Thursday 8/19/10

What's in a name? 

Today as we explored the importance of a person's name and how we can honor it, we practiced some reading strategies.  I gave the students a group of words that came from our story "Names Nombres" by Julia Alvarez and asked them to categorize them into characters, settings, problems, solutions and unknown words.  As they worked in teams to complete this sort, I added another task.  Students had to analyze the words and create a gist statement that predicted what the story was about.  Students asked three questions about the story based on the unknown words and their gist statement. 

I was so proud of all three classes as they volunteered in rapid succession to read aloud to the class even though the story had a great deal of Spanish in it.  When we were finished reading, we took a one question measure of our summarization skills.  You can take it (or at least look at it--I know you haven't read the story) and have your child explain to you why all of the responses are true, but only one is BEST.  Overall we did well with summarizing a fiction text.  I plan to check this skill a few more times after teaching a strategy called, somebody wanted, but, so.  Your student will have notes on this strategy next week and you can begin asking them to show you how it works.

A special thanks goes out to Eimmi, who was gracious enough to read the entire story to 5th block so we could hear all of the Spanish words correctly.  That was a special treat and we were all impressed with the Spanish sounds and the fluency of her reading.

Homework:  Read 30 minutes.  First block should be completing the collage, as it has been explained to them now.  A few students asked for an extra day so they could improve the work they already started.  Because of their display of responsibility, I have given those students until tomorrow.  All collages should be turned in by Friday.