The Best Lessons are Unplanned

My class is reading The Case of the Gasping Garbage by Michele Torrey. This book is very cute and engaging, but it's also quite challenging for my students. A few weeks ago we read the first 2 chapters which included a mystery where yeast and flour combine to make a "monster" in the garbage can. Unfortunately, most of my students had no idea what yeast was. So they didn't understand how it could bubble and burp. The next day I threw my lesson plans out the window to correct that. I brought in the ingredients to make bread and made sure that all of my students knew what yeast did.

First we combined 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of yeast and watched it make bubbles.

Then we added 6 cups of flour (plus a little) and a tablespoon of salt. I kneaded the bread in front of the class so they could see it come together. ("Ooooh, my grandma does that when she makes tortillas!" said one of my students.)

We put the bread into an oiled bowl and covered it. The story talked about keeping it in a warm place. Unfortunately, the air conditioning in my room runs at full blast and there are no windows. But, we improvised and wrapped it up with the extra sweater that I keep in my classroom. ("Like a baby" one of my students said.)

While we did grammar and had lunch, our yeast worked it's magic and by mid-day we had a big bowl full of dough, which I promptly punched down, making it "burp" like the dough in the story. Next the students each tried their hand at kneading their own small ball of dough and flattening it into a pita shaped piece of bread. They put their bread onto a piece of wax paper with their name on it to rise for the second time while we worked on answering the questions on this very chapter of The Case of the Gasping Garbage.

Finally, just before the end of the day the students flattened their dough one more time and I fried it up on my electric skillet so that we ended up with a fried flat bread. (It was very reminecent of the Moroccan batbout that I miss so much!)

At the end of the day the kids could all explain that flour and yeast mix and make gas bubbles that form inside bread. So I guess that means that missing out on a few of the things that were originally on the lesson plan in order to improvise this lesson was completely worth it. We didn't read the next chapter like I had planned to. We didn't do our Nancy Drew read aloud. We didn't even get to conjugating verbs. But, at the end of the day I'd rather they understand something very well and build background knowledge they can use later than stay strictly on schedule. 

Preparing for Reading Comprehension Standardized Tests

Last week my students took a quiz on a passage that they had read more than five times. The students could create a story map on the story. They could identify the characters, the setting, the problem, the solution. They could each tell me the main idea and some supporting details. However, they ALL failed the quiz. Why did this happen? Well with some reflection we realized that most of the questions called for the students to utilize test taking skills. 
As much as I would prefer to assess my students' understanding based on projects, essays and written short response questions where students can justify and explain their thinking. Unfortunately the reality is that most of our standardized assessments are multiple choice questions that require students to understand how to take a test. So I often find myself in need of finding a compromise, a way to teach students about taking a test without teaching "to the test". Here are the top five things that I do to prepare my students for standardized reading tests:

1.) Teach students the important things to look for. There are many cute mnemonics out there like UNRAVEL that give students the important things to look for in test questions, but I have found that these often get students focused on memorizing the mnemonics instead of really focusing in on what they need to know. Also many programs will focus on circling one thing, underlining another, etc. and then students get so focused on what they're supposed to do they forget what they're supposed to look for or how to actually answer the question. So instead, I make my students a poster like this one of important things to look out for. If you'd like to use this poster with your kiddos, feel free to grab it for free from my Teachers Pay Teacher store.

2.) Model test taking strategies. There are a few websites out there that provide you reading passages and questions that you can use to model test taking strategies with your students. Modeling can happen in a whole group or small group setting. If you have access to a projector or document camera, it is very easy to go through the process together with the students mimicking on their papers what you are doing on the screen. Here are a few websites with passages and questions:

 - Readworks.org - This website includes grade and lexile leveled passages and questions, which provides for easy differentiation.

 - Teachnology - There are many passages on this site, but they are not leveled in any way.

 - Moby Max - With a free account you can go through a story and questions on a student's account. While you can't print out the stories, they are a bit more interactive than other passages.

- Reading A - Z - This service does come at a cost, but the cost provides you with tons of books and passages that have quizzes, comprehension sheets and lesson plans.

