Yes, spring is a great time to be in Kentucky: Keenland opens, the redbuds begin to bloom and the testing window begins!!! Portfolios are due! Oh, yes, it’s great to be in Kentucky. For teachers and students alike this time of year brings anxiety and stress. As our government representatives debate KCCT and CTBS, we test and test and test. But take a deep breath, this too shall pass. In an effort to help you survive the season, I’ve posted some test taking strategies and ideas for relieving anxiety on our web page. Take a look at www.cksec.org.
Check these out! Teenreads is full of book reviews which really get teens interested. Teen Ink has things written by teenagers and all different genre. Great if you need sample articles, editorials, persuasive pieces, ect.
Literacy Matters and Adlit are great resources for teachers!
If you have not read this book you need to check it out: 7 Highly Strategies of Highly Effective Readers by Elain K. McEwan. She discusses the three prerequisites for comprehension instruction: readers must be fluent, have vocabulary already in place and background knowledge. Reading accurately is essential for comprehension but not adequate. So many struggling readers are so slow with problem solving at the word level that comprehension is greatly compromised. So often we work at the text level, but if students are having extreme difficulty with fluency, I suggest you check their letter/sound fluency and sight word vocabulary. They have to have automaticity with letters, sounds and words to decode in a fast and efficient way. Sometimes, we have to back up to the letter and word level, even with older students.
Some activities to increase fluency:
What other ideas do you have for increasing fluency? Send them to me and I will post them.
Check out an article that I have written at our website; www.cksec.org. Click on downloads and then click on Literacy. This article will be published in the Bulletin’s next edition, a publication put out by the Kentucky Teacher of English and Language Art! Yeah, me!
Check out my most recent documents for literacy at our website www.cksec.org. Click on downloads, then Literacy. Just posted docments include Writing Benchmarks and PERKS Literacy Document.
CHECK THESE OUT!
www.primarygames.com games in Language Arts and all subjects and best of all it is free!
www.jmeacham.com My absolute fav for early primary! Loaded with lesson plans and practical ideas.
www.brainpopjr.com educational movies and homework help. Select a topic and students have the option of watching movie, playing games, word wall activities, writing activities,ect. Has suggestions for parents and teachers. FUN!
www.fcrr.org great site for finding center activities, research on best practice.
Listed below are some of my favorite resource materials and books for assessment and small group instruction:
Assessment
“Literacy Lessons 1 and 2″ by Marie Clay; ”Observation Survey of Early Literacy Acheivement” by Marie Clay; “Ready to Use Reading Assessments and Intervention Strategies K-2″ by Brenda Weaver; Developmental Reading Assessmentby Joetta Beaver published by Pearson Learning; Rigby’s PM Ultra Benchmark Kit
Small Group Instruction
By Debbie Diller: “Making the Most of Small Group Instruction”; “Literacy Workstations”; “Practice With Purpose”
By Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinell: “Guided Reading”, ” Word Matters”; “Continuim of Literacy K-8″; “Matching Books to Readers”
