Using Reader's Theater to Build Fluency

Many of my early readers read word by word, with little expression. I need to provide experiences for them to read more fluently and with proper phrasing and intonation. This will not only make their reading sound better, it will make the content more comprehensible. 

Read-alouds and shared readings allow teachers to model how fluent reading sounds and shapes the understanding of the text. 

Rereading stories helps students practice reading books on their independent reading level to improve their fluency and comprehension. 

During guided reading groups teachers can build fluency and support children’s expressive reading through choral reading, reading along with books on tape and reader’s theater.

I love developing my students’ fluency skills using all of these strategies, but my favorite way to work on fluency and reading expression is reader’s theater. I first fell in love with reader’s theater when I read Sharon Taberski’s book Comprehension From the Ground Up and had the opportunity to meet her.  Since there were not many Reader’s Theaters for Kindergarten she encouraged me to write my own.

Reader’s theater helps readers develop fluency, build detailed retells and improves phrasing and expression when reading. Reading, speaking and listening are combined to make reading an engaging experience for my students. My students LOVE performing reader’s theaters and look forward to Theater Thursday when we break out the microphone for our weekly performance. Check out Comprehension From the Ground Up and consider adding reader's theater to your reading workshop.

  Are You My Mother? from Jonelle Bell on Vimeo.

Check out more about Reader's Theater on my blog,  A Place Called Kindergarten.

http://www.aplacecalledkindergarten.com

Making Inferences Outside of the Text

Most of the classrooms at my last school were down side hallways.  But the music class was in the main hallway on the way to the cafeteria  and gym so we walked by it at least four times a day.   Since the teacher’s door opened outward into the hallway, she had some tape on the floor and a cone placed where the door opened so that students would walk around it and she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone being hit with it.

Without fail, every day at least one of my students (all of them at the beginning of the year!) would walk right through the taped off area, over the cone, or behind the cone.  I started telling them to make an inference.  Why was the tape there?  Why was the cone there?  Look at the door...which way does it open?  Eventually most of them picked up on it but it become a running joke that whenever anyone ignored the tape or cone, my students would tell them to make an inference.

I did things like this with my students ALL THE TIME.  Working with English Language Learners, I knew it was important for my students to understand the meaning of the academic vocabulary they were being taught in class.  What better way to do this than to teach it in fun, real life situations?  My students totally knew what it meant to make an inference...use the clues and what you know to FIGURE IT OUT!

Here are some other simple experiences that you can use to teach making inferences to primary students without any texts or materials:

• It's raining outside.  What will you be doing during recess?
• The teacher next door just brought in a kid with a paper and sat him in the back of you classroom.  Why?
• Part of the playground is marked off with yellow tape.  What does this mean?
• You walk into music class and you don't see a teacher who is not your normal teacher.  Where is the music teacher?
• The principal just walked in your room with three other people dressed in suits and talking very seriously.  What should you do?
• Your only pencil broke, you can't sharpen pencils in the middle of the day, and the pencil jar is empty.  How can you get another pencil to use?
• A parent walks into your classroom with balloons and cupcakes.  What is going on?
• Extra students from Mrs. Smith's class joined your class for the day.  Why?
• You arrive at the cafeteria and the doors are still locked.  Why?
• The entrance to the bathroom is blocked off with cones.  What does this mean?
• You walk by Mr. Hark's classroom and see his kids yelling loudly.  You see someone who is not Mr. Hark at the front of the room.  What inference can you make?
• Another teacher picked your class up from recess.  Why?
• Your teacher tells the kids in your reading group that they have to share books.  Why would this be?
• A boy is sitting alone on a bench at recess time.  What should you do?
• Your teacher is sitting at her desk with her hand on her head.  What can you infer?
• You walk into gym class and no one is there.  You see other classes heading out to the playground.  What can you infer?
• Your principal always does the announcements, but today they were done by the secretary.  Why might this be?

The list goes on and on!  There are SO MANY times during the day that our students make inferences without even realizing it.  Take advantage of these opportunities to teach the academic vocabulary that goes along with making inferences.  This will make the task so much easier for students when working with text.

Author's Purpose That Makes Sense

It seems so easy ~ author's purpose! How can students NOT understand such a simple concept? We all wonder it as we think about how they can miss such important details to see why the author wrote something. But we can make it more engaging and fun.

This anchor chart is perfect for helping students see author's purpose.

Of course, the best way for students to really understand author's purpose, students should be reading and reading a lot. How do we do that? We encourage and motivate them to read widely and a LOT! What better way than with a Scholastic book order?

That's right, this catalog of books many of us send home each month are perfect for helping students get a grasp on what author's purpose is all about.

