Groups

Word work in the primary grades means phonemic awareness and phonics. Here are two books to help you: Word Matters by Fountas and Pinnell and Making Words by Patricia Cunningham. In upper elementary grades word work means vocabulary and sometimes spelling.

You might also come up with some very short and sweet informal assessments to give your students continuous feedback. If they wait a long time for feedback it isn't as useful.

If it were me, I'd spread out the performance assessments, and only give a performance assessment to one class/section at a time. I agree with you that students may evaluate based on popularity, but they can be taught to do otherwise. Maybe they need more direct instructions about rubrics. It might help if the students write the rubrics. They might be more invested in the process of evaluation if they write the rubrics.

Three math programs you might want to look at are Envision Math from Scott Foresmann, Investigations from TERC, and Math Expressions from Houghton Mifflin. For reading program check this out: http://teacher.scholastic.com/... AND http://www.heinemann.com/fount...

Are you teaching guided reading? I think you can make guided reading work with a wide span of beginning to emergent to more fluent readers. I can suggest professional resource books for you if you'd like. For science and social studies, you'll need a 2 year cycle of a range of different units. Math is the trickiest subject. Is there anyone who could come in during math and work with half of your group?

No, this is fine as long as you are using books for educational purposes and for your own students. If you were to sell CDs that would be a problem. :)

Two assessments to begin with are Heinemann Benchmark Assessment kits, which can be used from K-6. Two boxes cover all 26 guided reading levels. Also look at DIBELS test of oral reading fluency and high frequency sight word lists.

I am currently focusing on the grade levels K-5 right now. Thanks!

And a list of instructional strategies to help comprehend it all. Thanks!

I will look for a chart for you. What grade do you teach? Different assessment tools are used at different ages. Please write back.

One part of your writing may be to use Write It which is a free online unit for middle/HS school writers. Your students will get instruction on 6 different genres, publish online, and email or print their work for their friends, family, and teacher. http://teacher.scholastic.com/...

I like your idea about a reading club. My suggestion would be to gear the three weeks around one or two content areas of interest to middle grade students and then weave the skills into the content. Since you have three hours a day, it works well and you may find students learn more with some reading, writing, and grammar each day. It will be more fun for students if it's geared to content. Maybe the reader's club could be part of each day. Students could meet talk about the book or books they're reading. You could ask them a few comprehension questions or show them something about the book; vocabulary, author's purpose, etc. Then they could have 20 min. to read while you call one or two students at a time for direct instruction. For books, maybe multiple copies of a novel that ties in with your theme. The theme for the three weeks could be as broad as Friendship or more narrow, like Extreme Sports. Look in your school library and see what resources they have. Once you pick a theme you'll be able to choose books and Web sites. Students might enjoy making videos, podcasts, wikis, as projects. Maybe you could go on a field trip? What you want to do is make the three weeks light and fun and not like school, which is why you probably don't want a lot of worksheets and workbooks. If you write to me after you pick a theme, I'll have more ideas for you. You can contact me at ruth.manna@verizon.net. Write Scholastic Helpline in subject line.

Higher order thinking is assessed with open-ended questions and open responses. You'll be able to tell more about what students are thinking with open response questions. They are more difficult to grade and will take you more time. When teachers use multiple choice, it's usually to ask questions that assess literal comprehension of subject matter; names, dates, vocabulary, etc. So, I encourage you to add a few open response questions to your multiple choice tests.

Second graders who read at 90 words per min. or better are solid readers. What about a group novel like Judy Moody or Geronimo Stilton or Horrible Harry. Maybe you'd select several possible novels that are readable and let the students in your group vote. You can spend part of the 25 min. reading with them, discussing their reading, facilitating their discussions with one another. To mix it up a little they could read with a partner or read silently and then turn and talk to a partner. Students could keep a journal and take notes or answer or ask questions in their journals. They could use sticky notes to record favorite new vocab. words. There are lots of possibilities and changing and adding elements will keep it from becoming predictable.

There are a lot of great web sites out there that help prepare you for interviewing. Read through some and practice your answers outloud- not just in your head. The type of questions will be determined by what level or position you are interviewing for. Also, I would say be prepared to answer the questions: What would you say is your best quality?, What are your strengths? and What areas do you believe you need improvement? From my experience both interviewing and being the interviewee is be care not to over list items for any of these questions. Keep your answers to the point- be personable but not rambling. GOOD LUCK!

