Twice a year, my school does beginning and end of the year reading testings for all students. This year, I had a long conversation with a 2nd grade teacher about things she wished-a couple of her parents had asked before leaving. This got me thinking about our students and parents, I believe all parents want the very best for their children but just don't know which questions to ask or where to start.

In most of my IEP meetings, what parent's really want to know is where their child is. This in many ways is a very difficult question to answer. In my case, in just reading there is DIBELS, DRA, running records, Wilson Reading, Just Words, Fundations plus anything special the classroom teachers does as well-those are just the building assessments Then you layer on the District ones Beginning Reading (covers all beginning reading skills-letter identification, sounds, rhyming) and Acuity. So a simple question becomes a full conference.


This handout can be sent home as part of a Back to School packet or when you do Flex Testing. It is by no means the end all of all questions you could ask but its meant to be a jumping off point to help you help parents to maintain open lines of communication. (In many cases it is the lack of communication that leads to problems.)

Its that time of year--after Spring Break when the last minute chaos and drive to get any stuck in your RTI process out and identified for Special Education before the year ends. I know my team, tries to have a short short list before going to break. Even if we have surprises, then we have time to get to everyone.

I have a couple of resources to share. These have helped my team make sure the information we need is in place before moving to a referral.

I know with all the students and interventions going on, sometimes I get lost as to where students are in the process. This flow map helps keep me on track.

Something else that has been a great help for our whole Problem Solve Team, are all these forms. Here you will find everything from parent letters to invite them to meetings, data collection forms and checklists for just about everything. It is totally editable. So you can make it work for your own team. (Make sure to download from Scridb a docx. If you have problems downloading it as a document, email me and I'll send you a copy.)

Don't let the end of the year chaos sneak up on your team. Have a great week!!

This year I have one group of Wilson and they are tech savvy second graders.There classroom teachers use their Smart Boards for Fundations. It has been fun moving daily lessons to Smart Board. With this group moving to a new book--Book 3. I decided to move the whole lesson to my Smart Board. I still make words on my table. If you are looking for Sounds and Letters for your Smart Board I have one here.

Moving this group from things being placed on the table (as the directions tell you) to being on my Smart Board has changed how they interact with the words. It seems to be sticking more. Not sure but hey if it helps them get the words, strategies, and skills stick--then I'll create it.

I only put the reading day on my Smart Board because the spelling is spelling--yes they would love it I gave them the answers but that not the point. The reading one you can download from Dropbox. Its in Power Point, so you can make changes to meet the needs of your group.

Have a great weekend.

So, over the last two weeks, I've given the state testing (which is changing next year) and worked on replacing my now died laptop. With that now behind me, I can look forward to the second have of state testing for 4th and 5th grader in science and social studies on the computers. I still have no clue what the accommodations look like. With that all over for now, I left for Spring Break.

Something that keeps coming up in my school, is where to look for resources that help teachers and parents to understand that the depth looks like across the grades. Colorado is a CMAS and PARCC state--fewer standards at a deeper level but we have not told what that deeper level looks like. As I have gone searching to resources that break down math skills, I have come across a couple of sites that might help explain what Common Core is parents and help teachers continue to content with resources.

For Parents
Parents' Guide to Student Success
The Parents’ Guide to Student Success (listed below in English and Spanish) was developed in response to the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics that more than 45 states have adopted. To find out if your state has adopted the standards, visit CoreStandards.org/In-The-States. Created by teachers, parents, education experts, and others from across the country, the standards provide clear, consistent expectations for what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and career.


Common Core State Standards Initiative
The Common Core State Standards (CCSSI) is a joint effort led by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop a common core of K-12 standards in English language arts and Mathematics.

Achieve The Core
As educators, as researchers, and as citizens, we view the changes brought by the college and career readiness focus of the Common Core State Standards as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for kids of all backgrounds and ability levels to better fulfill their potential. Like the standards themselves, we are evidence-based in our approach. Our work is aimed at ensuring that teachers across the country are able to put the standards to work, quickly and effectively, to help their students and colleagues aspire to a higher standard and reach it. Accordingly, the content available on this site is assembled by and for educators and is freely available to everyone to use, modify and share.