I used them with a group of 4th graders as we worked through this important skill.  We reviewed the reasons that authors write with the anchor chart above. A lot of times authors describe something within a passage, so the students decided that describe should go in the middle. Then I handed out the magical book orders. Guess what ~ those kids had fun looking at books and deciding what to read.

Then I had to get them to work. They read the information about the different books and decided why the author may have written the books. As they figured it out, they cut the pictures out and put them onto a tree map, sorting them into different categories.

Here is a finished product! 

By doing this activity, students had to analyze the simple summary and think about what the book was saying to decide where it fit in the tree map. AND, I motivated them to find books they would actually enjoy reading. Double whammy!

Of course, there is so much more that goes with author's purpose, but we can help students as they look at books and decide WHY the author wrote it.

What are some ways you help students understand author's purpose in your classroom?

Chaining with Jenn from Reading in Room 11

Hello Literacy Land Friends!  I’m Jenn from Reading in Room 11, and I am thrilled to be a guest blogger at Adventures in Literacy Land. I have been a K-5 Instructional Specialist for 12 years and I am excited to share one of my favorite intervention activities with you - chaining!

What is chaining?

Chaining is a sequence of words that can be built by changing one sound at a time.

For example: at → cat → cot → hot → hat → pat → pan → an

When do you use it?

If you are a classroom teacher, chaining is a great warm up or word work activity before reading a book.

Chaining can also be incorporated into a specific intervention for students.

What materials do you need?
One of the great things about chaining is that you can use a variety of materials.  Some examples are white boards, magnetic letters, or cut up letters. My favorite are the blue and red letters seen below from Really Good Stuff.

How does it work?

Choose the skill: The chains that you choose are dependent on your students and their needs.  Ideally, the words in the chains will follow a specific pattern that students will find in the text that they are reading (ex. short a, digraphs, silent e words).  If you are using chaining as an intervention, then the pattern should be the student’s skill deficit.

Once you have chosen the skill, gather your materials.

Step 1:

Ask the student to make a word, for example “cat” Have the student tap each letter and say the sound ”c-a-t”.  Then they can run their finger underneath and say the word “cat.”

Step 2:

Tell the student to change a sound so that “cat” says “cot” and repeat step 2.  Repeat these steps until you have done 7-10 word chains.

Bonus Tips:

When chaining, it is important to only change one sound/spelling at a time.

There are three ways to change the word.

• Change a sound: “Change a sound so that cot says hot”
• Adding a sound: “Add a sound so that at says cat”
• Deleting a sound: “Take a sound away so that pan says an”

If you are working on long vowels with a silent e, below is a picture of a trick we use at my school when having students chain.  It is a great cue that the vowel will need to say its name, and that the silent e does not make a sound.

Thank you so much for stopping by!  I hope that you area able to use chaining as an easy intervention with your students.  Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

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What!? It's Time to Start Thinking about Summer School?

It’s unbelievable that when I get back to work next week we only have 34 days of school left (but who’s counting, right). What this means for me is it’s time to start planning for summer school. I know what you’re thinking, “Let’s just get this year finished.” Am I right?  I have that planned out already. But that’s another story.

Planning summer intervention programs can seem like a daunting task. There are many things to think about and prepare for to have an effective program. Some factors to consider include: time, literacy learning  level expectations, and resources.  Today I’m going to share with you how I plan my intervention program’s groups and time allotments.  

I choose to focus on the first and biggest factor, time. I have seven grade levels for  3 weeks, at 4 hours a day. I have to be super creative. Unfortunately, there’s not enough time or staff to meet the needs of all the students who need reading intervention. So I have to prioritize and plan out a schedule that meets as many students as possible. During the regular school year, this is accomplished by me pushing in and co-teaching with the classroom teachers.

In the summer, I have some non-negotiable time that I have to plan around. In Missouri, we have a state bill that requires fourth grade students who are two grade levels below grade level to receive so many hours of intervention and to have the opportunity to be reassessed at the end of the intervention period. If they continue to be two or more grade levels below then we retain. (Not something I agree with but it’s the “law”) I am happy to report in the 11 years I’ve been doing this we’ve only had to retain two students. This non-negotiable time takes 2 of the 4 hours we have each day. This leaves 2 hours to work in the four literacy learning level groups.

In my experience and studies, I’ve come to adopt a balanced approach to literacy learning. Instead of separating students into age groups or grade level I’m going to adapt this intervention program to meet the needs of learners according to their stage of literacy learning. I will plan groups according to these 4  levels: Foundation, Emergent, Transitional, and Fluent

 Here is a basic definition of the four stages of literacy learning.

