Friday, March 26, 2010

Writing stories

Using online resources is a great teaching tool for children to improve written language. This week students in the self-contained classroom at Prairieview learned about story elements (setting, characters, plot) while writing and illustrating a story on the computer. Using the tools on www.carnegielibrary.org/kids/storymaker/ the students selected animated characters, identified a setting for their story, described actions, and explained their characters' emotions. The picture icons in the program help students to add detail to their stories, which they may not think of during ordinary paper and pencil activities. Next week the children will continue to write narratives with the storymaker website and practice developing a problem, solution, and ending for their narratives.

Have a fun Spring Break!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Understanding vocabulary

By Francie Alexander (www.scholastic.com)

Knowing what words to teach is the first step in providing effective vocabulary practice. I have a favorite mnemonic device that helps me remember the types of words I want to teach explicitly:

Type A Words: These words are like Type A personalities. They work hard in order to convey the meaning of the text being read. There are two sources for these words: Academic Language and the Content Areas. Academic Language describes the language of schooling — words used across disciplines like genre and glossary. Content Area words are specific to the discipline — words like organization in social studies and organism in science. If you want your students to “get it,” these are the must-know words.

Type B Words: These words are the Basics. There are hundreds of high-frequency words. The basics make up a large percentage of student reading and writing. Students must be able to read words like the, is, and, are, been and because — well, because.

Type C Words: The Connectors act as signal words. There may be some overlap with the basic words. Students need to understand the signals for cause and effect relationships, sequence and other important indicators of how text is organized.

Type D Words: D is for Difficult — words with multiple meanings are challenging for all students and may be especially so for English-Language Learners.

Type X Words: X is for the eXtras. These are the words that will not be encountered frequently but in a certain story or context are important to meaning. Tell the students what it means without teaching explicitly.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Language Skills

In March third and fourth grade language groups at Prairieview have practiced identifying synonyms. Naming synonyms is a great way of increasing vocabulary. Students have taken pride in learning new words and rapidly listing synonym pairs. They have also used context cues to infer synonyms of unfamiliar words while reading.

Prairieview students have also listened to stories and summarized the narrative by telling who is in the story(characters), when and where it occurs (setting), and what happened (plot). We have used graphic organizers to list elements of the narrative and sequence important events in the story. Mrs. DeYoung uses the summarizing strategy to improve reading comprehension as well as active listening skills.

Fifth graders and students at Lakeview have reviewed how to write an extended response essay. This week they read a passage and answered questions dealing with cause-effect relationships. Mrs. DeYoung reviewed signal words ( because, since, so, the reason, therefore, as a result... etc). often used in cause-effect paragraphs. Students are practicing writing cause-effect statements and short essays using these transition phrases.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Suggestions for Auditory Processing

Things That Can Be Done in the Home for Children with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD)



  • At mealtime, include your child in family conversation by encouraging your child to talk about what happened in school and listen as family members talk about their experiences. Cue your child to look at the speaker’s face. Eliminate as much background noise as possible. If your child has difficulty following or adding to a conversation appropriately, recap by speaking in short sentences with expression.

  • Play games that require the players to use logic, strategies, and problem-solving. Spelling and vocabulary games are good. Games in which no one “loses” are best.

  • Encourage the habit of making lists for a variety of purposes such as groceries, chores, and homework assignments. This helps to develop planning and organizational skills.

  • Play the telephone game. One child whispers a secret to the next child, who whispers the secret to the next child, and so on.

  • Watch good ½ hour television programs that involve characterizations and plot development with your child. At the end of the program, discuss with your child opinions, solutions to problems, sequence of events, character flaws, poor choices made by characters, and alternative endings.

  • Talk to the child about listening for words that give order clues, words such as “now,” “later,” “after,” and “before.”

  • When reading stories, ask the child to recap what was heard, after a page or two. At the end of the story, ask the child to summarize the entire story (Kelly, D.A., 1995).