We invite educators and people curious about the Common Core State Standards to explore what the site has to offer, including hundreds of math and literacy resources for teachers, resources for leaders who are putting college and career readiness standards into action in their own schools, and opportunities to become an advocate for the Common Core.

Parent Roadmaps to the Common Core Standards
The Council of the Great City Schools' parent roadmaps in mathematics provide guidance to parents about what their children will be learning and how they can support that learning in grades K-8. These parent roadmaps for each grade level also provide  three-year snapshots showing how selected standards progress from year to year so that students will be college and career ready upon their graduation from high school.

Common Core for Parents
Our Core-ready programs and materials help students become college and career ready while keeping the joy in learning. A great place to get questions answered from what the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) is to figuring out if your child has a learning disability.


For Teachers

Common Core Explorer
Graphite is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Media designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.

EduCore
At your fingertips is a wealth of information and resources about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for teachers, educational leaders, schools, and school districts. It has a great collection of evidence-based tools, strategies, videos, and supporting documents to learn about the implementation and transition to CCSS. A great place to build your capacity for understanding the shifts of the CCSS.

Defining the Core
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are the culmination of an extended, broad-based effort to fulfill the charge issued by the states to create the next generation of K-12 standards in order to help ensure that all students are college and career ready no later than the end of high school. This is one of the most important changes in education in the United States in the last fifty years and stands to positively affect students, parents, teachers, communities, and the workforce as we take a firm grasp on what 21st century learning truly means.

ELA/Literacy Learning Progressions
The online tool organizes the Common Core ELA strands of Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language into visible student skill progressions in an effort to keep the learning of all students moving forward. These progressions continually guide students and teachers to "what's next" and are a great foundation for assessing reading comprehension within the standards. The following descriptors outline how the various parts of the tool are constructed. This is great for backwards planning, so you can meet students where they are.

Books
Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment

Not everything Robert Marzano publishes is worth buying but I picked this one up earlier and love the rubrics (0-4 point scale) that have been created for all the standards. This is the closest I have come to finding something that gets at the depth of the standards. His website has freebies that are tied to each of the books.

I hope that this list of resources helps you better understand Common Core and where its headed. If you have a favorite resource, please share. Have a great week.

It would come to no surprise to anyone that summarizing becomes more complex as a reader moves from a beginning readers of Level A/1 to those reading at Level 38/P. This makes teaching this reading comprehension skill to a group of readers that span three years-18/J to 28/M to 38/P. (What was I thinking when I agreed to try this?) But this group has made progress than I would have guessed. They have risen to the challenge.

As I started thinking about how I was going to plan the next few weeks with this group, I went back to Fountas and Pinnell's Continuum of Literacy Learning, to see what the summarizing targets looked like. In this case, its the depth that students need to have. (This is a great resource!)

This means my models need to include two different ideas: 1) focusing one beginning, middle, end, with characters, problem, solution, and characters; 2) focusing on summarizing longer texts being more chapter based.

Next, problem what does the summary need to look like and how do I want them to know when they have met the target. But first, I need to find my mentor text to support my modeled lessons. (I could hold story hour for them and they would never mind not working:-))

Knowing I need at least four books covering several different reading levels:


These ones will provide me with different examples for my students.










With models in hand, how do I want students to write their summaries. They will also need the rubric and success criteria. (This is a new push for more. As a building we have just taken on Learning Targets--which   my students have loved. This is a tough challenge.) This is success criteria example of a 4 using the DRA scaffolded summary template.

 I'll share the examples the group puts together. Have a great week.

Last week I shared how I had a reading group where all the students were in different books. Well, this week, they did predicting through synthesis. Predicting is one of those skills that all readers learn how to do early on but well worth revisiting at each reading level because the depth that students must use this skill changes.

This week I'm changing one of my guided reading groups to not guided reading but guided reading. Confused yet? I was when I was asked to make this change. I have three readers that are outliers and if I had tons of time to give each one on one guided reading I would.

First off, I had to find a common overarching strategy that they all needed to work on but the text level didn't matter. After looking at their reading data and talking with my coach, synthesis was decided on.

Next, finding text that would fit each and allow me to target synthesis. This took some looking but after some time I found three that would fit the bill. Once, I had the books, I crafted questions that would target the skill. I put the questions on return address labels, so I could put the questions in each students reader's response journal.