3.) Allow students to prepare their own questions. After you have looked at the types of questions that are commonly used in standardized tests, allow students to write their own test questions from books they have read, newspaper articles, or any of the passages on these websites, which provide passages but no questions. Students will work on test preparation, critical thinking skills and have fun being the teacher. At my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I have a simple Kids Create the Test sheet that can be used for this type of activity.

Websites with passages but no comprehension questions:

 - K5 Learning

 - McGraw Hill

 - K12 Reading (Includes open ended comprehension questions)

 - RHL School

 - Teacher's Guide

4.) Require students to justify their answers and think about the text in multiple formats. Specifically if your students are taking the PARCC as their standardized assessments, they are going to be required to give proof and justify their answers. For this reason we need to make it a part of our daily routine to ask our students "Why do you think this?" or "Where in the story did you find that information?" I always ask my students to include this information in their weekly reading response journal entries. Included on the rubric is to "give information from the text to support their thinking". The more our students are thinking about why their answers are correct, the more likely they are to actually be correct.

5.) Teach specific lessons about "outside knowledge" types of questions - author's purpose, vocabulary, genres. A percentage of standardized test questions have little to nothing to do with comprehending the passages that the students are reading. Instead they are about the difference betwen science fiction and historical fiction or the meaning of a key vocabulary word. While these are important skills, they aren't the same as just understanding the passage, so we need to teach students about how to answer these types of questions. And of course we need to teach them about these concepts because that is what these questions are really testing, how well we've covered these additional text concepts. So be sure to spend some time teaching students about genres, author's purpose, reading strategies vocabulary and identifying the meaning of a vocabulary word by using context clues. I personally do two big mini lessons on these concepts at this time of the year, one on genres and the other on reading strategies, specifically the vocabulary of questions using reading strategies. Both of these power point lessons can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Of course all of these test taking strategies are moot if students can't decode and comprehend the passages, so the most important thing that we can do for our students is to give them a solid base in reading by building phonics skills (see my phonics program), vocabulary (see my spelling and vocabulary programs) and comprehension skills (see my reading journals and in depth novel and book studies). 

New Release – Fable Packet Bundle

A few years ago, I created a reading response packet for the fable The Tortoise and the Hare. I created the packet for a specific group of English language learners that I was teaching in a summer school program. Other than listing this packet on Teachers Pay Teachers to share with other teachers, I hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought. Then two things serendipitously happened. Event one was starting the symbols unit of a year long country study with my kids. During this unit, we look at folktales, religions, arts, music and other things that can become a “symbol” of a country. This unit always means we read a bunch of folktales, nursery rhymes, fables, etc. The second event was a comment left by a customer asking me if I had similar packets for other fables. Since I was already in folktale/fable mode, this seemed like a good time to go ahead and make up some similar packets. So this week during my spare time, a.k.a after the kids went to bed, I put together reading response packets for five other Aesop’s fables. Each one includes re-telling activities, reading strategy activities, vocabulary activities and writing activities. I showed them to my son and the 3rd grader was excited to have something new to add to our folkales unit.

The new packets are all together in this bundle:

Or you can buy each packet individually:

Folktales, fables, songs and stories, great ways to teach about cultures. I hope these packets help you use these in your classroom.

10 Ways to Encourage Students to Read Independently

Encouraging students to read independently is one of the most important things that we can do to help our students become better readers. Kids who enjoy reading read more and build their vocabulary and comprehension strategies at a faster rate. In addition, books increase the background knowledge students have and help them better relate to other books, as well as topics covered in science and social studies. Independent reading is important during the school year, but also during school breaks and over the  summer.  Here are some suggestions on how to encourage independent reading that could be used during the summer months or at any other time during the school year:

1.) Connect with an extrinsic reward program. While it is extremely important to make reading intrinsically rewarding, sometimes we need a bit of a carrot to get our reluctant readers to pick up the first book. There are lots of reward programs already out there through libraries and private companies that let students read a certain amount of time in order to win a prize. Often I find that once students start reading to accumulate their hours, they get “hooked” into a book or series and read much more than the designated amount of time, because they have found some intrinsic reward as well!  Some reading reward programs to check out are: Six Flags Read to Succeed, Pizza Hut’s Book It Program,  Scholastic Summer Reading Program and Barnes and Noble’s Imagination’s Destination.

