Big Kids Need Picture Books Too!

Hello, everyone! It's Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars!

Last weekend, I had the joy of presenting with my good friend and former author in Lit Land, Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late on a topic that is near and dear to us.  Many times we forget that older students can and will read pictures books.  There are so many reasons for them, but I am going to highlight my top four.

So, why do big kids need picture books?

Picture books are great for so many comprehension skills for older students.  The simple plots help students see beyond the words and dig into the comprehension skills. I love using them for everything from simple plot elements to the more intense making inferences. ReadWorks has a plethora of awesome comprehension lessons that use picture books, a geat starting point!  Though you have to sign up to use it, it is completely free!

Picture books have a very rich vocabulary and are great for building that in so many ways. The book Baloney (Henry P.)  by Jon Scieska has words from other languages the students must figure out as they are reading it.  Many picture books help students learn new vocabulary through words and pictures.  How aswesome is that!

Picture books are geat for helping students become better writers. The letter above was written by some fourth graders after reading Dear Mrs. LaRue by Mark Teague.  The site Writing Fix has a ton of great writing mentor text lessons, and don't forget Read Write Think!

And finally!

Older students can be mesmerized by picture books.  What you can't see is the flock of students who are up in the front of the room listening to their fourth grade teacher share on of her favorite books. Big kids love these books for so many reasons.  Sometimes the picture books are actually meant for "big kids" too.

So, don't hold back! Read those pictures books with your older students! They won't forget it!

Fairy Tale Fun

Greetings Royal Reading Fans!

It's Jennifer from Stories and Songs in Second here to share some ideas about how to use a few different versions of one of my favorite stories to shake up your fairy tale unit this year!  I just love using folk and fairy tales as mentor texts for teaching a variety of literacy skills like character
point-of-view, vocabulary, story structure, compare/contrast and story sequence.

FAIRY TALE FUN

Graphics by Pixabay, Paula Kim Studio, A Little Peace of Africa & KG Fonts

Last year, I discovered the "twisted tale" picture book series written by Nancy Loewen and illustrated by Tatevik Avakyan that offers young readers a new, modern, and humorous perspective of "the other side of the story!"

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES

The focus of my post today is Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks!--The Story of The Three Bears as Told by Baby Bear, and how it contrasts to two other favorite versions of this classic tale.  The story is told from Baby Bear's point-of-view and casts a more positive light on the actions of Goldilocks than the traditional tale.  The tone of the story is set when Baby Bear introduces himself as "Sam," and insists on not being called small, wee, or tiny. He also confesses that he just hates porridge, and would rather that Mama Bear serve breakfast burritos. He goes on to insist that Goldilocks is one of his best buddies, and certainly not the unwelcome house intruder everyone thinks she is.  He explains that she entered his house on a dare from Little Red Riding Hood--hereby referred to as "Little Miss Hoodie"--and was just going to stay long enough to snap a few cell phone pictures as proof and then be on her way.  Hilarious hijinks and lots of jumping on different-size beds ensue, with Sam and Goldie eventually exchanging phone numbers as she escapes through the forest.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SAME STORY

After sharing this "fractured" version of the Goldilocks fairy tale, I read Jan Brett's beautifully illustrated and traditionally-told Goldilocks and the Three Bears aloud to my students.  Together we compare and contrast the characters, events, problems, and solution.  We practice retelling the story using story stick puppets and use the fun poem I wrote as a reader's theater and/or choral reading activity to help my students practice reading with fluency and expression.

RETELL THE STORY WITH STICK PUPPETS

BUILD FLUENCY WITH PLAYS AND POEMS

The last picture book I introduce to my class is Alma Flor Ada's Yours Truly, Goldilocks, which is a collection of correspondences between Goldilocks and some of her best friends who live in the Hidden Forest.  It begins with an invitation from Pig One, Pig Two, and Pig Three who would like her to attend their upcoming house warming party.  Little Red Riding Hood, Baby Bear, and Peter Rabbit have all RSVP'd as well, unaware that Wolfy Lupus an his cousin, Fer O'Cious, are planning to arrive at the party unannounced!  Thank goodness Mama Bear comes to the rescue of the invited guests just in time!   This book is a great way to introduce or review proper friendly letter format to your young writers, and you can use the blank templates included in this FREEBIE I created to help them respond to the story.