Before starting the lesson, I told the group that we were going to do some playing. (As I had never done this before.) Because this was new and I would most likely be making changes as the week went on. They were cool with this and couldn't wait.

I started the lesson by creating an anchor chart. I made the pieces large enough to add specific story element information. We used Tacky the Penguin. I wrapped up the lesson by asking the girls to change the end of the story to where the hunters didn't run away.

Day Two: With the questions matching everyone's own books on stickies, students knew what they were reading for. They also had to complete--a four square. (character, setting, problem/solution) This gave me the time to go around, having each one read to me and a chance to ask specific questions about each book, clear up any confusion, and talk about the questions they had to answer by the end of the book. Just like any other guided group! (I got this!) I closed the lesson, by bringing them back to the anchor chart and talking about what they knew of their characters. They had not finished their books and I was laying the groundwork for the next day.

Some sentence frames I used for synthesizing:
-If _____________________, then then the outcome maybe _______________________.
-What would happen if __________.

Its important to remember that synthesis is taking multiple strategies to construct new insight and meaning as more information and ideas are added to a reader's background knowledge. My group of sixth graders, needed a visual to see what I meant when I explained  synthesis. I gave them a couple of different pictures like making cookies or a pizza. All the ingredients are comprehension strategies and the finished product is synthesis. This group of 5th graders sees synthesis as an banana split.

  This week we are going back and doing prediction. With the overall target being synthesis and the daily target being prediction. I'm hoping that this works as I continue to work out the kinks. I'll let you know. Have a great week.

WHAT IS NUMBER SENSE?
Number sense involves understanding numbers; knowing how to write and represent numbers in different ways; recognizing the quantity represented by numerals and other number forms; and discovering how a number relates to another number or group of numbers. Number sense develops gradually and varies as a result of exploring numbers, visualizing them in a variety of contexts, and relating to them in different ways.

In the primary and intermediate grades, number sense includes skills such as counting; representing numbers with manipulatives and models; understanding place value in the context of our base 10 number system; writing and recognizing numbers in different forms such as expanded, word, and standard; and expressing a number different ways—5 is "4 + 1" as well as "7 - 2," and 100 is 10 tens as well as 1 hundred. Number sense also includes the ability to compare and order numbers—whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and integers—and the ability to identify a number by an attribute—such as odd or even, prime or composite-or as a multiple or factor of another number. As students work with numbers, they gradually develop flexibility in thinking about numbers, which is a distinguishing characteristic of number sense.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Number sense enables students to understand and express quantities in their world. For example, whole numbers describe the number of students in a class or the number of days until a special event. Decimal quantities relate to money or metric measures, fractional amounts describing ingredient measures or time increments, negative quantities conveying temperatures below zero or depths below sea level, or percent amounts describing test scores or sale prices. Number sense is also the basis for understanding any mathematical operation and being able to estimate and make a meaningful interpretation of its result.

HOW CAN I MAKE IT HAPPEN?

In teaching number sense, using manipulatives and models (e.g., place-value blocks, fraction strips, decimal squares, number lines, and place-value and hundreds charts) helps students understand what numbers represent, different ways to express numbers, and how numbers relate to one another.

When students trade with place-value blocks they can demonstrate that the number 14 may be represented as 14 ones or as 1 ten and 4 ones. They can also demonstrate that 10 hundreds is the same as 1 thousand. By recording the number of each kind of block in the corresponding column (thousands, hundreds, tens, or ones) on a place-value chart, students practice writing numbers in standard form.

Using fraction strips, students find that 1/4 is less than 1/3 and that it names the same amount as 2/8. Using decimal squares, students see that 8 tenths can be written as 0.8 or 8/10. By pairing up counters to identify even numbers and marking these on a hundreds chart, primary-grade students discover that, beginning with 2, every other number is an even number. Intermediate-grade students can mark multiples of 3 and 6 on a hundreds chart and find that every number that has 6 as a factor also has 3 as a factor. Using a number line, students see how fractions with different denominators relate to the benchmark quantities of 0, 1/2, and 1. From these concrete experiences, students build the foundation for number sense they will bring to computation, estimation, measurement, problem solving, and all other areas of mathematics.