Foundation	Emergent	Transitional	Fluent
understand basic word knowledge at the phonological and phonemic level. letter i.d & sound recognition basic listening and speaking knowledge basic writing knowledge	Understanding basic phonetic patterns at the single syllable word level concepts of print high-frequency word knowledge basic listening comprehension beginning writing stages	understanding more complex phonetic patterns at the multiple syllable word level genre & purpose awareness basic reading comprehension writing for a purpose	vocabulary knowledge reading for entertainment and learning reading with prosody, expression & rate understanding text beyond literal interpretation writing for different purposes and audiences

If you’re a veteran intervention teacher it will be easier to place students into these four categories as you will have prior knowledge of student performance and behaviors. If you are a new intervention teacher it will be important to pay attention to teacher observations.  I’ve created a teacher checklist that will red flag students in need of intervention.

This leads me to the determination of time needed for each level. Instead of this being an exact formula this is another area that will adjust according to need. While the ultimate goal is the fluent level I keep it as part of the program because  if time allows I will plan for enrichment.

In the summer, my priorities kind of flip-flop from those during the school year. Instead of prioritizing youngest to oldest I look at ages  9-11 first. I look for students who may still fall in the transitional level. Then I check the 7-8 years olds that still fall in the emergent level. Last I look at the 6 year olds that still need foundation intervention. I do my best to meet with these groups for 2 ½ hours per week.

If you’re interested in learning more about how I plan summer literacy learning  level expectations, and resources be sure to be on the lookout for new posts on my newly designed blog at  Looney’s Literacy.

Adding Student Choice with Guest Blogger Lauralee

Welcome to Lauralee from Language Arts Classroom, who is joining us today to tell us all about student choice when reading. Read more to find out how to add student choice when teaching literature.

I’m a reader, a lover of almost all books. Even books that I don’t love, I can normally appreciate a portion of. When I began teaching, I wanted my passion and excitement to flow to my students. And, the novice teacher that I was, I figured it would simply because of my excitement.   Of course, that didn’t happen. Some students were game, but others were clearly bored. Others didn’t read, no matter what I did. I struggled to reach all students - and I wanted literature to influence my students the way it did me.   Eventually, I found tricks that worked, lessons that reached more students. What I’ve realized is that these ‘tricks’ all revolve around giving students choice. By providing choice in literature lessons, I am reaching more students, my initial goal.   Plus, choice provides students freedom, and they are not in competition with other students. Don’t be afraid to implement student choice! To start, provide choice in small areas and move on when comfortable.   Here are quick ways to implement student choice in literature lesson plans today.   Novels   I’ve never had the freedom to choose novels with students (a YAL reading class would be a dream!), but choices with novels still exist. With older students, ask them what works best.

Choices:

• Students can choose what review and discussion activities they like after certain sections. Present different options and students can choose their favorites. For instance, with partners students can have discussion starter prompts. Group work allows for larger analysis. Individual work can also allow choice - which graphic organizer, which writing topic?
• Students can choose the culminating activity at the end - presentation, paper, or artwork. I’ve had some students choose a test simply because they are good test takers.
• Are students struggling? Ask what will help them. For difficult novels, they may want guided notes.

  Short Stories/ Nonfiction   Allow students to choose stories or nonfiction pieces with structure. Explain the theme of your unit and be honest about your resources. I’ve even told students what we need to cover - literary devices, analysis processes - and that is how I developed the list of choices.   Choices:

• Students can choose what to read. Give students a list of short stories with a short summary of each. They can vote on the short stories or nonfiction pieces that interest them as a class. For instance, I teach a spooky unit during October and typically cover Poe. I want to cover Poe. Students need to read at least one Poe, but other suspenseful stories full of conflict are out there. I allow student input for which Poe story, and then they choose others. Sometimes, they want to read multiple Poe stories!
• My students love choosing which nonfiction piece to choose. Since most of the choices are on the Internet, I give them web addresses and ask them to choose. Then I provide a list of questions (since I have already read all potential articles).

  Vocabulary   Giving students choice in what vocabulary they study has been the easiest implementation of choice in my experience.   Choices:

• Students can choose what words to study. This can be as simple as their choosing a certain number of words. You can also provide students with a form.
• Students can decide how to study the words: writing a story? sentences? stand-up comedy routine?
• Students can choose how to analyze the language. What parts of speech are the words? Can they use the verbs as participles?

  With older students, using choice improved my classroom management as well as. Students engaged in the literature because they chose their method of studying. This makes sense; appreciating literature is a personal experience.   Providing choice for students may seem like extra teacher-work. I’ve found the opposite: students see success. I’m able to meet IEP goals without obviousness. Students experience failure, and as a class we make decisions together, and feel the repercussions of them - together.   When I think back to my simplistic approaches to teaching literature, I shudder. Choice has improved my teaching and brought the joy of literature to my students - my ultimate goal.

