Who Wants to Know about The Reading Workshop

Of the last 500 visitors:

They came from 35 states.
They came from 16 countries.
Sixteen visitors were from Texas.
Thirteen were from California
Twelve were from New York.
'Ten were from Florida.
Sixty five visits was the most by any one person.
Fifty nine was the second most times visited.
Two Hundred Sixty Nine started out on The Reading Workshop home page.
Twenty-two had questions about how to do Reading Workshop.
Sixteen had questions about Study Island.
Seven queried good books for student readers
Six wondered about the book Freak the Mighty.
Fifteen had question about listening to music as you work.
Twelve wanted information about the affect of texting on students' writing.
Thirteen visited for longer than an hour.
Thirty six wanted to know about Rambunctious Reading.
Ninety two percent that used a search engine, used Google.
Sixty seven percent are first time visitors.
One Hundred Eighty are using the newest version of Firefox.
Seventeen came from the latest Carnival of Education which list Educational blogs
Seventeen came from the Laurelville Elementary website.
Twelve came from Alltop which lists education news and headlines from across the web.
Three came from Joann Jacobs educational blog highlights and links.

So if you're like me and find yourself wondering, who cares about The Reading Workshop at Laurelville, the answer is a lot of people, from a lot of places, for a lot of different reasons. For all that take the time to visit the blog, thank you!.
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Using Technology for Education

Having computers and other gadgets in a class is great. But, does it increase student learning? According to many, the only reason schools can justify any expense on technology is if students achievement improves.

This list details many of the ways that technology is integrated into our daily classroom routine.

1. Students do daily online lessons on Study Island. This is tied directly to the curriculum of the state of Ohio.
2. Study Island Student of the Day is awarded to recognize students with excellent performance.
3. Lessons on Ohio Department of Education academic indicators are viewed by the class using the DLP projector, and then sample Study Island questions are answered.
4. Students journal about their SSR book on their Blogs.
5. Students log their reading book titles, times, and pages on their Book Journal to keep accurate records, and to allow easy access for teacher evaluation.
6. Grades are kept on at Engrade, which allows parents and students to always know their grades.
7. The message feature of Engrade allows students and parents to contact the teacher with questions regarding a grade
8. Every student has a computer at their desktop with Internet access which can be used to research any time questions come up, and for informational reports.
9. BrainPop videos are shown to assist visual learners understand main concepts.
10. The Reading Workshop blog is used for information and communication between students, parents, and the teacher.
11. Class notes are kept the blog so students can access them at any time, even when absent from school.
12. Words that Count (spelling words) with example sentences are online so students can access them from at home when doing homework, and in the class whenever they are writing.
13. ATandT Labs Text to Speech is used by students with reading difficulties to read aloud questions, or parts of passages with difficult text. Students also use it as a revision tool when writing by listening to their essay to be sure it sounds right.
14. A discussion board is used for students to write about character elements in the SSR books they are reading.
15. Homework is listed daily on the blog so parents always know what has been assigned and when it is due.
16. Online editing tools like Answers.com and Ask.com are used daily to assist with writing corrections.
17. A storage server is used so students can access their files anywhere in the school.
18. The doc camera and projector are used to show real-time examples of students work to help demonstrate teaching points.
19. Open Office software is used for students to do word processing on writing projects.
20. The networked laser printer is used for students to print out their written work, revise and edit, and then print a final copy.
21. Students sing, reading lyrics projected on the wall, to music from the computer. This builds fluency and vocabulary is taught also.
22. Students create presentation projects combining the use of many of the tools already listed.

Some of the skills learned are measurable by a mandated test, but not all. In Reading Workshop, students learn to use technology as a tool. Also, they learn technology skills that will help them throughout their life. To me, this makes it all worthwhile!

Journaling Online

I found a combination that is better than peanut butter and chocolate. We took our class wikipage and combined it with journals students write about fictional books. Then we added a table to log daily reading. When you put it together you have online book journals.

Each student has their own page. Each day after Sustained Silent Reading (SSR), they have a few minutes to write in their journal. On some days, they have an assigned topic. This usually relates to the topic of the day and will also be discussed during writing assignments, read aloud, and Study Island.

Recently we focused on making predictions. The assignment for students was to write about what they thought might happen in the future in their SSR book. Here are some examples of their work.

Sarah said

11/7/08 Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
I predict that Harry will have to fight a Chinese fireball dragon for his first task in the torment because a lot of bad things have been happening to Harry. Like a reporter came to the school and said bad things about Harry in a really BIG newspaper. I think Ron and Harry will start talking to each other again because Hermione has tried to persuade them to try to talk to each other. I hope so. The book is really weird without Ron in the book. It's like he's not even there.

