Presentations in Staunton & Richmond

It has been a whirlwind for us this fall, but it has been so much fun!  We have completed three presentations for the Virginia Department of Education on Formative Assessment.  It has been a pleasure to work alongside our state English Curriculum Coordinator Tracy Robertson, her assistant De and State Reading Specialist Crystal Midlike, as well as Erich (travel coordinator) from VT.  A great big thank you to our English team for allowing us to present once again!

It has been very enjoyable presenting in all three locations.  The participants have been so welcoming & really interested in learning all they can to help their students!  Thanks to all participants at Dulles, Staunton & Richmond for your warm welcome!

Please email us with any questions you may have concerning our presentation or any resources that we shared.  Remember formative assessment should not be stressful!

Formative assessment is the application time, which in turn drives your instruction! 

Presenting for VDOE in Dulles!

We really enjoyed the warm reception that we received in at the VDOE English SOL Institute at the Dulles Hyatt.  There were an amazing crowd to present to, and we enjoyed getting to field questions and converse with many educators after the presentation.  Thanks VDOE for allowing us to present again this year!  We thoroughly enjoy sharing our passion for teaching reading!

What is a Reading Dump Sheet?

Last year Jessica and I were approached by our third grade team asking for a "Reading Dump Sheet". They had gotten a math one from someone else, and had not been able to find a reading dump sheet.  Honestly, we had never heard of them, but apparently someone came up with the thought that you could give your students of sheet of paper and allow them to dump their brain out on the sheet prior to taking test.  It is meant to include all of the key components of instruction for the year.  So, Jessica and I stated working on it and correlated it to all reading skills and strategies, as well as the graphic organizers that correlate to comprehension questions.  It was a really fun project for us, and we began teaching it to our students.  Of course, the kids that we had taught all year, quickly caught on as we had worked extensively in our reading notebooks, and on the Weekly Comprehension Scavenger Hunts which included all of these graphic organizers.  The kids loved it!  They began using it to practice with weekly test and practice test, as Jessica and I modeled "how to use" it.  It became a great tool in helping our kids remember how to answer different types of questions they encountered on the weekly test & year end test.

This gives you a sneak peek of the "Reading Dump Sheet".  It is for sale on our TPT store at A Love For Reading.  Check it out.  Teach it all year & watch your student's understanding blossom!

Email us, comment or place a question on our TPT store, if you have any questions regarding exactly how to use this resource.

Make Time For it! - Application Really Works!

Our school is in our 2nd year of the new balanced schedule, so we have 2 weeks - fall and early spring that we stop and do remediation with students that are falling behind, or neat extra help to get them back on pace.  (By the way, I love the new balanced calendar).

 As I worked with a small group of 1st and 2nd graders throughout that week, I realized more and more that application really works! You are probably saying, "What do you mean?".  What I mean is giving them time to apply skills that you have taught really, really works!  I know, I know...you do not have enough time, but my argument is that you must take the time!  If you do not take the time to allow them to apply their skills (practice), how do you know if they get what you are teaching?  I was amazed as I worked with my groups of students, how well they did on applying their skills.  I would review skills that had been taught in their classrooms daily, and then I would have countless activities for them to practice & practice some more on.  They had so much fun, and I did also!!  We worked & worked that week and the kids loved the interactive work, and games that we did together. It was really easy for me to observe them and know who and who didn't understand.  Then, I was able to offer more help to those that really did not get it.

Remember - Practice Makes Perfect, and you cannot be a good reader, apply phonics,comprehension or writing skills if you never have the time to practice those skills!  Step back & allow your students that time to practice what you are so diligently teaching them. You will be amazed!!!

Interactive Reading Notebooks

Be sure to check out one of our newest items in our Teachers Pay Teachers store at A Love for Reading. We are very excited to share these with everyone.  We started on the journey of Interactive Reading Notebooks last year, and basically used them as a note taking strategy with our students.  Our students loved their notebooks, and wanted to make sure all year long that they would get to take them home with them.  Some of the students wanted to keep them so they could use them in the next grade.

They really were successful!