2.) Suggest alternatives to novels and picture books. Some students don’t get into what we think of as traditional reading material, but at the end of the day, reading is reading and all types of reading can help students become better readers. Try suggesting alternative reading sources to help hook your reluctant readers and to push your avid readers out of their boxes. Some possibilities for alternative reading sources would be: comic books, non-fiction books, reference books, blogs, websites, brochures, newspapers, etc.

3.) Encourage travel reading. This suggestion is especially pertinent during summer and school holidays, as many students travel or go to local attractions. However, travel reading can be fun all year long if you bring it into the classroom. Students can learn a lot from travel brochures, travel blogs, destination websites, and pamphlets picked up at different destinations. My children love to pick up brochures from hotels and rest stops. If your students won’t regularly have access to these types of materials, consider picking some up on your next trip and keeping them in your class library. If you want to encourage some cross curriculum learning, you might want to consider combining this reading with my Planning a Field Trip Math Project as well!

4.) Give students to respond to books they read in fun ways. Kids love watching movies based on books, why not give them the opportunity to create a movie, or a movie trailer, or some other fun projects based off of a book they read. This can be a fun “reward” when they finish a book from a suggested list, which might encourage them to read books they wouldn’t have found on their own or simply a way of responding to any book chosen independently. For specific suggestions on possible book projects, check out my Online Book Report format which is a free download at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

5.) Host a book club through Edmodo or Google Docs.  Adults participate in book clubs all the time, why can’t kids? Hosting book clubs in class is great, but if you choose to do book clubs online, you can include students from other classes, other schools, even other countries. Book clubs can be done rather simply using either Edmodo or Google Docs. Simply discussion questions and guidelines and let the kids go at it. Kids can read books in pieces or be asked to read the entire book by a certain date. Students can all “meet” online or go online at their convenience. There are so many possible ways to work online book clubs, but no matter how they are run, they provide students with a great way to interact with others about books they have read and encourage students to read new, interesting books.

6.) Create a Selfie Book Pic Project. We all know that kids like taking selfies, how about asking students to take a selfie of themselves reading books in different places? This would work really well for school holidays or summer break, but could be done as weekend or even evening homework. Ask kids - Where do you read at home? In your bedroom? In a tree house? At your sibling’s soccer practice? Collect all of the selfies into a bulletin board or ask students to create a photo album of themselves reading.  For suggestions on how to create online photo albums, check out this old blog post called: Using Photobucket In the Classroom.

7.) Provide author or book suggestions. Some students think all books are boring. One great way to prove them wrong is to provide them with book or author suggestions that will intrigue them. Find out their interests and suggest books that appeal specifically to them. My 7 year old is obsessed with gross out humor. His favorite books are Captain Underpants and Weird, but True. Just because kids don’t like the books you like doesn’t mean there’s not a great type of book out there for them!

8.) Read a Preview Chapter.  Use read aloud to get kids interested in new, interesting books by previewing books with them. Choose a variety of books. Each day over the course of a week or two, introduce a book to your students. Talk about why the book is interesting and then read them a chapter or a few pages, just enough to get them hooked. Think of it as a movie trailer, give them just enough to get them interested in reading it on their own. Then leave those books in your classroom library, or give them a list to possibly check out from the school or public library.

9.) Start students on a book blog. Whether you have students each create their own book blog, or you create a collaborative class book blog, this could be a great way to keep track of what they have read and encourage others to read books they have enjoyed. Students don’t need to write long blog posts – a quick critique would do the job, although more advanced readers may be asked to do a summary. They could include a picture of the book – or even one of those selfies! – and a link to where other people could find more information about the book. Not only will students enjoy sharing the news about what they read with the world, they can get ideas about new books to read by looking at their classmates’ blog posts.