Lauralee from

Using Units of Instruction in the Intervention Classroom

Hello Literacy Land Readers! Tara here, from Looney's Literacy! I've been a K-6 literacy interventionist for 11 years now! My how time flies when your having fun. Today I'm going to share some ideas and tricks I've tried over the years as I seek new ways to impact student engagement and critical thinking at each student's learning level.

Over the past five years or so my district has been working on implementing new state standards for curriculum, teacher evaluations and administrative evaluations. One of the changes we've seen includes the creation of Units of Instruction that show student growth. This took me a minute to wrap my brain around because it felt too restrictive. I couldn't imagine how I was going to adjust my instruction to meet the needs of all my learners and address all the other aspects of this type of planning.

As I dove head first into this seemingly impossible task I began to realize it can be done. Not only can it be done but it offered a whole new perspective on expectations and curriculum. As I walk you through the process I'll share some of the insights I gained and how I plan to use this method for future planning.

 I choose to use my sixth group group as my guinea pigs. I decided to study the  mystery genre because I found the perfect book, Chasing Vermeer by Blue Ballet. I set the time frame for 5 weeks.   Then I  determined the objectives of the unit of study by glancing at the 6th grade ELA curriculum.

At this point  I was able to outline my scope and sequence using some general info  from the
book (Chasing Vermeer) and our 6th grade ELA curriculum. Then came the fun part of employing my new found skill of asking essential question. I did a book study this past summer and used this for my professional development plan.

Then I was able to plan activities. I've learned over the years that my plans cannot be absolute and I must remain flexible as I adjust to learners' needs daily. This leaves a lot of activities undone so I rely heavily on storing things in my computer so I can print as needed. 

Resources I used:

Instructional activities

ReadWorks - Chasing Vermeer Unit 

Reading journal

Close Reading Sheet

Assessment - Formative & Summative

Easy CBM

Running Records

ReadWorks - Chasing Vermeer Assessment

There were teachers in my building who were using this amazing close reading resource from TpT that I can't seem to remember who made but when I get back to my classroom I will reference back to. I adapted the lesson page to fit this particular group and it look like this: (Feel free to download)

Opinion Writing: When Whole Group Writing Transfers to Independent Writing

You do whole group lesson and after whole group lesson you want the students to transfer your whole group lesson to their independent journal writing.  Creating routines in kindergarten is as much about giving them tools, as it is about giving them time to practice the skill.  Our school system has adopted a new reading program and one of the writing lessons is persuasive writing. Michelle Brinn, a fantastic kindergarten teacher, was tasked with 2 things:  Introduce your students to opinion writing and do it in a 1/2 day kindergarten program.

We talked about how we could expose our youngest writers to persuasive writing and get it done in a 20 minute daily writing lesson.  Another obstacle in Michelle's lesson would be time.  She decided it would be a modeled writing, just to manage time.  We mapped a plan:

Monday

Decide what two items the students will compare.  The topic needs to be something that is easily understood...not every child will have opinions on soccer v baseball (of course, soccer is better) or whether summer or winter is the best season (of course, summer is better).  BUT they will probably have an opinion about whether dogs or cats are the better pet.

Tuesday

Talk about Option 1:  dogs.  What are 3 reasons dogs are great.  The students were eager to tell why their liked dogs, but we stuck with 3 ideas.  She asked them to keep all their other ideas for later in the post.

Wednesday

Talk about Option 2:  cats.  What are 3 reasons cats are better.  Once again, students were eager to share their ideas.  Students liked how cats were quiet.  

Thursday

The vote!  Students were asked to vote for their favorite pet.  They chose dogs (of course, they did).  Michelle asked for more reasons why dogs were the best choice.  Their ideas were fantastic.  

Friday

The wrap up!  Students were finally asked to write a closing sentence.  Michelle asked for MORE reasons dogs were chosen and the students came through with great ideas.

It was a success.

As a whole group writing lesson for the week, it was definitely a success.  The students were excited about pleading their case for why dogs were better than cats OR why cats were better than dogs.  BUT the really exciting part was getting ready to happen...

Independent Journal Time

With all the chatter and opinions about cats and dogs going on in her classroom, Michelle asked the students to write about it in their journals.  We were THRILLED with the results and I think you will be, too.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again:  Too often we give students excuses, instead of tools.  Michelle did a fantastic job of giving her students a tool for persuasive writing.  She gave them an easy plan...and time to practice. 

If you'd like a SAMPLE Opinion Writing, click the image below.