This summer we decided to enhance them a little more and make them correlate to the Reading Dump Sheet that we created right before SOL testing last year.  (We are getting ready to download a digital copy of it to the TPT store also.  It should be ready sometime next week.)  Our Reading Dump Sheet, Interactive Notebooks and Comprehension Scavenger Hunts are all interlinked to allow lots of guided practice and application in comprehension.  They are closely linked to the technology enhanced questions that are appearing more and more on the end of year testing.
If you have any questions about how to use these resources, please comment and we will respond to you and share any experiences that we have had with them.

Keep watching for more Interactive Reading Resources weekly!!!

Your Thoughts......

What if you were given the chance to attend the reading professional development seminar of your choice?  What would it be?  We love to hear from those that are in the trenches, and know what they are looking for in professional development.  We would love to hear from you, so that we can start some post on our blog that are of interest to you.

I have been thinking a lot about this as I am planning our upcoming team times, and planning to focus more on specific areas throughout this year.   I have my plan in place, but I would love to see your thoughts to make sure I am on track.

Would it be....
word study?  fluency?  specific comprehension skills & strategies?  vocabulary?  writing?  application?  graphic organizers?  testing strategies? and the list goes on.

Let us hear from you, as we try to cater to your needs and what you are needing to hear from us.  Please comment below with some of the areas you would like to see more of from us.  THANKS!!!!

Practice Makes Perfect...Application!

As you get started this year, remember...

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT - APPLICATION!!!

Let your students do the work - let them try, fail, go back & fix and practice, practice & practice applying the skills that you are teaching!

Make sure that you do not spoon feed everything to your students this year.  Let them take responsibility, experiment, discover and challenge them to try doing some things on their own.  You will be surprised at what they can do, after good teacher modeling has occurred (good teacher modeling is very important).

Just make sure that after teaching that great lesson, and modeling those skills and strategies for your students, that you step back and give them time to PRACTICE & APPLY what they have learned.  Remember, all good sports figures & great musicians practice everyday, and lots of them several hours a day.  What makes learning to read or comprehend any different?

Get Ready! Get Set! Go!

Ready or not the first week of school is here!  Remember, don't wait to start all those cool reading strategies until later - start this week!  Let your students hear words like visualize, cause & effect, summarizing, making inferences during the first week of school.

Take a minute and reflect & visualize about your summer vacation.  Draw a picture on the front of an index card & turn it over and write about it.

Give your students a flow chart and have them think about the beginning, middle and end of their summer vacation.  Draw pictures in the flow chart and then write a sentence about each picture.  Don't forget Framed Sentence Summary is a great way to scaffold the writing.  It ties in nicely to the graphic organizer, and links reading and writing so nicely!  Remember APPLICATION is what we want to happen!

Make a bag with items in it from your summer vacation.  Can you make an inference about my summer vacation?  Where did I go?  What did I do?  What was my favorite thing about summer?

Reading is EVERYTHING!  We use it all the time & in everything that we do, but sometimes even as teachers, we need to stop and realize that reading can be taught all day, in every way possible without even realizing it!

Make this the BEST reading year ever!  Make it FUN & see how much you can incorporate it in everything that you do!

Graphic Organizers + Comprehension +Writing = Application

How in the world can I get it all done?  My school wants me to use more graphic organizers, promote critical thinking, and include more writing - WOW!  The KEY is APPLICATION!!!

I encourage you to find ways to incorporate all of the above and allow your students to do the work! What better way to learning effectively than through application.  We all have heard you are not truly reading until you are comprehending, so let's challenge our students to show us what they are learning through applying their skills using graphic organizer, thus encouraging them to express their comprehension through writing.

Make sure you are using all of these words this year in your planning - Hands-on, Interactive, Graphic Organizers, Writing, Critical Thinking, Comprehension and remember the KEY to success in reading is Application!  If they can apply what they are learning, they understand it!

Here is one of the ways that we incorporate graphic organizers, critical thinking, writing and application - Comprehension Skills/Strategies Scavenger Hunts.  Even though we may be focusing on one skill and one strategy weekly, we chose to review a lot of them weekly.  Students needs to have practice applying what they are learning, and it cannot just happen here and there.  It must happen frequently in order for them to be able to succeed.  Remember, ball players practice daily, so why shouldn't we do the same in academics?