Desire' said

11/7/08 - Warriors
I predict that Rusty will get into many fights with the other Clans. I also think that Rusty will not have the Warrior blood to become a warrior in the Thunder Clan. But I am only on page 30. Rusty is just a kittypet who has lived in a Twoleg place his whole life and has never stepped foot off of his garden post. That is why I don't think Rusty would make a very good Warrior.

Makayla said

11/7/08-Something Upstairs is really a good book. What I read today is that Kenny is going to help Caleb find his murderer. Then he told Caleb that he is not real sure if he's going to help. I predict that he is going to help. Then they both can prevent Caleb's death from happening. I think that Kenny should help Caleb. Then I'm not real sure he should go back in time again. I think he should probably stick with the library. I don't think he will though. I would help Caleb just because he was a slave and if he helps he could prevent it all from happening. He could change Caleb's history. I also predict that Kenny won't move for a couple of years. He's probably going to live there for three or four years.

This online journal keeps a running record of what books students read, how long they read, how many pages they read, and their thoughts about books. It is also a great way for me to assess their comprehension of their book, read about their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and comment on them. Although we have just started this process, I am already seeing significant benefits.

Keitha Lane, Super Hero

I saw my hero yesterday. She came over from her new job as the Jr. High principal to see the Halloween parade. I had been thinking about her lately as I read aloud to my classes, A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom written by Louis Sachar. This is the story of Bradley Chalkers, a student who makes a disaster out of everything. He meets Carla, the school counselor and with her support, turns his life around. I feel like Keitha Lane was the Carla of Laurelville and for me as a teacher.

It seems funny to think of this short little woman as a super hero, but her impact on the teachers and students at Laurelville during her eight years as principal was amazing. Now, in all honesty, I had never met a boss that I liked too much, before she took on our school. And our start together was rockier than the Rocky Mountains. However, she pushed, pulled, prodded, encouraged and demanded, all while being a friend, and supporting me in my growth as a teacher.

During her time as principal, whenever I had an idea that I wanted to try in the classroom, she would say, "give it a try and we will see how it works." She found funding to go from four computers in my language arts class to twenty-four. She purchased an LCD projector and Doc camera, to use to show students' work. When I first found out about Study Island, the on-line learning program, she said, "let's give it a try." Now it is used throughout the district. It didn't seem to matter what the situation was, she was always about finding new ways to help the students.

As I look back on our time together, I could never thank her enough for the impact she had on my life. And, as I look at my students each day when we come to the circle to talk at the start of each class, my hope is that in some way, I can make a student feel the way she made me feel. I guess, as far as I am concerned, she is the superest of the super heroes.

Smart or Cheating?

Students were at their computer working on Study Island, the online learning program. They were doing a session on context clues. When I walked around the room, I noticed that Jacob was using the computer dictionary. Was this cheating? Or, was he the smartest kid in the whole sixth grade?

This S.I. session focused on using the words and sentences around a word students didn't know, to figure out the meaning of the word. Context Clues are hints that the author gives to help define a difficult or unusual word. The clue may be in the same sentence as the word, or it may be in a preceding or subsequent sentence.


This is an example of a context clue:
The difficulty of the assignment forced the student to work hard to complete the tough task. By reading the sentence, you can figure out the meaning of the word difficulty.


Jacob was doing his best to be successful. In no way was he attempting to cheat. His intention was to get the best score possible on Study Island. But, the whole point of learning about context clues is to better reading comprehension by figuring out the meaning of words without using a dictionary. But, as one student said, "if I use the dictionary I am learning the meaning of a lot of words I don't know."


Should a student be punished for using all of the tools available to get the best score? Should all of the students be encouraged to use the dictionary? What about using Text-to-Speech to read words aloud that they don't know. Although Study Island is mostly a tool for assessment and remediation, if students might learn more using these tools, should they be integrated into the daily routine?

Students won't be allowed to use these tools for the Achievement Test, so should they use them every day in class?

Regardless of the decision about the use of these tools during Study Island, good job to Jacob for being creative, and figuring out the best way possible to get a high score.

Study Island

Students work daily in reading with the online learning program from Study Island. This program is based on the Ohio State Standards. It has lessons that help teach each topic and remediates when students do not pass a topic. Students can do sessions anywhere they have internet access.


Each day a Study Island Student of the Day is chosen from each class. The winners receive an award certificate, a piece of candy,

AND THEY GET THE CHAIR FOR THE DAY!

You can tell by looking at Briann, that when a student gets "The Chair" they spend a day in class living in luxury!







Congratulations to today's Study Island Students of the Day--Breann C., Samantha R., and Jolene M.

