Good Comprehension, But Not So Great Accuracy

There is one question that people ask me about teaching reading that is more frequent than any other question.  It actually usually starts out as a statement.

"He has great comprehension, but he makes lots of errors with word accuracy on the assessments."

Here are the steps I recommend for addressing this problem.

1.  Name It
Talk to the student about what you are noticing about his/her reading accuracy.  Name the problem by telling the student that you notice they are having difficulty with word accuracy.  As teachers, I think it is important for us to give purposeful feedback to students to help them improve.  I am definitely from the camp that believes that it is hard for students to improve something if they do not have specific feedback.

2. Explain It
Explain why word accuracy is important to the student.  Even though some students may have good comprehension with decreased word accuracy at first, their comprehension will likely decrease when they encounter more complex texts in the future.

Some struggling readers are used to being challenged by word accuracy.  They constantly need to use strategies to decode words.  Around 3rd and 4th grade, the children who tend to struggle with word accuracy are often those who had no trouble learning to read in previous grades.  These are the children who did not necessarily have to use strategies at first. Words just came easy to them and when they begin to encounter multisyllabic words in 3rd and 4th grade, they have difficulty decoding the words.  They often tend to only focus on the beginning portion of the word.

3. Check for Discrimination
It is important to determine whether or not the student can discriminate when someone else makes errors as they read.  If they can't tell when someone else makes an error, then it will be hard for them to self correct their own errors.

To work on this, I give the student a copy of a book at their level and I read a few paragraphs  (or pages if the text is short) from another copy of the same book.  I ask the student to track the print and either knock on the table or ding a bell (just because that is more engaging) every time they "catch Mrs. Gillow" reading a word incorrectly.  Taking the focus off the reader, but asking them to focus on my reading accuracy helps me determine if they are able to discriminate the correct vs. incorrect words that I read.

I practice this for the first few minutes each day during small group instruction with students who have good comprehension, but reduced word accuracy.  Then I simply remind them about the importance of word accuracy and continue on with their small group instruction for the day.

4.  Reverse Roles
Once I know the student can discriminate word accuracy in someone else's reading, I reverse the roles and practice the same routine with the student doing the reading and me knocking quietly on the table.  Competitive students often beg me to ding the bell, but I only use the bell if the student requests it.

5.  Try Tracking 
Over the years, the single most effective strategy that my readers have used to improve their word accuracy is tracking the print.  I encourage my students to use their finger (since it's always with them).  From time to time, I give students a color overlay bookmark to help them track the print.

I disagree with the folks who have recently recommended that students should stop tracking print at level D.  As an adult, I sometimes track my print to help focus my attention.  If it works, you are never too old to track the print.

Now off to walk my doodles!

Technology Tuesday (3rd edition)

Welcome back for another edition of Technology Tuesday! Since the mini iPads arrived in my classroom a month or so ago, we started using them for two daily routines. We use them for several other things throughout each day as well, but the routines stay the same each day.

 Last week, I mentioned that my class keeps a journal on the iPad each day. We use a free app called Kids Journal.

This is sample page inside one of the Kids Journal journals that you can create with the app.

You can read more about how we do the journaling routine in my classroom here. 

We also use a website to help us read informational text  on the iPad each day.  With the common core standards in place, I'm doing everything I can to help expose students to more informational text. One of my amazing parents, who is an elementary principal in another district, recommended the site tweentribune.com to me.  The site contains daily nonfiction articles appropriate for students in grades K - 12.  My students read the Tween Tribune Junior articles, which are designed for students in grades K - 4.  Since this is a website, not an app, it can be used even if you don't have iPads in your classroom.

I choose three students each day to work together to be the nonfiction news reporters.  I carefully select the students to make sure that I have at least one high reader in each group of reporters.  Since Tween Tribune Junior articles are for K - 4th graders, even with a higher reader in the group they sometimes need my help with a few words. The reporters choose one article from the Tween Tribune Junior edition of the day.  They read the article together, discuss what they learned and decide how they are going to share the "reporting duties".  

Here is screenshot of part of a list of articles for today.  There are many, many pages of articles for students to choose from each day.  As you can see, students have the option to leave comments and take quizzes.  My students will not be leaving comments, but I may let them try the quizzes in the future.

When we start our morning meeting each day, the reporters put the iPad under our document camera and tell us what they learned.  When they are finished reporting, we ask the reporters questions to clarify anything that we want to know about the information in the article.  This is when I point out the strategies we are using to read/understand the nonfiction news (returning to the text, rereading, check the pictures for clues, thinking about/discussing vocabulary).  The articles often have a discussion question at the end.  If the chosen article has a discussion question, the students discuss it with their elbow partners and then we quickly discuss it as a class.  If my reporters are well prepared to "report" the nonfiction news, it only takes about 5 - 7 minutes of my morning meeting time to do this routine.  I am lovin' the opportunities to model/practice strategies for reading informational text and my students are loving reporting the news to the class.  

I'm thinking I should start my informational text unit a little earlier next year.  This year, I'm planning to start it right after the winter break.  That will enhance our discussions and reporting of the nonfiction news.  

