The children in Natasha’s language group have each begun
reading a set of books during whole class quiet reading time on Tuesday and
Thursday mornings. During language group, the students have been learning how
to summarize a story both orally and in writing. Once they read all the books
in their set, they write a summary about one of the books in their set using a
story map format. Then they are presented their tracking sheet at the
Star-of-the-Week interview.
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| Reading a book from her book set |
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| Looking back over the book to gather information in preparation for writing |
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| Conferring with a teacher |
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| Conferring with a peer |
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| Writing a story map |
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| Walking back to her seat after receiving her presentation |
The students in Tom’s language group have been busy writers
during their Writing Workshop sessions.
The students often take time to confer with each other offering ideas
they might want to include in their stories.
During this time Tom informally
conferences with each of the students, assessing their progress and helping
them set goals for what they want to accomplish. When students finish a writing project, they
read it to themselves to make sure it makes sense and then to another student
who offers a few suggestions to add in their writing or illustrations. Finally, they place the books in a special
conferencing basket to signal Tom they have a completed book.
Tom reads each book making notes in a
notebook and then has a final conference with the student discussing the book
and setting goals for future books.
After this process is done, a special time is set for students who wish
to read their book to the language group.
Joan's language group has also been busy in Writing Workshop. After a beginning focus on "Where Writers Get Ideas," they have begun a Unit of Study which focuses on how authors and illustrators use pictures and words together in their books.
After writing time there is often time to share with others about what they are working on in their books.
Students have also been practicing Word Wall words in Word Study. They work each week to practice that week's new words five different ways. They also use those words to study spelling patterns, so that the words on the Word Wall can help them read and write other words that follow the same patterns.