Etech Conference

On February 4-6 I attended the Etech Ohio 2008 Conference in Columbus, Ohio at the Convention Center. This annual event features 300 sessions, teacher and student displays, keynote speakers, and technology vendors.

Many of the ideas currently in use at Laurelville Elementary came from this School Net Conference. The use of the online learning program, Study Island came from a discussion with the vendor at a conference four years ago.

Posting grades online for students and parents was discussed in several sessions three years ago. After visiting with several vendors, I decided to use Engrade.

The use of LCD and DLP projectors with doc cameras in writing workshop, has made sharing student work easy. All of the fifth and sixth grade classes at Laurelville use this technology daily. This idea came from a session I attended several years ago presented by a language arts teacher.

Each year there are sessions on digital media in the classroom. This has helped with sharing pictures of students hard at work.

Last year I attended sessions on blogging. Needless to say, this attempt at keeping parents and students informed came from those sessions.

I attended a session Wednesday about using Audacity. This is sound recording/editing software. I use it to edit songs that we sing in the class. It is also a useful tool for recording podcasts. A podcast is an audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer.

A couple of ideas that I hope to use in the future are clickers and digital books. Clickers are infrared remotes. Each students gets one and they answer questions projected on the white board. At einstruction, they have a clicker that works with Study Island. The clickers anonymously keep track of each student's answer. This way each student is thinking about the question, instead of just a few students.

As you can see, many of the uses of technology in language arts at Laurelville Elementary originated from the Etech Conference. Each year I am excited to see the new ideas and find great uses in the classroom.

3rd Grade Study Island Help

Mrs. Roe's third grade class is starting to use Study Island. For their first experience, they came up to sixth grade for some help. The sixth graders did an awesome job helping them learn how to log on to the program, navigate through it, and answer questions.

I was especially proud of how the sixth grade "teachers" showed their younger students how to find the correct response when they struggled. The sixth graders did an awesome job helping make the first experience on Study Island a positive learning experience.

Great Helpers!

Pumpkin Show

The Pumpkin Show,
The Pumpkin Show,
My oh my, I love it so,
So take my hand and off we'll go
Let's all go to the Pumpkin Show

Ted Lewis wrote this song many years ago and we have reached that point in our school year. It is time for our fall break. Many will be headed to Circleville for the Pumpkin Show. Sixth grade students should be commended for a job well done, so far this year. Students have been working hard, and making good progress. Discipline/behavior problems have been minimal. SSSoooooo--enjoy your break sixth graders!

I am not saying I am going to enjoy it but-take a look at me. I am headed to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my beagles for 5 days.

Congrats to our latest Study Island Students of the Day, Haley, Collin, Dillon, and Cody.

Committees For Writing Workshop

In Writing Workshop, we are improving through the use of committees. Each class has a Revision Committee and an Editing Committee. As students move through the writing process, the committee members help improve writing, peer tutor, and assist with grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The process includes:

Step 1 Thinking, Prewriting, First Draft
Students can either write out the first draft or type it on a computer. If they write it out, they type it before going to step 2.

Step 2 Revision Committee
A member of the Revision Committee reads the first draft and writes down any questions he/she has as they read.

Step 3 Revise Content
Students use the questions to revise and improve the content.

Step 4 Editing Committee
Once students have checked their writing for mistakes, they go over it with a member of the Editing Committee checking for errors in spelling, sentencing, punctuation, and capitalization.
Students clean up mistakes, and print out a clean copy. Students then meet with a different member of the Editing Committee for a final look, checking for any mistakes.

Step 5 Correct Mistakes, Final Draft
Students correct any remaining mistakes, and give their essay a final look.
Students then print a final draft and turn in to be graded.

6-B Revision Committee

6-A Revision Committee

6-B Editing Committee

6-A Editing Committee

Peer Tutoring at Work

Congratulations to our Study Island Students of the Day, Catherine and Scotty!

Study Island

Students work daily in reading and math with the online learning program from Study Island. This program is based on the Ohio State Standards. It has lessons that help teach each topic and remediates when students do not pass a topic. Students can do sessions anywhere they have internet access. adjusts

Each day a Study Island Student of the Day is chosen from each class. The winners receive an award certificate, a piece of candy,

AND THEY GET THE CHAIR FOR THE DAY!

You can tell by the look on Shayna's face, that when a student gets "The Chair"
They spend a day in class living in luxury!






Congratulations to today's Study Island Students of the Day--Cail J., Seth R., Molly V., and Chris T.

Engrade

Grades for the fifth and sixth grade students are available at all times on Engrade. Grades are stored online and can be accessed by any computer on the internet. Each student has his/her own account and must log on with a username and password to see their grades. If students and/or parents have a question their grades, all they have to do is follow the link to the Engrade website.