ENJOY ANOTHER FAIRY TALE FREEBIE!

I hope that your students enjoy this non-traditional, and engaging exploration of Goldilocks stories! Fairy tales are rich in language and such a great way to expand student vocabulary.  Click {HERE} to see this literacy pack that features literacy enrichment activities for the three stories featured in this post.

EXPLORE MORE OF THE WOODS WITH GOLDILOCKS

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board for more ideas on how to incorporate this fun and fascinating genre into your language arts lessons as well!

Follow Jennifer Boney-Reynolds's board Fairy Tale Units & Ideas on Pinterest.

I would also love for you to follow me over on my blog, STORIES AND SONGS IN SECOND!  

Stop by to check out my posts AND subscribe to my weekly newsletter!

May all of your reading and writing lessons always have happy endings!

Setting Up for Close Reading {and tons of FREEBIES!!}

Hello Everyone!

 Laura here from Where the Magic Happens Blog.  A few weeks ago I was invited to present at the 2016 South Eastern Reading Recovery Conference in Myrtle Beach. I was actually invited by my favorite professor (and mentor) from grad school. To say that I was humbled and honored is an understatement.
I have HUGE respect for Reading Recovery teachers because they are the real deal.

They know the nitty- gritty.

The understand the reading and writing process better than anybody else.

Every single RR teacher that I have ever met radiates knowledge and wisdom.

So my initial thoughts were:

What do I have to offer to such a knowledgeable crowd?

What will I share with them if they already know it all?

Close reading. Yes, that was my topic.

Anyhow, one of the most recurring  questions in my sessions had to do with the things that I do to set up close reading routines with my firsties.

Well  let me ya...

According to  Fisher & Frey:
Close reading  is purposeful, and careful  repeated readings of a complex text.
As a result, it is important to remember:
Close Reading is challenging. As a teacher you need be able to model and show your students the differences with guided reading.

The very first time I attempted  close reading with my firsties, one of my sweet students told me that close reading is like peeling an onion because you uncover layers and layers.

Genius! Truly genius!

My wheels were turning.

Then, my sweet teacher friend Krystal from next door also mentioned that she had seen something similar on Pinterest where a teacher used an Oreo cookie to introduce close reading to her students.

 The wheels kept on turning. Then I figured I would do this:

Of course I thought about this like at 9:30 at night when I was taking a bath with calming oils.
I usually keep tangerines in my house for me and  my boys, but I was out. People at my school may have thought that I was going coo-coo when they received my text messages asking if they had tangerine oranges in their homes. My beautiful and stylish literacy coach even offered to stop by the grocery store to get fruit. So sweet. I ended up going to the closest Harris Teeter before school and I purchased a big bag of  "cuties."

But why a tangerine? And what does a tangerine have to do with the phases of close reading?

Let me begin by  showing you the phases of a close read:



Some researchers may use terms like cold read, hot read, or warm read to name the phases of close reading.

I particularly like how Fisher & Frey "spell out" the phases of a close read.

Anyways...

For stage one or "what does the text say" I took the tangerine out and asked the children questions like:

What is this?

What do you see?

And others that I don't quite recall at this moment.  I have reached  and age in which I forget a lot of things. You just cannot tell because I use really good skincare. 

Anyways...

Each pair of students got to hold one tangerine. After I asked each question, I gave my firsties 30 seconds to do a "think-pair-share." What is important to consider here is how all the questions are grounded on the  things that we can "see"  about the tangerine, just like the questions of a first read in a  close reading.

For stage two or "how does the text work" I asked my students to get the tangerine ready to eat. They had to peel it, get the pieces ready, and some of them even had to take some of those white strings off.

I asked questions like:

What would happen if you didn't peel your tangerine?

Why do we have to pull the little pieces apart?

What are your observations?

Just like in the second read where we discuss vocabulary, author's purpose, and my favorite: text structure.

For stage three or "what does the text mean" I asked the pairs to eat their tangerine. I asked them questions related to their thoughts about the tangerine:
What did it taste like and why?
For example.