I can understand your desire to teach the same content to 6th through 8th graders who are all reading below grade level at approximately the same level. It makes planning easier. However, what you teach needs to be tied to the curriculum and content in grades 6-8. Talk with subject area colleagues in grades 6-8, especially in ELA, science, and social studies, so you can gear your lessons to their content, but on a reading level that matches your students' reading skills. For example 8th graders may study U.S. History and cell biology, while 6th graders may study Texas History and Geology. The new Common Core State Standards (don't know if Texas has adopted CCSS) have appendices that refer to teaching ELA while teaching science and social studies. Check out these documents. Regular ed. colleagues who teach science and social studies can give you ideas and suggestions. You'll need to connect with them at least weekly, if not daily, and plan together for all students. If you can, spend time in their regular ed. classrooms with your students. You'll get a sense for what's happening with more age-typical students, teachers' expectations, classroom culture, and subject matter content, all of which will help you with your students. Working in a resource room can be isolating for you and stigmatizing for middle school students, so as much as possible work with your colleagues and students in reg. ed. classrooms. If you want more specific help, seek out your mentor, special education supervisor, or building or dist. administrator. Or you can write to me at ruth.manna@verizon.net.

I'd approach this by gearing it to students' interests. Do they like cars, skateboards, fashion, etc.? Once each student has identified an area of interest, then you'll want to help them find readable material about their interests. Newspapers, magazines, Web sites, video clips, etc. There is a great article in today's NY Times about high school students who engaged in independent projects. Here is a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03... It's entitled "Let Kids Rule the School." Check it out! You'll get ideas! You're going to need to be flexible to get older, struggling readers engaged in the curriculum.

Thank you so much! Do you think at this point in the year it is important to keep up all the current teachers standing assignments,standards and format or to implement my own?

Here are things to include in your letter of introduction: a little about where you're from,esp. if you are from the area, college you attended and your college major, where you student-taught, again, this is even more meaningful if it was local, but include anyway. Also include that you're looking forward to working with their children. Say a little about your expectations. If students have regular homework, you may want to set a couple of ground rules for homework and nightly reading. Let parents know you look forward to meeting them in person and invite them to stop by before or after school during the next week so you can meet one another. The tone you want to establish is friendly, welcoming, and warm.

Look at Word Work by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene Fountas. Also Patricia Cunningham's books, Making Words, Making More Words, etc. Scholastic has great books of Word Ladders, which also might work for you. These books will suggest appropriate activities for your students. This sounds like a primary grade classroom with beginning readers, from what you describe. I'd gear my lesson around a short vowel sound. Just a thought.

How much do students practice reading? Are they reading outside of school? Students likely need to increase their reading. About the test, I suggest these links: http://teacher.scholastic.com/... For customer service try this link: http://www.scholastic.com/cust...

For a writing exercise I would use Google images or other images and have your children use descriptive language in a poster, letter to the editor, diary, or poetry lesson. If you did a lesson on ocean currents you could have your kids map out where a spill might travel if it started at point A. What countries would be impacted, what animals.

There are great resources, many deal with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Go to theteacherlist.ca and search. Also check youtube. There are oil spill images while Glee chorus sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Try edutopia.org for more ideas, esp. project based learning. Edutopia has units about the Gulf oil spill.

It's not too hard to design your own rubric in Word or Excel. You want to think about what it is you want students to know, do, etc. Maybe in your case it's a short list of a few verbs you want students to conjugate. Jot down four or five verbs or understandings you are looking for. Then set up a 4 point scale on which to rate each student. You can do it!

Engagement means the students are with you, buy into what you are teaching, and are paying attention. Here are a few ways to foster engagement: good eye contact change inflection in your voice stand straight and tall move around the room assertive tone of voice in low register, assertive is not mean. It helps to start a lesson with something to get students interested in the lesson. It might be a brain teaser, word problem, interesting vocab word, science experiment, read-aloud, etc. Technology like smartboard or overhead will help you get their attention. You want to capture their attention, then you have to hold their attention by the way you present yourself.

Here's how you spell it: Mrs. Stein The poet is Bill Dodds You can find the full text online.

Start with reassessing this student. What assessment tools do you have? Based on his performance on assessments create an action plan for his tutor/aide and a weekly list or outline for the tutor to follow. Since you are teaching in a private school, you aren't responsible for teaching to state standards. Standards will guide you as to what typical students can accomplish in sixth grade. However you're going to need to teach him where he is now, so ask lower grade teachers if you can borrow books and materials for this student. Meet with his parents and see if you can get their cooperation. Make sure they are helping out with nightly practice/homework, listening to him read, and reading aloud to him. Screen time should be limited to two hours a day.

If you are a new teacher and they are asking you to do all of that I have serious questions about that school. Sounds like a fly-by-night operation to me.

Start by selecting assessment tools. Make sure teachers understand how to use tools, administer, score, and analyze the results. Set up an assessment schedule, for three times a year, at least, for students achieving on grade level and more frequently for students who struggle. In the first year, concentrate on one subject. Reading is a good place to start. Have data meetings after school to discuss how students perform on assessments. Look for patterns of strength and weakness and plan next instructional steps based on data. Differentiate instruction based on student needs. I'm making this sound a lot easier than it is in fact. If you write back with more questions, I'll offer more specifics.