Story Patch App on the iPads

This week in reading our comprehension skill focused on sequencing plot.  We worked on summarizing the main events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story, including the problem and solution.  By the end of the week, students were able to sequence stories on their own, and did so using the Story Patch app on the iPads.  After reading a short story, students sequenced the plot by entering their own text on the pages of their Story Patch creation, and then illustrated.  This was a fun way to demonstrate our comprehension!

Dominoes

One fun way to demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words: a domino matching game!

Comprehension Trifold

Students worked in partners to read our story this week, "The Great Ball Game," and discuss and answer a variety of comprehension questions requiring them to understand the plot, draw conclusions, and summarize. 

Vocabulary on the Whiteboards

Students demonstrated their understanding of vocabulary words by responding to questions on their white boards.  As opposed to raising hands, which only allows me to find out if one particular student knows the correct answer for any given question, use of the white boards provides every student a chance to respond and allows for whole class assessment.  Plus, they're fun to use!

 

Paws for Reading

We completed our two-week Scholastic Reading Challenge - "Paws for Reading"!  Students selected a team - either Cats or Dogs, and for every 20 minutes of books each student read and entered online, a book was donated to charity for children in need. 

Both teams read as much as they could!  The Dogs had more participants, and they finished ahead with 2,702 total minutes read and 135 books donated.  The Cats were not far behind.  They read a total of 1,890 minutes and 94 books were donated as a result of their efforts.  Way to go, Dogs and Cats!

 

 

Our First Readers' Theater

This week students enjoyed bringing the story of Henry and Mudge to life through Readers’ Theater. 

First, students were given highlighters to identify their lines. 

 

Next, students read over their parts individually. 

Soon they were ready to rehearse in their groups.

And here are the finished products!

Group 1: Henry and Mudge from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.    Group 2: Henry and Mudge from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.    Group 3: Henry and Mudge from Justine Forrester on Vimeo.  

Readers’ Theater is a fun way to bring our reading to life through cooperative learning.  It is similar to acting or performing in a play in that students are encouraged to speak fluently and naturally, and use expression in their voices.  They can even emote with their faces and can gesticulate for added drama.   However, unlike a play, the emphasis is not on memorization, props and costumes, or stage direction.  We rely on our expressive reading to bring the story to life for the audience.

In addition to being motivating and engaging, the benefits of Readers’ Theater include developing students’ fluency and comprehension skills through repeated exposure to the text.  Equally important, students build confidence in reading and speaking in front of a group in an authentic context.  Initially we will be using pre-written scripts, but the goal is to collaboratively compose our own scripts adapted from literature as we become more familiar with this practice.

First Full Week of Reading

We have had a great full week of reading.  Students enjoyed a wide variety of activities as they were introduced to our text, Harcourt Brace's Storytown.  Students were eager to participate in interactive phonics and sight words games on the Smartboard, and enjoyed reading our first story within the unit theme, Count On Me.

Students participated in an interactive sight word game.  When they threw the koosh ball at the star it "popped" and a high frquency word appeared for all to read aloud.

 This week our phonics skill focused on reviewing the short vowel sounds /a/ and /i/.  We identified many words that contained these vowel sounds within a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) spelling pattern.

 
 Students enjoyed using their "acting" skills to read aloud "Arthur's Reading Race," practicing appropriate pacing and expression, with a partner.