For stage four or "what does the ext inspire you to do" I asked for their personal opinion about the tangerine using evidence from their experience.

Pretty neat. Kids loved it and made true connections to our goal: understanding the phases of close reading

But why going to all the trouble about finding tangerines for this activity in the middle of the night?
Very simple:

A couple of years ago I  decided that I was going to start a vegetable garden.  I bought books,  seeds, Honey Graham built two raised beds, and he ordered some manure enriched soil. This was close to our anniversary, so when my mom asked what gift I had received, I openly told her that he had given me a pile of sh.

Anyways...

Here I am with all this stuff in front of me and no tools. Not. A. Single. One.

Not a little shovel, nothing.

I had to go and find some little plastic shovels out of the boys' beach toys pile.
So what if I had done this wonderful tangerine lesson and my firsties had no idea what to do when I asked them to read closely.

Well first, let me tell you:

In the primary classroom, a close reading MUST be guided by the teacher the whole time. There is no sit over there with this paper and answer these questions. That is NOT a close read. I would call that a worksheet.
Isn't  our job to prepare kids for anything? Aren't we supposed to give them the tools to do so?

Well... same thing with a close read.

What is inside this jar?

• Three markers: each marker is for the first three phases of a close read. I put these labels on each of the markers so the kids know what to do and when.

I am so sorry I do not have pictures of the labeled markers.

You may download this set of labels by clicking HERE!!! the labels are Avery 5160.

There is also a cool pencil, a cool eraser, and these bookmarks:

Yes! These three think marks are what research considers appropriate for a close read. You can download them by clicking on the picture

 These are the labels that you can put on the jars. You can get them by clicking HERE!
Oh, BTW... the jars came from Oriental Trading Company.

Oh anchor charts and Thinking Maps... how I love you so.
I am going to let these pictures of this anchor chart speak for themselves.

I am an anchor chart aficionado.  In my experience, they offer an opportunity for my students to process deeply when they are offered as an initial experience.


 In case you are interested, you can stop by my TPT store and check out  my close reading packs.
I hope that you have found these tips useful and they can help you set up classroom routines for your students.
Until next time!

Laura G,

Reading Between the Lines

Typically my teaching takes place in a small group format.  That is the life of a Title I teacher...and I love it!  But there are a couple weeks within the school year that my teammate, Karen and I, co-teach together.  This past week was one of them.

We LOVE Tanny McGregor's book, Comprehension Connections and many of the lessons that we co-teach begin with her ideas.  Tanny's chapter on inferring sparked the most recent lessons with our first graders.  She lays out some great ideas about bringing in trash and shoes to infer.  The anchor charts that are recommended are great visuals.  We found great success when we used these lessons last year.

To put these new inferring skills to work, we ended each lesson with a book.  Since we teach first graders, we wanted to choose books that would help them to feel successful with inferring.  Wordless books by Lita Judge, as well as, some alphabet books were both used this year.

My focus today is on the alphabet books because they can be a great place to start when inference, evidence, and schema are first being introduced.

These four titles: A Is for Salad, Q is for Duck, Tomorrow's Alphabet, and A is for...? all encourage students to "read between the lines" in order to understand what the author is trying to say.  For each of these books the students need to use their schema and evidence from the letters/text or pictures to determine what the alphabet letter actually stands for.  Our questions for each page:

What can you infer?

What is your evidence to support that?

Our first graders would also include schema or background knowledge into their answers and we would point that out immediately as we referred to the evidence within the book.

Tomorrow's Alphabet by George Shannon

This text is really interesting because the students have to think about what the object will become in the future.  For students that do not have a lot of schema on that particular object, they have to rely heavily on the evidence within the pictures.  Here is an example:

I would show only the page that states "C is for milk--."  My question was, "What can you infer the author means by C is for milk?"  I loved this because some students wanted to immediately answer, "Cow-milk comes from a cow and cow starts with c."  Then I would remind them that the title is "Tomorrow's Alphabet" and that piece of evidence tells me that this milk will turn into something.  This prompted more inferences about cake, cookies, or cupcakes because the milk may be part of the batter.  

