Literacy Circles - Update

Here are some photos of one of my students from my top group running the literacy circle of my 2nd to top group.  it went really well and was great to see the kids taking the led role in this.

Literacy Circles - My Revamp

I have been running literacy circles with my top two reading groups for a while now, and really enjoy the discussions that full out of the literacy circles, but felt that at times children were just going through the motions. I felt I needed to 'freshen up' how these were running and make them a bit more effective and also more exciting for the students.

I was doing some research and exploring what others were doing and came across this blog: http://www.3rdgradethoughts.com/2012/04/daily-5-series-read-with-teacher.html from Stephaine who is a 3^rd Grade teacher in America.

She had developed a literacy box for her to use with her reading groups - as you can see below:

I thought I could modify this a little bit, and make a box that the discussion director would use to help develop further discussion and talk about what the group has read in preparation for the literacy circle. I found the same cards that Stephanie had down loaded for free from the teachers pay teachers website. These cards will be super-helpful because they are so quick and easy. I sorted through them and won't use every one, but most of them are fitting. I just printed them and laminated them so they can stand up to lots of use. I will keep them in a bucket and the discussion director will use them at the end of the literacy circle.

I also bought a set of these cubes from Really Good Stuff. Although it is an American website, which does not ship to NZ, I was able to get them posted to my cousin who lives in America, who will be coming out to NZ in two weeks – talk about great timing!  I love these the most because they are a bit more complex than the cards and one even focuses on vocabulary, prefixes/suffixes, and finding meaning through context clues- yay! Kids will love to roll them and then focus on finding the answer to the cube after we have discussed the novel.

As you can see, none of these are too complicated or heavy on the prep time. The choices serve the wide variety of abilities in my room as well as all of the books we read as a group. I am really looking forward to seeing how it works out and it's will be fun to see kids grab a card and/or cube and have a specific goal to attain in our literacy circles.   It has also made the literacy circle more enjoyable the discussion director person as it gives something to rather than just introducing the others and is easy for them as the questions and vocab are all ready to go.

Do you use any of these resources or others for literacy circles? I'd love to hear about it :)  Will post some photos of the completed box and the kids in action next week.

Maths Streaming - Senior Syndicate

This year the senior team has decided to stream across the classes for mathematics - number teacher.  Streaming is method of placing students in temporary instructional groupings according to
their assessed readiness to learn particular skills.   All teachers in the share
responsibility for the entire year levels, with each providing focused instruction to
groups of students brought together by academic need and readiness, rather
than by class assignment.

Our goal is provide appropriate, targeted, math instruction that is tailored to students’
fluctuating readiness levels.

Our Method:
 • Students will be taught the number strand of the mathematic curriculum and will have the other streams taught by their classroom teacher.
• Prior to the start of all number units, students will be pre‐tested using
tests that assess the same unit goals as those that will be assessed in
post‐unit‐assessments.
• All students will pre‐test at approximately the same time,  on the
same day.
• Students will be re‐grouped temporarily for the next number focus, according to their
performance on the pretest.
Teacher assignments will focuses on:
o Key concepts and objectives
o Lessons as outlined in NZ Math with emphasis on pre‐test
gaps
o Extensions designed to challenge students who demonstrated
pre‐test mastery

Benefits
• Sharpens teaching focus to a narrower range of student readiness levels.
• Fosters student interaction with others at similar readiness levels.
• Provides customised level of instructional challenge for students, unit‐by‐unit,
ensuring that they are neither overwhelmed nor stagnating.
• Allows free movement between short‐term groups to accommodate
individual students’ developmental progress as well as setbacks.
• Cultivates student growth by fills conceptual gaps while avoiding redundant
instruction

We found the 6 weeks that we trialed streaming across the syndicate very beneficial for both students and the teachers and have decided to do continue to stream for all number units.  The next being at the end of this term for a multiplication and division focus.