10.) Create a Genre Challenge. Students often get stuck in one genre and forget there are plenty of different kinds of books out there. Get kids out of their box by challenging them to read at least 3 books from a new genre. Encourage students to read science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, historical fiction, narrative, poetry, etc. Perhaps students will find out that there is a whole world of books out there that they never thought to read before!






I hope that some of these suggestions will help you encourage your class to read more and read independently. A teacher’s main job is to inspire the love of learning and reading is learning. If you have another great idea for us, please feel free to share in the comments, as we build a community of learners right here at Raki’s Rad Resources.






For more posts about reading check out:
Top 10 Reading Websites for Kids
Book Reviews for Kids
Online Books for Kids






Top 10 Authors to Have in Your Classroom

Kids Need to Read Books They Enjoy!

There are so many amazing books available for kids.  Children should read quality books that interest them every day.  The more students enjoy what they are reading, the more attention they will pay to what they are reading and the better they will comprehend it.  However as teachers we are often worried about how we will know if students have comprehend the books they are reading if we haven’t read them ourselves.  So we give them a specific group of books to choose from and have comprehension questions ready. 

Teachers need accountability.  Kids need the freedom to read what they enjoy.  So in my classroom I worked to a compromise.  The kids could read anything that they wanted, as long as it was fairly close to their level, and they completed some sort of accountability measure.  In order to allow my students to reading books that interested them but still be held accountable, I have created resources that could be used with any book students chose.  They check that students are using reading comprehension strategies and force students to think about the book – whatever book they choose.

Here are a few resources that allow students to read any book they choose but still practice reading comprehension strategies:

 

Primary Read Aloud Journal

 

 

36 Week Reading Response Journal

 

 

Weekly Reading Logs

 

Student Selected Novel Study

 

Non-Fiction Book Study for Any Book

 

Story Elements Bookmarks

 

Book Review Bookmark (Free Download)

 

Be the Teacher Sheets

 

Online Book Report (Free Download)

 

Of course it is always helpful to have some great books hanging around for students to choose from.  Check out my post on 10 Authors that Should Be in EVERY Elementary Classroom to find great book suggestions.

Novel Study Made Easier on the Kindle

My oldest son is doing a novel study of The Hunger Games for his reading curriculum this trimester.  He is using my Student Selected Novel Study Packet, which works with pretty much any novel out there, which is perfect for homeschooling although I actually designed it to make differentiation easier when I was teaching in a classroom with many levels.  My son is reading the book 2 chapters at a time. After each set of two chapters, he has 4 pages of work to do.

 

On the vocabulary page, he finds 5 words, uses context clues to guess the meanings and then looks up the definition in the dictionary.  Since he is reading on the novel on his Kindle Fire, he has developed a system of highlighting the words and the context clues in two different colors while he is reading.  This enables him to find the words easily when it comes time to do his vocabulary page.  Since his Kindle Fire also has a built in dictionary, that step is much faster too!

 

Next, he does a summary of what happened in these two chapters by completing a story map.  While he is reading, in yet another color, he highlights key events that he wants to remember for his story map.  He can even type in his own notes to go with highlighting.  No more lost post-it notes, but lots of good thinking while reading going on!

 

 

The third page he works on is creating three quiz questions based on the chapters he has read.  He sometimes uses highlighting for this as well, since he likes to pick out minute details for his quiz questions.  We are working on including at least one big idea or inferencing question, forcing him to think further outside the box.

 

Finally, he completes a reading response page where he writes about the chapters while responding to a prompt.  This has been a great way to see what he has taken from the chapters.  He likes that there is a rubric on the bottom of the page so he knows exactly what he needs to include in his writing.  In fact, he told me he wishes every page he ever did has a rubric so that he isn’t left wondering if what he’s doing is going to be what we’re looking for.

 

If you’re interested in having your students work on a Self-Selected Novel Study, you can find the entire packet including the pages shown for up to 30 chapters and pages for before and after reading the novel.  A Kindle Fire is NOT needed to complete the packet, but it definitely makes the note taking processes easier!!