Yes! Yes!  The evidence is there and so is their schema!

But then I show them that the author actually decided upon the word cheese.

The book continues on in this manner.  Some answers require more thinking, schema, and evidence than others.  It is interesting to see what they come up with for some of the letters.

Q Is for Duck by Mary Elting and Michael Folsom

This text relies on the schema of students but there is evidence with the pictures to help them infer what the letter ACTUALLY stands for.

On this particular page, my classes inferred that the "F" actually stood for feathers, feed, fly, and flamingo.  Each of these inferences were backed up by evidence from this page and their schema on what they know about birds.

When we showed the next page, we covered up the answer just to see if they would change their inference based on the new evidence shown.

And the new evidence led them to infer that "F" actually stood for fly.  They were correct!

A is For Salad by Mike Lester

This text provides the evidence for what the author is inferring on one page, where the two books above use two pages.  For this reason, I believe this book is a bit easier and would be perfect to use with kindergarten students or beginning of the year first graders.

As you can see from this illustration, the author is not talking about pajamas.  We can infer that the E really stands of an elephant because we see an elephant in the illustration.

A is for ...? A Photographer's Alphabet of Animals by Henry Horenstein

This text has even less text for students to use as evidence.  They must use a lot of schema, the beginning letter, and the photograph to help them infer what the author is really trying to show them.

Students must look at the photograph (such as the one above) and try to figure out what animal it is.  That is it.  I have to admit...I fell in love with this book the moment I saw it.  The photos are beautiful.

Reading between the lines or inferring is a skill that students do everyday.  They do it when they see your "teacher look" or when they get dressed in the morning.  The tricky part for us as teachers is getting them to understand that they also do this when they read.  AND that they use evidence throughout the book to make those inferences.

My hope is that some of these alphabet books can help our youngest readers begin  to infer and provide evidence when reading.

Five Fun Ways to Practice Sight Words

Tara from Looney's Literacy here checking in to share some fun ways we're practicing sight words! 

 Sight words are an important part of literacy learning. However, there are not many strategies to teach sight words other than memorizing them. Committing information to  our long term memory requires repetition. Repetition can become monotonous. So it becomes critical to find ways to change up sight word learning besides the same old flashcard method.

Today I'm going to share with you five ways you can change it up a little with your sight word learners. Hopefully making sight word learning fun and effective!

Sight Word Slap

You could do this game several ways. I would say, adapt this game to fit the materials you may already have available so as not to spend a lot of extra money on supplies. You can also adapt this game to one or multiple players.

Materials:

Large paper, post-it notes, flashcards, etc.
Flyswatters
small container

Directions:

Write sight words on large paper, post-it notes, or just use flashcards you already have. Write the same sight words on little pieces of paper and put them in a small container. Player one will draw a card and read the sight word. Player two will then "slap" the sight word with the flyswatter. If they get it correct they get to keep the card.  Whoever has the most cards and can read them wins.

Alternative with just one or  more player(s): The adult will call out a sight word from the list and the child(ren) will "slap" the word with a flyswatter. If there's multiple children, whoever slaps the card first gets to keep it and whoever has the most cards at the end wins.

Sight Word Bracelets

Materials:

letter beads
colored beads
elastic bands
(I purchased all of this at Dollar Tree for $3)


Directions:

Give the students a list of words they are working on. I let them choose 2-3 words (unless they're small words - then you may need to do a few more). My groups consist of 2-3 students so I just lay out a handful of each of the  beads. Have the students find all the letters they need to build their words and the color beads they will need to put between words.

{Video Clip Coming Soon}

Sight Word Sentence Showdown

Materials:

Sight word sentence strips


Directions:

Type up simple sight word sentences with  a variety of punctuation marks to work on expression. Distribute sentence strips evenly. They take turns reading sentences. They usually just get a kick out of reading them in silly voices! They really don't need any other incentive to enjoy this activity!

Shaving Cream Rainbow Writing

We didn't get a chance to try this one but it is next on my list! I found this at Kids Play Box.

Sight Word Chain Links

We haven't gotten a chance to try this either but it's been added to the list as well. You can find this at Maggie's Big Home.