie!  I have made graphics of the six signposts to use in my classroom and I want you to have them, too!  They are medium size (2-4 per page) for use on anchor charts or with teaching small groups of students.  Enjoy!