Bland Reading Presentation

We had a wonderful day presenting to the faculty at Bland County Schools.  We appreciate the privilege of presenting to them and spending the day with them.  They were a very receptive audience and we enjoying collaborating with them on reading instruction and primarily ways to improve reading comprehension through application, as well as a ton of other strategies that we shared and allowed them to interact with during the day.  We look forward to possibly seeing them more in the fall.

 Caught Jessica taking pictures of student work to download on our presentation for Bland.  We enjoyed pulling this altogether.

Participating in a Power Note activity during the session.  This is a silent activity in which participants are given different topics all with the same theme, and they have to determine how to arrange themselves like an outline.  Very good interactive reading note taking strategy that works on main idea and supporting details also.

Working on the classifying and categorizing vocabulary sort.  Great teamwork and good discussion about ones that could go in either category depending on their definition.

All in all it was a great day and we really enjoyed presenting to them.  Can't wait to hear about your implementation of some of the strategies shared with you.  We could see the wheels turning!

More Goosh - Nonsense Words - Making Inferences

Don't forget to check out all of the new goosh products that are available on our Teachers Pay Teachers store.  We have been working hard to get a lot more of these out there, per your request, so you hope you enjoy!

FUNneling with Nonfiction Text

How did this strategy come about?  I was sitting in reading class one day teaching my heart out, trying to make my students understand how reading nonfiction is different to reading fiction.  I was pointing out all of the text and graphic features and telling them how the author actually gives you a lot of hints to look at before you ever read, so that you will know what you are reading about.  As I kept on teaching, I asked them to come up with the prediction for the book that we were getting ready to read, and I was talking about all of the "tons" of information that we already had before reading and how much more we would have when we finally read.  We read the text and then I asked them if their prediction was correct.  They looked at it and wanted to tweak it a little more, and make it more specific, and just like that a "funnel" came to mind.  I said, "This is just like a funnel!"  My kids looked at me strange, but I drew a picture of a funnel and how big it is at the top, and we talked about all of the information before reading and during reading, and then we talked about what happens when a mixture goes through the funnel, and how the opening is so much smaller.  So, I told them that they were funneling all of that information to sift out what was the most important, or the main idea.  Thus "FUNneling" was born, and we worked to create a "FUNneling" graphic organizer and bought some funnels to make it more meaningful for our students.  Our students love "FUNneling", but don't we all like to do things that have meaning?

Look for ways to make learning more meaningful for your students this year!  They will never forget it!  Application is the KEY to success!

What Effects Do I Have On My Students? Does It Even Matter?

Does the way that you view a subject matter affect the way that you teach?  Does it affect your students?  Does it even matter?

This year I witnessed this first hand, as I worked with some struggling readers in my school.  As I am writing this post, I am thinking specifically of one student.  This student was struggling, but I really think that the real problem was self confidence, motivation and a loss of the love of reading.  She was able to read pretty well, but just did not really know what to do with what she was reading.  If she got stuck on a word, she would just stop and look at me.  I realized early in the year, that she just needed some motivation, so our journey began...  I used a lot of the same tactics that I use daily with my students, but since this group could read fairly well, I started really adding in a lot more (scavenger hunts, interactive graphic organizers, interactive notebooks to incorporate more note-taking and writing), and challenging them to step it up and reach for the stars.  It really challenged me as well to think outside of the box, and become even more innovative in coming up with new ideas in reading to motivate these learners.  I have to say, that I loved going to this reading group daily, and challenging them more and more.  I was so surprised by their accomplishments, and they were surprised by their accomplishments, and it starting showing up a lot.  It was not uncommon for one of them to tell me that they read the entire story for homework, instead of the few pages I had assigned, and the little girl I mentioned earlier, always read ahead.  I challenged her several times to rewrite ending of stories or to finish a story that left us hanging, and she would every time.  As I challenged my students, I was also challenging myself daily and weekly to come up with even more and more for them.  IT WAS CONTAGIOUS!  Did my decision to challenge my students and get them motivated affect them?  Most certainly it did!  If I had walked in there and noticed her lack of self confidence and continued to teach reading the way it had always been taught to her, would it have made a difference?  No it would not have worked!