I do have fond memories of my parents reading the newspaper every evening while we sat in the living room waiting for the Cosby Show to start.  But, times are changing and my own children will have memories of my husband and I reading the news on our phones in the dance lobby or at the soccer field.  I want my students to be prepared to read, understand and discuss informational text with their peers and I am so grateful for the technology to help them learn how to do it in such a way that will hopefully motivate them to explore more informational texts in the future.

 

Make Your Anchor Charts Awesome! (freebie)

This summer, I read a great book about anchor charts. I make tons of anchor charts with my students each year, but there are times when I feel frustrated if my students don't use a chart the way I planned for it to be used. So, when one of our professional development presenters recommended a book about anchor charts, I popped open my laptop and put it in my amazon shopping cart right away.

 The book is called Smarter Charts by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz.

I took this book to the beach with me for 4 days in a row while we were on our camping trip. One of my favorite things about the book is that it is full of photographs of different charts.  I learned lots of new things, developed some new ideas and finished it feeling good about some of the components that I already use well when making anchor charts in my classroom. 

Here are some of the highlights from my notes from the book.  

You can click on the image to download a copy of my "notes" for yourself.

During my back to school shopping, I purchased two things to help me improve my anchor charts this year.  

1. large bright colored sticky notes (8 inches x 6 inches)

I purchased them at Staples when they were buy one get one free (but they were originally $12).

Using large post it notes will allow me to add things to charts without "messing up the whole chart".  Have you ever called a kid up to add something to a chart that took you forever to prepare and they write something like "socr" (soccer) on your carefully crafted amphibians chart?  Large brightly colored sticky notes to the rescue, "socr" gets peeled off and you say the nice teacher thing before you help the little guy/girl think of something more appropriate.  I will also use these brightly colored post its to add special vocabulary words or things that I want them to refer to later.

2. double sided tape

Using double sided tape will allow me to tape student work samples and or pictures of things related to what we are learning about to the chart.  The authors of the book stress the importance of creating charts in front of and with students. It is much faster to use a piece of double sided tape while building  an anchor chart than it is to glue all the pieces.

I have several reusable anchor charts in my classroom.  I prepare parts of the anchor charts in advance, laminate them and then let my students use sticky notes as we build a chart together during a lesson. You'll notice that I tend to use lots of scrapbook paper.

Here are a few of my reusable anchor charts.

This chart is from my Writing My Opinion pack. 

I took this picture before I laminated it...but it's laminated now. 

The pieces to make the chart are included in the pack.

This is my reusable story mapping anchor chart.

Long ago, I wrote a post about how I use this anchor chart.

You can read it and grab a story mapping freebie here.

This is my reusable Reading is Thinking chart.  

I use it for all kinds of different things.  If we are working on characters, I might have the children respond to something about a specific character on a post it note and add it to the chart.  If we are working on text to self connections, I have them write about a connection they had with a certain book.

My students share their post it note as they add it to the chart.

You can read an old post about how I use this chart and grab a main idea freebie here.

This is my reusable Writing Goals anchor chart.

I wrote a post about how I use it in my classroom here.

Obviously, not all of my anchor charts are reusable.  With the help of my sandy copy of Smarter Charts, I'm hoping to kick up the awesome factor while making and using anchor charts with my students this year.  

Now, I'm gonna kick off my slippers and get some sleep.

Sticky Comprehension (main idea freebie)

Today is my birthday.  I'm almost over the hill, but I don't really care about that.  What I do care about is that I love cupcakes and the only thing I want for my birthday is time to snuggle with my own two kids.  

I did get a new student today (birthday present from my principal).  I also woke up with a migraine.  They did not arrive together.  I'm assuming the migraine is the result of the two math meetings we had this week.  The new student is darling and I'm excited to have her in our class! 

During reader's workshop time in our room, we are working on summarizing, describing our favorite part of the story in pictures/words and identifying the main idea. Earlier this week, we read The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown.  It might be illegal to read a scarecrow book after Halloween, but I don't follow that rule (or the blogging only 1 time a day rule or the white shoes/pants/Labor Day old lady rule thing).

After we read the story, each student wrote about their favorite part on a sticky note.  We shared our "sticky thoughts" with a partner and then added them to our "Reading is Thinking" chart for the whole class to read and enjoy.

The next day, we reread the same book to work on the main idea of the story.  I have a big fat file of main idea graphic organizers, but the one below is one that I made a while ago to encourage my students to think, write and talk about the things we read.  You can click on the image below if you'd like to download a copy.  

I'm off to eat something yummy (and horrible for me).  Happy Birthday, to me!  

Story Mapping

One of the things I will be working on a lot during reader's workshop time in the next couple months is story mapping. My students do a great job identifying the characters in a story (thank you, kindergarten). I just started to focus on the setting, the problem and any solutions.

Here is a picture of the anchor chart that I laminated, so I can just add/remove post-it notes each time we use it for a different story.  I confess... I'm addicted to scrapbook paper.  I use it for almost everything (other than it's intended purpose - I can't seem to fit that into my schedule).  I also confess
a lot (I'm Catholic), but not to the priest several times a year (like I'm "supposed to).  Oy vey...

We're using our story map anchor chart with Amelia Bedelia Talks Turkey this week.  

Here is the story map recording sheet that my students use.  You can click on the image if you'd like to download it.  I hope it's useful to someone (other than me).