DAILY ROUTINES

Many teachers use the calendar as a source of mathematics activities. Students can work with counting, patterns, number sequence, odd and even numbers, and multiples of a number; they can also create word problems related to the calendar. A hundreds chart can help them count the number of days in school, and the current day’s number can be the "number of the day." Students can suggest various ways to make or describe that number. For example, on the 37th day of school, children may describe that number as 30 plus 7, 40 minus 3, an odd number, 15 plus 15 plus 7, my mother’s age, or 1 more than 3 dozen. The complexity of student’s responses will grow as the year goes on and as they listen to one another think mathematically. This is a great language building time.

THY THESE

• Model different methods for computing:

When a teacher publicly records a number of different approaches to solving a problem–solicited from the class or by introducing her own—it exposes students to strategies that they may not have considered.  As Marilyn Burns explains, “When children think that there is one right way to compute, they focus on learning and applying it, rather than thinking about what makes sense for the numbers at hand.”

• Ask students regularly to calculate mentally:

Mental math encourages students to build on their knowledge about numbers and numerical relationships. When they cannot rely on memorized procedures or hold large quantities in their heads, students are forced to think more flexibly and efficiently, and to consider alternate problem solving strategies.

• Have class discussions about strategies for computing:

Classroom discussions about strategies help students to crystalize their own thinking while providing them the opportunity to critically evaluate their classmates’ approaches. In guiding the discussion, be sure to track ideas on the board to help students make connections between mathematical thinking and symbolic representation.

• Make estimation an integral part of computing.

Most of the math that we do every day—deciding when to leave for school, how much paint to buy, what type of tip to leave in a restaurant, which line to get in at the grocery store relies not only on mental math but estimations.  However traditional textbook rounding exercises don’t provide the necessary context for students to understand estimating or build number sense.  To do that, estimation must be embedded in problem situations.

• Question students about how they reason numerically.

Asking students about their reasoning—both when they make mistakes AND when they arrive at the correct answer—communicates to them that you value their ideas, that math is about reasoning, and, most importantly, that math should make sense to them.  Exploring reasoning is also extremely important for the teacher as a formative assessment tool.  It helps her understand each student’s strengths and weaknesses, content knowledge, reasoning strategies and misconceptions.

• Pose numerical problems that have more than one possible answer:

Problems with multiple answers provide plenty of opportunities for students to reason numerically.  It’s a chance to explore numbers and reasoning perhaps more creatively than if there was “one right answer.”

NUMBER SENSE EVERY DAY
All of these number sense activities contribute to your students’ abilities to solve problems. When children have daily, long-term opportunities to work (and play) with numbers, you will be continually amazed by the growth in their mathematical thinking, confidence, and enthusiasm about mathematics. By helping your children develop number sense, especially in the context of problem solving, you are helping them believe in themselves as mathematicians.

This week I have a group of students who are going to move into inferring. Last year, this was one of the best units I taught. I loved watching students make connections between their background knowledge and what they could out of the text. This year, I'm looking to expand what I used.

Why do Student's Need Inferring:

All reading is an active, reflective, problem-solving process. We do not simply read words; we read ideas, thoughts that spring from the relationships of various assertions. The notion of inference equations is particularly powerful in this regard. Readers can use the notion of inference equations to test whether or not the ingredients for a given inferences are indeed present. To show lying, for instance, a text must show that someone made a statement that they knew was incorrect and that they made that assertion with the specific purpose of deception. If they did not know it was wrong at the time, it’s an error, not a lie. If they did not make the statement for the specific purpose of deception, we have a misstatement, not lying.

How Can Inferring Help Writing:

The notion of inference equations is equally useful for writing. Writers must assure that the ingredients of the equation are present and clear, and that the desired relationships are signaled in a clear and effective way. As writers, we must be aware that our readers will interpret our thoughts.

We must strive to make our meaning as clear as possible. We must provide sufficient examples to make our ideas clear, as well as to short-circuit undesired interpretations. We must recognize what evidence is necessary and sufficient for our purpose, and assure that it is included.

