I give homework to reinforce skills learned in class. Many of my students struggle with learning. They depend on me for much of what they learn throughout the day. When they work on anything independently they are given a chance to spread their wings. Problems solving skills are important as they reach adulthood. These skills can be built in the independent/homework process. Meaningful homework would be working on skills that were taught in class. Homework should not be anything that the student has not seen before.
If students do not complete all of their work in class, then it would be very helpful for them to finish it at home. So much work is assigned throughtout the day that some students need extra time at home. My homework objectives for my students is that they practice skills that we are working on in school. I also hope that parents will be availabe to help. It can be a great time to spend one on one with their children.
I provide feeback to students on papers they have turned in, and by graphing success. I have my strategic and intensive students practice their fluency at home every night. They graph the number, and watch their progress. it has really helped with motivation. Then I write in the planner to let the parents know how much I appreciate their support.
Spelling is one of the main subjects that my students have homework in. My district has decided that they do not want us practicing it in class. In order to make spelling more exciting I have them work on www.spellingcity.com . These really makes them enjoy homework more. We have a program called moodle that would be great for communication. It is a way for students to post assigments and talk to the teacher. All of our high school students use it and they really like it.
I feel like homework is an important part of education. It builds in the students the work ethic they need as they get into high school and as they get a job. Some of these same requirements could be part of a job that they eventually have as an adult..
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Graphic Organizers
I looked into three different graphic organizers for 5th grade students. The first one is a story map for non-fiction text. The students are required to fill in the characters, setting, problem, and soultion for the map. Then I added a piece to my organizer. This week we are studying the story "Don Quixote", and the conept we are working on is understanding characters. I added a thoughts, action, words section to the graphic organizer so they can use all of this to decide understand the main character more. I can see ELL students struggling with character traits, so this would be something that we would have to work through together.
The non-fiction graphic organizer I chose is a venn diagram. We were studying a story about cougars. I used that to compare-contrast cougars and lions, another leveled reader from my curriculm. I noticed many students struggle with similarities so we work through this concept together. I have used venn diagarms often and they work very well. These have worked at all levels also,
For poetry, I chose a vocabulary organizer. 5th graders struggle with poetry, and a lot of this has to do with the hefty vocabulary and figurative language. This graphic organizer allows them to come up with synonyms and antonyns for the difficult word. They can also use the word in a sentence to relate it more to their life. Poetry would be a very difficult concept for ELL students. They have to have a vast background knowledge of the english language. Many english speakers struggle with these concepts also.
The non-fiction graphic organizer I chose is a venn diagram. We were studying a story about cougars. I used that to compare-contrast cougars and lions, another leveled reader from my curriculm. I noticed many students struggle with similarities so we work through this concept together. I have used venn diagarms often and they work very well. These have worked at all levels also,
For poetry, I chose a vocabulary organizer. 5th graders struggle with poetry, and a lot of this has to do with the hefty vocabulary and figurative language. This graphic organizer allows them to come up with synonyms and antonyns for the difficult word. They can also use the word in a sentence to relate it more to their life. Poetry would be a very difficult concept for ELL students. They have to have a vast background knowledge of the english language. Many english speakers struggle with these concepts also.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sheltered Lesson
The teacher in this video has many strategies to promote comprehension.
Pre-reading: She makes connections to background knowledge, or has the student relate it to their own countries. Then she will preview vocabulary and provide the students with vocabulary cards. She uses questioning to get them thinking about the reading. She will provide synonyms for words that the students may not know. Then she may have the students provide vocabulary from their native language, or have them repeat something in the language that they are talking about.
The teacher makes sure to write everything down or provides examples for the students. She makes sure the directions are explicit verbally and visually. It is important that lessons are provided that is the same content that the other students are receiving just that is more accessible.
The students seem very comfortable with their teacher. One student even sings the birthday song to provide an example of something from their culture. Students use post it notes to write any questions down, or things they might be confused about. They do this before the lesson and after.