As the year came to an end, I came into my office one day and found a note and some chocolates, and you guessed it, it was from that little girl. I cried as I read the note from her, and it is taped on the side of my desk right now.  It said, "Thanks for believing in me and making reading fun!  Thanks for teaching me all that I needed to know to be successful in reading!"  Does the way that you view a subject matter affect your students?  It most certainly does!!!!  They will walk away with a love of learning, or they will walk away bored and maybe even hate learning.  As educators, we have the POWER to make positive effects, or we have the POWER to make negative effects!  Which will you make this coming year?  No matter, what your school system decides to do, or what you have to teach that you don't like, remember that you are affecting way too many lives to make a negative impact!  I challenge you - MAKE IT FUN & MAKE THEM WANT TO LEARN!

Of course, I love to teach reading, and I have no problem wanting to make reading fun!  There is so much to do with reading, but I know there are those out there that hate to teach reading, and dislike that they have to do certain things that their school requires, etc.  However, no one but you can change that.  Challenge yourself to look for every possibility to make it fun and worthwhile, and make your students fall in LOVE with reading this year!  Does the way that you teach affect your students?  Most definitely, so have FUN, make a DIFFERENCE, and MOTIVATE them to read!!!  There are tons of great ideas, skills and strategies that can be inter-weaved to any reading lesson and any reading series!  Read that main selection, or the leveled readers, but add in tons of other things to make it all come alive!  Good Luck & if you need any ideas or are struggling, feel free to comment and ask for suggestions.

Presentation this Week

Jessica and I am working feverishly to make sure we have everything together for our 5 hour presentation for Bland County school Wednesday.  We have a ton of information to share with them - some things that we have shared with others before and some brand new things that we are super excited to be sharing for the first time.  We have tried several of them this past school year and found that it works, so we are excited to share!  Our new scavenger hunts and vocabulary sorts were a big hit with our students, and we really want to get the word out!  Reading can be so much fun, it is just taking the time to find what your students enjoy, and taking that time is well worth it when you see the smiles on their faces as they enjoy learning!  Get them motivated!!!!

Great News!!!!

Jessica and I just received an invitation to present for the Virginia Department of Education at three of their fall institutes this coming fall.  We presented at two of them this past fall, so we are super excited to get the invitation once again.  We will be presenting in Dulles, Richmond and Staunton.  We have also had an invite to present at Bland County schools this summer for reading professional development.  Our dreams are coming true!  We love presenting and developing new ideas for reading, and many doors are beginning to open for us.  Can't wait to see what it in store for us!  Come see us this fall at one of the VDOE Language Arts SOL Institutes, or if you know of anyone wanting reading professional development at their school, please let us know and share our information with them.

Have a blessed week!
Susan & Jessica

Classifying & Categorizing in Action

Here is some help for those classifying & categorizing questions that appear on end of year state test.  Don't get stressed over those questions, just find fun ways to incorporate this strategy all year long in your classroom.  A Love for Reading TPT store has a bundle of Vocabulary Scavenger Hunts containing 5 fun and interactive vocabulary sorts, which require the students to determine the categories, sort all of the words and then determine the headings for each category.  We have used all 5 of these sorts with our 3rd and 4th graders and they are begging for more.  They love to race each other and see how many they can get done!  Lots of fun!  Strategies like this make reading fun & contagious!  Who said reading was not fun?   You will have your students begging to go to reading class.  Try it, and let us know what you think.  

Thanks,

Susan & Jessica

Dot It, Doodle It, Define It

Further update on Dot It, Doodle It, Define It:

Don't miss out on these fabulous little books!  They encompass so much & as our students say, "They are so much fun!"  Learning vocabulary is not boring anymore!  

1)  Your students will know how to utilize phonics rules to break words apart; helping them to become better readers, as they do not get so frustrated when they come to words that they do not know.  

2)  Your students will broaden their understanding of more and more vocabulary as they work with prefix, suffix, feelings, and academic vocabulary booklets.  (Many more to come.)  Hoping we can come up with a years worth of Dot It, Doodle It, Define It booklets to aid student in common use of vocabulary, end of year testing, and becoming well rounded individuals.