Students set up their accounts yesterday, so now their grades are available on line 24/7 for science, social studies, reading, and writing. We used Engrade last year, and students really liked being able to access their grades whenever they want. Each day, students can check their grades during language arts class, at home, or in the Laurelville Library.

Students that want extra credit can write an essay to be used in class during Rambunctious Reading. Currently we are using an adaption from Harris and Me, written by Gary Paulsen. Students are enjoying living through the scene where Harris and Me dive bomb the pigs as they pretend they are at war.

Great job to our Study Island Students of the Day--Connor H., Josh P., Kari W., and Justin H.

Rambunctious Reading

Not to say that my students started out slow this morning, but this is a picture of one of the boys. This called for desperate measures. What's a reading teacher to do. Wwwweeeelllllllllll, how about some

RAMBUNCTIOUS READING!

I am always looking for new and exciting ways to make learning fun. One method we use daily is singing in the classroom. Students sing as they read the lyrics. Now, we have another way to actively learn to read. Rambunctious (energetic, boisterous, lively) Reading is a method where students work in pairs to improve their reading. One student acts out the words as he reads. The listener actively listens, affirming thoughts and statements, and commenting to the reader.

We are reading an excerpt from I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss. Students having been ouching from kicking a hard rock and sailing along. This active reading gets everyone involved--even boys that start the morning looking a little rough.


Great job to our Study Island Students of the Day--Jacob T., Dustin C., Emily S., and Trevor G.

Singing in Class

We sing daily in reading class. The lyrics are shown on the wall with a DLP projector. Students read the words as they sing. This helps students build fluency. They learn to read words in chunks, and look for familiar phrases. We also work on vocabulary. Since we started this several years ago, it has consistently improved students' reading levels, and improved test scores. It also is a great way to learn while having fun.

Currently we are singing Welcome to the 60's. This is from the movie Hairspray.

We are revising the friendly letters. We have been working on writing on topic, and supporting that with details from the book. We are also editing with focus on capitalization, punctuation, and correct letter format.

A student (who I won't name Shayna) followed the rules for capitalization to the T. Our NOTES for the day were:

Capitalize
1.first word in a sentence
2.proper nouns—names of people, places, and things
3.first letter of words in a title
4.I

When this unnamed student (Shayna) brought up her paper, every I on the page was in cap's. The NOTES now say, "I when used as a word." She made my afternoon and I am still smiling about it.


Congrats to our Study Island Students of the Day, Shelby C. and Caleb F.

Read at Home Logs are due tomorrow--Friday, September 7.

Details from the Book

Today we focused on the letter project. The topic of the day was adding details that support your thoughts, ideas, and opinions. We discussed the W's--what kind, why, when, who, where, and how. This should give letters about SSR books a lot more information, and make them more interesting.

Congrats to our Study Island Students of the Day, Alina S and Josh P.

Also, good job to Scotty D. for answering the Question of the Day!

Grades will soon be available at all times on-line at Engrade.

Great 1st Week

As we finish up the first week, I am pleased about such a great first week of school. Many of the procedures we will use throughout the year are already habits. The sixth grade students worked hard and accomplished a lot. If this kind of effort continues, this class will go down as one of the best!

Congratulations to the Study Island Student of the Day,

Dillon Y., Cody C., Shayna T., and Justin H.

Students receive a certificate, piece of candy, and get their name on the door recognizing outstanding performance on our on-line learning program.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Letter Writing

Today we focused on writing a friendly letter and the proper format. We discussed setting the tone in the opening, putting facts and details in the body, and wrapping it up in the closing. The topic of this "Dear Mr. McGuire" letter is "Reasons Why I Like the Book I am Reading for SSR." Students must support their reasons with details from the book. This will count as a reading and writing grade.

Students are becoming a little more familiar with Ubuntu, the operating system of the 24 dells in our classroom. We use Open Office 2.2 to word process all of the published pieces of writing. This freeware is similar to Office, but without the cost. The on-line learning with Study Island is done using the Firefox browser.

Secret to Success

Today we had a special visitor in our class. Jennifer Hardwick, an LE grad, and sixth grade student from a few years ago came in and talked with students about how to be successful in the sixth grade. Jennifer discussed ways she managed to do well, and ideas students could use.

Some of her tips included:
1. make doing assignments a habit;
2. constantly work at being organized;
3. always do your best.

Thanks to Jennifer for her contribution to the success of Laurelville students. It is a great day for a teacher when you get to see one of your former students doing well.

Students have begun work on Study Island, the computer on-line learning program. This week we are doing pretests in reading and math.

Congrats to Conner H. for answering a Question of the Day!

Today's journal topic--"Mr. McGuire Admires Hard Workers . . ." due tomorrow.