When the teacher reads aloud she slows down and emphasizes important vocabulary words. They have been working on inference up to this point so the teacher makes sure to let them know that their guess may not always be right. The teacher than has them visualize what is happening in the story. All of this is done with many repetitions and a lot of modeling. ELL students needs this to process information. The teacher has the students think about the text, in text-text and text-self, always relating it to their own background.
Students are encouraged to interact with each other, and even talk in their native language. They can then help each other to make connections in English and Spanish.
The whole lesson concludes with a review of key vocabulary and inferencing. The part I like the most was the post it notes. Students were able to put their thoughts about the story down and put it on the board. This way the teacher really understood what they got and did not get. It was a great interaction between teacher and student.
Pre-reading: She makes connections to background knowledge, or has the student relate it to their own countries. Then she will preview vocabulary and provide the students with vocabulary cards. She uses questioning to get them thinking about the reading. She will provide synonyms for words that the students may not know. Then she may have the students provide vocabulary from their native language, or have them repeat something in the language that they are talking about.
The teacher makes sure to write everything down or provides examples for the students. She makes sure the directions are explicit verbally and visually. It is important that lessons are provided that is the same content that the other students are receiving just that is more accessible.
The students seem very comfortable with their teacher. One student even sings the birthday song to provide an example of something from their culture. Students use post it notes to write any questions down, or things they might be confused about. They do this before the lesson and after.
When the teacher reads aloud she slows down and emphasizes important vocabulary words. They have been working on inference up to this point so the teacher makes sure to let them know that their guess may not always be right. The teacher than has them visualize what is happening in the story. All of this is done with many repetitions and a lot of modeling. ELL students needs this to process information. The teacher has the students think about the text, in text-text and text-self, always relating it to their own background.
Students are encouraged to interact with each other, and even talk in their native language. They can then help each other to make connections in English and Spanish.
The whole lesson concludes with a review of key vocabulary and inferencing. The part I like the most was the post it notes. Students were able to put their thoughts about the story down and put it on the board. This way the teacher really understood what they got and did not get. It was a great interaction between teacher and student.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Running Record Analysis
I conducted a running record on two Ell students, one that was Spanish and one that was French. Both students have been in the United States since kindergarten, so they are fairly proficient with the English language. They are both 5th graders at my school. Both students read from a book called Six Minute Solutions. It has different level passages that I use in my classroom for fluency. I have noticed that my struggling readers struggle with many of these passages, so I thought that I would use them on these two ELL students who are not in my class. Most of the mistakes the students made were leaving off suffixes or plurals. Both students skipped words and had several self corrections. One student even seemed to have trouble tracking while completing the record. I suggested the student use a ruler to track or maybe even their finger. They both struggled slightly with meaning do to the fact that they had skipped words. When asked to retell what they had read they were under 50% of the words retold. They also made grammar errors, such as wrong verb tense. I see this quite often with my struggling readers. I really did not see any errors that related to their first language. Both students read at what would be considered benchmark or 115 words per minute.
My teaching suggestions for these students would be that they continue reading high interest text. Books that contain pictures, or photographs that would help support meaning. These students would benefit from a content rich program where all of the curriculum builds upon their vocabulary and introduces them to new ideas. In Freeman's book they discuss how students can repeat what an adult is saying if they are struggling with a certain concept. This might really help these students become more aware of what they are missing. A phonice exercise about s making the s or z sound may also be beneficial. For these students it would not help them to continue on with their reading curriculum without having some direct instruction in what they are missing. It would be interesting to see what their spelling is like. I bet they have some of the same problems hearing those sounds and spelling them.
My teaching suggestions for these students would be that they continue reading high interest text. Books that contain pictures, or photographs that would help support meaning. These students would benefit from a content rich program where all of the curriculum builds upon their vocabulary and introduces them to new ideas. In Freeman's book they discuss how students can repeat what an adult is saying if they are struggling with a certain concept. This might really help these students become more aware of what they are missing. A phonice exercise about s making the s or z sound may also be beneficial. For these students it would not help them to continue on with their reading curriculum without having some direct instruction in what they are missing. It would be interesting to see what their spelling is like. I bet they have some of the same problems hearing those sounds and spelling them.
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