Independent Reading with Purpose

As soon as my students start reading their self selected chapter books for independent reading, It is no longer possible to set book specific comprehension activities . We still want to help them think about what they were reading and to read with purpose. So I made a set of Reader Response Stems based on the same comprehension strategies that I use with them in shared/teacher directed reading sessions.

These Reader Response Stems can be used by the students for any book that they are reading. It can be matched to the strategy you are covering with the class at the time. You could used it for independent practice once you have finished teaching a specific strategy to your class and use it as an assessment tool to see if they are using that strategy fluently or whether they may need some more direct teaching on it.

The 11 strategies covered in the set include:

• making connections
• asking questions
• visualising (making mental pictures)
• inferring (predicting)
• summarising
• synthesising
• author's message
• evaluating
• setting (time and place)
• characters
• language

and suit students from ages 9 and older.
You can get your very own copy which includes both a UK and USA spelling set (simply delete the one you don't need from the PDF)
by clicking here (TPT) or here (TNB).

Thank you for visiting,

http://www.helpmelearn.co.nz/
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/One-Teachers-Journe
http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/tkwillemse
https://twitter.com/TimeaWillemse
http://www.youtube.com/user/HelpMeLearnMaths
http://pinterest.com/tkwillemse/boards/

If students designed their own schools...

Hello friends,
I wish my daughters could have this kind of opportunity at their college. Both are independent and very motivated learners and would so benefit from this risk taking approach. As both a teacher and a mum of 2 teenagers, I have truly had to adapt my thinking around what subjects my girls should study for future employment opportunities.
After a lot of soul searching (and also because my first born is incredibly headstrong and knows her own mind) we  support them in following their passions. The result has been total focus on their school subjects and excellent academic results. My eldest is turning into quite a talented artist. She has just earned a commission from American singer Andrew MacMahon formerly of Jacks Mannequin  
Our youngest is fascinated by media and film. Here is to a colour future :) 

IB Exhibition #1

Hello Friends,

This is our IB exhibition term. Very exciting time for both the students and the teachers involved. This is my first year guiding students through the exhibition and there has been a lot of discourse among us about the learning pedagogy behind the purpose of exhibition. Today I read an interesting article by Bruce Hammonds on his blog about what 21st C schools should be delivering as opposed to what they are delivering with standardised testing and narrowing / compartmentalising the curriculum. These are the times when I am glad to teach in an IB school :)

Here is a link to Bruce's blog article

One of the biggest areas of discussion was how far to pull back and how much freedom to give the students around selecting their own learning pathways. Personally I have come to believe that it really depends on the student. Some need more guidance to structure their learning while others are quite capable to do this for themselves.

However, as this is the first for us as a teaching team, we have set:
The Transdisciplinary Theme - Where we are in Place an Time
The Central Idea - Past, present and future shape the technologies of today.

 
We began by meeting as a year group (all 3 classes together) and the students were taken through a recap about the over-arching ideas of IB Inquiry.

To start with we watched this video:

It generated some great discussions among the students around who is in fact taking charge of your learning.

much love

Blooms - Oldie but a goodie

Hello friends,
When I first started teaching over a decade ago, one of the buzz words around at the time was Bloom's Taxonomy. I can't say I have heard it much lately but for this terms Daily 5 / Sustained Reading slot, my team decided to revisit it. We incorporated it into the Read to Self / Read to Buddy component of the reading block. First though, I'll recap on how last term went.
Our focus was as follows:

 Once we started of course, another goal came to light which was extending stamina (on-task focised reading) for a fixed period.
We monitored the Read to self (5min) as follows:

After listening to our buddies read, we discussed what it means to read fluently, and set this as the purpose for our Read to Buddy time:

Here are the anchor charts we used to give our buddy feedback (star) and feed-forward (wish or next step):

They worked a treat. Now in Term 2 we wished to extend into comprehension checkpoints, so our Bloom's Comprehension Fans were born.

First our stamina goals extended to 10 minutes Read to Self:

Next, the Read to Buddy time was split 3/2 minutes. Read to your buddy for 3min and discuss for 2minutes (up to 3 questions from the Bloom's Fans).

And the buddy still gave  feedback on fluency (out of 10) and on the ability of the reader to provide full answers.

As with last term, we will again reflect on the patterns that emerge after a fortnight of reading.

Finally:

FREE Daily 5 - Reading to self / Buddy Follow up.

used in Term 1  &

Bloom's Questions - Bookmarks or Fans

used in Term 2 are available here:
Teachers Pay Teachers - Reading at One Teachers Journey
Teachers Notebook
Help Me Learn (NZ)
And a BIG thank-you to...