And we must choose our terms carefully for accuracy and clarity of meaning, and spell out our exact thoughts in as much detail as possible. We must recognize biases our readers might bring to the text and explain and support our evidence as much as our conclusions. The advice: Buy diapers.

I think I'm going to start out with this video. This video is about synthesizing is closely linked to evaluating. This is a great way to show students how thinking should change as we read...often to a deeper understanding. As older students read more complex plots they will learn to expect the unexpected, inferring meanings and pick up on foreshadowing.


This will make a great opening to the week and help them think outside the box.

From the video, what else do I need to do. Well, I want proficient readers. Proficient readers understand that writers often tell more than they actually say with words. They give you hints or clues that allow you to draw conclusions from information that is implied. Using these clues to “read between the lines” and reach a deeper understanding of the message is called inferring.

Students need to learn how to infer so that they can go below the surface details to see what is actually implied (not stated) within the words of the story. Some meanings are meant to be implied – that is not stated clearly but they are hinted at. When meanings are implied, you have to infer them.

Students make inferences every day without even thinking about it. For example, you can ask children to imagine they are sitting at their desk doing their homework when they hear a loud booming sound and hear pattering against the window. They don’t actually see anything, but they can infer there is a thunderstorm outside. All students recognize the sounds of thunder. They know heavy rain makes a pattering sound. And they know that any time the two go together there is almost a thunderstorm going on.
Inferring with context clues

One way students can infer a word meaning is from context clues within the text. Students have to learn how to work out meanings from these clues. There’s several ways to do this.They can simply make an educated guess using the hints given before the unknown word and the sentences that follow the word. Asking questions is one way to unravel these clues.

I have some ideas for guided reading:
These questions will be very helpful while we are reading to work through unknown words and what they mean. During the guided reading session, the teacher should have these question stems available when students find a word they don’t know the meaning of.   The teacher pauses the reading and chooses the appropriate question to ask.
“What do you think the word means considering (a certain action or event) has happened?
“How do you know that the word means (insert definition)?”
“What part of the text helps you make this inference?”
“Where can you find other clues to help you understand?”
“If you substitute what you think is a similar word, would the sentence still make sense?”

My goals for my students include:

• Draw conclusions about their reading by connecting the text with their background knowledge
• Synthesize new ideas and information
• Create unique understandings of the text they are reading
• Make predictions about the text, confirm or disconfirm those predictions based on textual
• information, and text their developing comprehension of the text as they read
• Extend their comprehension beyond literal understandings of the printed page

It's hard to believe that it's 2014. Wow! Where did it go??  It just flew by. I have much to be thankful for this past year from achieving my National Boards in Exceptional Needs and finishing my endorsement in Early Childhood Special Education. I know that if my friends and family were not in my corner they may not have happened. This is a good time to reflect on what worked and what didn't work last year.

More importantly, its the family I work with daily at school that helped guide me into be a more reflective and stronger teacher than what I was the year before. That's what makes this hard--early last week a close friend that I work with passed away. She helped me be a better teacher each day I walked in.

As a National Board Teacher, reflecting on my practice is more a matter of course than an event. I can't wait to get back and change things up for my students before state testing begins in six weeks. (Yes, really. I know. OMG!) My students had some great gains the first part of the year. Now I just have to maintain it and go just that much further.
Today, I'm working through the pile and list that I brought home with me while I listen to the TV. I work best with noise. I tend to have my TV on all the time. My mom wonders how I'm able to get anything done but I need that noise.

I loved spending the last two weeks with my family and friends, for our first Christmas in the mountains. Mind you I have lived in Colorado for 30 years. It was even white--that doesn't happen much in town. After breakfast, we went snowshoeing. Yes, dogs and all.

I have about a third of "Catching Fire" to finish. I want to finish it before next week. If I don't it could be sometime before I get it done.

I have six weeks to get my third grade students ready for state testing and 8 weeks for fourth to sixth graders. Rumor has it that we are giving PARCC in science and social studies on the computers on top of CTAP. I have no clue when or who. So much fun:)




I would be nice if I could finish all the projects that I planned to get down over the two weeks but I'm not sure that going to happen. I have a sight word freebie for you.

For those traveling, be safe. Have a great last few days of break if you don't have to go back until Monday.