This blog launch week has truly been a collaborative effort between 20 people, plus 1 artist and 1 blog designer who came together to create this beautiful blog design. Welcome to our Castle!
This week, Jan. 6th - 10th EVERY follower is a WINNER!
EVERY follower who leaves their e-mail in the rafflecopter below,
will be e-mailed our Blog Launch Exclusive Freebie Prize Pack!
Each day this week the blog authors have shown you strategies to use with different aspects of literacy.
Today, four blog authors will share information about
Hello and welcome to our new collaborative literacy blog! I am Amy from
Eclectic Educating. I am currently a reading specialist in New Jersey.
As a teacher, I try to make my instruction meaningful and have a clear purpose. During reading, I try to choose high-interest stories and books that are relevant to my students' lives. For this reason, I often choose articles and short stories from popular magazines. When learning is interesting to students, it becomes much more meaningful. Students need to feel that their work serves a purpose.
This is particularly true for writing. Sometimes the purpose may simply be to enjoy the experience of writing through short stories and fiction. With the Common Core coming down the pike, however, it is becoming more and more important for students to be able to read a text and respond critically through writing. This will often be in the form of informational texts.
To practice this skill, I think it is important to choose articles that will mimic the style of the assessments students will be taking for the Common Core. This is where I think articles play an important role. Popular magazines such as Ranger Rick, Highlights, and National Geographic aim to capture students' attention through high-interest articles, which are perfect for your classroom instruction! If you do not have a subscription to any such magazines, have no fear! EBSCOhost is a fantastic database for finding great articles.
Here is a video tutorial that will explain how to use the database.
After reading these articles, have students analyze and critique the author's viewpoint. Let students support their opinions with facts from the text. Remember, choose topics that are interesting! To get you started, my freebie for the giveaway includes a nonfiction text about chocolate milk. It explains the pros and cons of this delicious treat. When finished, students must choose whether they are for or against chocolate milk in schools. Then, they must support their opinion with facts from the article. In my experience, students get pretty passionate about chocolate milk! I hope you enjoy the resource! Happy writing!
Hi, everyone! Andrea here from
Reading Toward the Stars! A few months ago, I had a vision of starting a collaborative blog with a group of reading and literacy interventionists who share my passion for helping struggling readers! I am so excited to be here with all of this talent! I spend 14 years working in third and fourth grade classrooms but always wanted to do so much more to help my struggling readers. Three years ago I got that chance in the very school where I started working! Now I can't turn back! It is my dream job!
I work with many grade levels and have spent some time in third grade where they worked on subjects and predicates. To scaffold for my students, we used puzzles to create sentences and decide if they made sense or not. I created my exclusive freebie as part of our summer school curriculum. It is a set of subject and predicate puzzles that students can use to create sentences and then decide if they are serious or silly. The students had fun with it and asked to do it again and again!
Hi! I'm Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late. I've had the pleasure of teaching in the same school all eight years that I've taught, spending the majority of time in fourth grade before I was given the opportunity to work as the reading specialist for grades 3-5. Today I am sharing a writing freebie to use for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day later this month.
Even older kids love the hype surrounding holidays, and they get excited about doing any kind of craft. When I do this activity, we take some time to read about Martin Luther King, Jr. and discuss civil rights so students understand a little more about his speech. Then we spend some time talking about dreams that we have for our country/world. I try to encourage them to really think about what's important so the writing is stronger and more meaningful.
I'm so glad you have decided to join us in our new collaborative blog, and I hope you will continue to follow us as we share our literacy knowledge with you. Enjoy all of your new freebies, and have a Happy New Year!
Reading and writing go hand in hand, and so often struggling
readers are struggling writers. Luckily,
there are ways we can help our students build skills in both areas. We can do this by analyzing mentor texts by
reading comprehension skill and writing trait. As we teach students to think as writers, we teach them to think about their reading too.
Recent studies have shown that studying the Six Traits of Writing has helped students improve writing scores and skills. The Six Traits include
Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Writing
Conventions plus
Publishing. Each trait can be addressed with a writing
piece through the use of mentor texts for modeling, shared writing, mini lessons during writing workshop, and with writing rubrics and anchor papers to model what proficient writing looks like.
The unit I am sharing with our blog launch is using the book,
Oops! by Colin McNaughton. This unit includes reading comprehension skills and writing materials for students to write their own fractured fairy tale. Here's a sneak peak at what you'll receive by becoming our follower.
I hope you and your students enjoy using it, and I welcome you to our blog. I hope you return often to hear all of the great ideas our team has to offer.
Thank you for taking time to visit our blog throughout the week.
It's the last day to get the Exclusive Launch Week Freebie Prize Pack,
follow our blog and leave your email in the rafflecopter below!
Good Luck! We hope you win one of the 4 Grand Prizes!