Thank you for visiting. Would love to read about how you switch things up during sustained reading time in your classroom. Leave a link to your blog post below.

Body Systems #7 - Student Inquiry and freebie

Hello friends,

With the Digestive system inquiry model done, students could start to reflect on what other systems our bodies have, how they function and connect.

For home learning they were asked to find as many systems as they could. This proved interesting because depending on the source (and the number of cross-checking sources they used) they came up with varying amounts. A good lesson to follow on from Body System #6.

From the main ones, we made a chart with a brief description of each.

Then I created a sister chart where students could indicate their choice of the system they wished to inquire into. First we completed a quick prior knowledge activity (Kwl) using this foldable. Quite revealing really!

Next, students wrote and shared their questions (based around Form, Function and Connection), and they were off (kWl).

I posted a whole list of internet links to articles, 3D animations, videos and diagrams for the Y6 group on our team Wiki so that they could access from home if they wished. There was also a pile of non-fiction books to refer to in  class. And thank you Brainpop :) for the videos.

Graphic organisers are a great way to guide this independent part of the journey for your students, so I gave the kiddies this explanation tracker with all the markers we had learned about previously. They can highlight off each bit as they complete it.

I also created this research sheet for them to use and have posted it for FREE on my stores. The links are at the end of this post so hop on over for your copy :)

 http://www.classroomfreebies.com/2013/04/welcome-to-manic-monday-at-classroom_29.html

Students that felt they needed 1-1 with me listed their names on the board and were called down in order for a conference. After working with a couple of students, I added the key concepts to the key words section of their research sheet to remind them what they were looking for and to help them 'sift' out the relevant information.

As they got going, they began to notice some trends with body systems. When looking at the forms (parts) of the systems, they realised that some systems are a circuit, and some are made up of distinct, but in some way, connected parts. (and so kwL begins :)
 We came up with this list on the board.

By having this list on the board to refer to, they could quickly check where to next. Once they had completed and orally shared their introductions, they could add these to our Google Drive for collaboration and moderation. I'll post about how this went, next time.

The links to my shops are here. Hope you find this useful too :)

How do you use organisers to support your inquiries? Would love to read your ideas below.
'Til next time :)

Body Systems #6 - resources for research

Hello friends,

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the first time to share 5 items from my week :)
This will take the form of 5 varied resources students can use for research.



Inquiry Learning - open ended by its nature because students follow their own interests. While this is a concern for many teachers who feel that they have a better handle on the quality of learning in their rooms when they prepare and teach their own lessons, Inquiry Learning  offers true engagement as students really want to find answers to their own questions to satisfy their curiosity.

We teachers are now the facilitators of the learning, there to support, encourage and (dare I say) push students to reach their potential.

One of the ways we do this is by creating 'wanting' in our students. I 'wanted' them to 'want' to persist with research through a variety of resources in order to clarify their understanding as well as to confirm the accuracy of the facts that they were gathering. Simply due to their lack of life experience, they don't see the point of continuing their research if they believe to have found the answer in the first place they look. And teachers telling them they need to do so ...well why?... when they have the answer.

To initiate the research for the teacher guided inquiry, I provided my kiddies with (no.1) an explanation of the digestive system. I made it purposefully challenging (similar to the non-fiction topic books they would encounter on the subject) so that they felt that they got some information out of it but were still unclear about many areas.

After reading through it, I asked them to read it a second time and this time to highlight any words or key ideas that they would like to use in an oral retell.

Next I had them explain their understanding to a buddy, in their own words with reference only to their highlighted words.

By a show of hands I asked them to vote whether they were totally clear on the topic and could confidently explain it to anyone. No-one was willing to commit. So asked them what they felt would help them at this stage. One of the things they asked for was a diagram (no.2), so I gave them one. Their task was to go through the text again and to sequence the events with the labels on the diagram.

Many felt they gained some clarity. What they really wanted next was something to explain the Topic Words - so I provided the glossary (no.3) I had prepared. Now they felt they understood the text a lot better but still found it difficult to visualise the process because this was not part of their prior knowledge or experience. All they really knew was that food went in and 'poop' came out, so something went on in between. Sounds like a hypothesis to me!

Bring on the experiment (no.4):

This was such fun! The toughest kiddies were turning green at the gills, by the end.
Finally (no.5) we watched a few animations and videos on youtube (wonderful resource).

Exposing students to such a wide variety of resources allows access for varied learning styles, to the information that needs to be processed.

In their shared writing groups, they were able to access the necessary information from the aforementioned resources and collaborate on a paragraph for the class exemplar explanation.

Next time I'll post about kicking off the Student Initiated part of this Inquiry.

Be sure to head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to share your five for the week :)
Have a great day everyone :)