3)  Learning definitions is not boring anymore, as students discuss and talk among themselves and with their teacher to come up with "kid-friendly" pictures "doodles" to help them remember the word, as well as "kid-friendly" definitions to help them understand the word.

It is truly amazing to see the power that Spot & Dot alone give to kids.  Once you start doing it with them, they want to see if they can beat you in attacking the words in text. 

 

One little strategy + Lots of little tricks = A ton  of self - esteem to attack long, hard words!!!!!

We will try to publish some pictures of this in motion this week.  Pictures of a little video.  Stay tuned for more.

That Time of Year - Test Prep!

We have been extremely busy creating more and more test prep materials to use with our students and to share with you.  Included in our resources on our Teachers Pay Teachers store - A Love for Reading are the following:
3rd Grade Reading Review
4th Grade Reading Review
3rd Grade Reading & Test Prep II
3rd & 4th Grade Word Analysis Test Prep
Vocabulary Scavenger Hunts (works well with common vocabulary on test, and with classifying & categorizing standards)
Dot It, Doodle It, Define It Spot & Dot Booklets - Working with Academic Vocabulary, etc.

There are lots of other resources out there, but these are a few that I wanted to make sure our followers knew about as the end of the year testing rolls around.

Hope you find all of these helpful as you review & prepare your students for end of the year testing.

Let us know what you think about them.  Thanks!

Susan & Jessica

Spot & Dot - Helping our Students with Words!

Several years ago, when Jessica and I were in grad school, we heard about a wonderful strategy called - Spot & Dot.  We were told about it, and it really peaked our interest, so we begin using it with the little bit of knowledge that we had acquired about it.  Since that time, we have researched and tried to find out more about this strategy, but there is nothing out there on it at all.  So, we begin working on different aspects of this strategy with our students, and really begin to see difference in how they could attack words, spotting the vowels, realizing each syllable must have a vowel, learning phonics rules, boxing prefixes and suffixes, and breaking words apart.  It is just amazing to see the kids that we have worked with on these strategies for several years.  We just have to wonder what it would look like if an entire school decided to do this from the ground up and build on it each year.  We truly think that the results would be phenomenal!

Seeing results and thinking about the power of Spot & Dot caused us to start developing resources to support our love.  Thus, we have created a Spot & Dot rules packet, as well as just this week, created our first Dot It! Doodle It! Define It! Spot & Dot books working with vocabulary.  Both of these books are now available on our TPT store - A Love for Reading entitled Working with Academic Vocabulary and Working with Feeling Words.  We are extremely excited about these new products and can't wait to hear what you think.

Cool Way to Get Your Students Using Graphic Organizers!

Are you tired of the monotony of using graphic organizers on paper and even on your Smart Board? Do you want a cool way to make them fun & interactive for your students?

Make the hallways of your school come alive with graphic organizers!  Use colorful duct tape to create graphic organizers throughout the school, and take a reading field trip to the different graphic organizers located around the school.

Use sticky notes or index cards with velcro dots to let your students get involved in creating the information to complete the graphic organizers.

Also, continual exposure to the graphic organizers throughout the school keeps them fresh in their minds for end of year testing!

**Be sure to include the title of the graphic organizer and suggestions for use.

Have fun creating these throughout your school!  Share feedback with us.  We look forward to hearing from you!

-Susan-

Goosh - Making Inferences with Nonsense Words!

At our presentations in the fall, we shared our Goosh strategy with those in attendance.  I have continued to write new ones.  I am working hard to develop a lot more seasonal ones, as well as some general everyday use ones.  I have recently added Valentines, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter.  Keep watching our Teachers Pay Teachers store for more stories as the seasons roll around.  I really hope that I can develop some stories to follow curriculum units for Social Studies and Science also.

I have always enjoyed writing, and this is just one of the ways that my passion for writing can be used to help our students, and also motivate them to notice context clues, and make inferences.

I hope that you enjoy using Goosh, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email me.

-Susan-

Life Has Been Busy!

Sorry for the lack of post lately.  We have both been very consumed with adding products on our Teachers Pay Teachers store, and with our everyday life as teachers, mothers and wives.  There have also been some other exciting developments with our presentations, and life has gotten rather busy! Hopefully now we can get things back on track!  Thanks for continuing to follow us.