When It Comes to Reading... the More, the Better

It won't surprise any teacher that the more a child reads the better. We have all known it for years. We even know that it doesn't really matter what kids read as long as they are reading. Choice has become a huge buzzword in reading education.

But what do you do when you have a reluctant reader? At home or in the classroom.

This is a problem I never thought I would have - at least at home. You see, when I was a kid I loved to read. Not just a little bit, a lot. I loved to read so much that my parents would (!often!) tell me to put down my book. I was actually grounded from reading when I got in trouble. If you have ever been stopped in the middle of a great book, you know that is cruel and unusual punishment.

Given my proclivity for reading, it never occurred to me that I would have a kid that didn't like to read. I imagined my family sitting around the living room together reading away on a rainy afternoon. Or a sunny afternoon. Or the morning. You get the point.

Well, you can guess what happened next. My oldest daughter, entering third grade in the fall, does not like to read. She avoids it at all costs. She complains, she whines, she negotiates. She does everything she can not to read. What?!

When she was younger I didn't push her to read. I didn't want her to see reading as a chore. I was waiting for her to fall in love with reading the way I did. That plan was working for our family. She didn't have to read, and I could tell myself she would pick it up on her own soon.

Then, second grade hit. Suddenly, my little girl who had always been a good student, was behind in reading. What?! I seriously flipped out. Not at her teacher, of course. Or even at her. But inside I was going crazy. What had happened? 

Obviously my plan had failed. I was a failure.

So, after my mini-meltdown, I thought about what we needed to do. First, my daughter got on Lexia, a phonics computer program that I really like. In fact, I liked it so much I signed up my other children as well. Next, I needed to figure out how to get my kid reading... a lot.

I thought back to a Freakanomics podcast I had heard a few months earlier. It was about bribing kids. The question was, does it work? It turns out that the answer is complicated. Yes, it works, but... I can't remember the exact outline of the podcast, but what I have taken away from everything I have heard, read, etc... about bribing is that it will work at first, but over time the effect wears off. You have to keep increasing the bribe to keep the child's attention.

So, here was my plan. I would bribe my daughter to read. $5 a book. A chapter book. At her reading level. Interesting to her. All that good stuff.

And she totally went for it. She read tons of books and became an amazing reader. Just kidding. She was totally not interested. She liked the idea of getting paid to read, but actually sitting down and reading. Nah.

Then, I thought about what people say about reading with babies. (I also have a toddler, so I read a lot about that as well.) I can't remember where I saw it, but I remember very clearly that one of the most important reasons to read with a toddler is that she will associate reading with love and warmth. Sitting on mom's lap and reading together is a really comforting feeling for the baby, and she carries that good feeling into her reading as a child. (Now, I will just say here that I read a lot with my older daughter when she was a toddler. So, it isn't fool proof.)

My next step was to use what I knew about reading with babies and apply it to my eight year old. One night I invited her to bring her new book into my bed at bedtime. We cuddled up together and she read it to me. She read for a really long time. We were so cozy and happy. 

The next day she asked if we could do it again. My daughter asked to read! Of course, she also told me she was excited to finish the book and get her money. 

We are now on day three of cozy reading before bed. My middle daughter has also picked a book and made her way into the reading fun. It is a very calm way to end the day, and my girls are reading a lot. They don't want to stop. Probably because they don't want to go to bed, but I will take it.

Of course, this most likely won't work forever. In a few days or weeks, I will have to find some new way of getting my kids to read. I am not sure what the next step will be, but I will find it. I just want them to read until they fall in love with reading. I believe with all my heart, that if they read enough they too will fall in love with reading.

My point in sharing this (very long) story is that it doesn't matter what you have to do - just get your kids reading. Reading is not fun for a struggling reader. It just isn't. If I had to read Spanish I could probably muscle through some elementary stuff, but I would hate every minute of it. The catch-22 is that the only way to get better at reading (or reading Spanish) is to keep doing it... a lot. So, whatever you have to do to get your kids to read, do it. Bribe them, cuddle them, or try anything else you can think of. If it doesn't work, try something else. 

Being a strong reader is the key to success in school. Everything in school revolves around reading. A struggling reader is a struggling student. Luckily we know the solution. Read. A lot. 

* One last thing. I didn't talk about possible learning disorders in this post. If you think your child may have a significant problem learning to read or with reading talk to your child's teacher and/or pediatrician.

5th Grade Interactive Notebooks for Engage New York

I am very excited to report that I have started working on the fifth grade interactive notebooks for Engage New York. Some of you may be saying, "Hey, what about finishing the fourth grade notebooks?" Well, I have a guy who helps me digitize my ideas. He is working away on the fourth grade modules, so I decided to start fifth grade while I wait to get his work back.

I am having a lot of fun working on the fifth grade curriculum. I think I like it so much because I have worked with the second, third, and fourth grade units first. I can see the progression, and it makes so much sense! I highly recommend spending some time doing this, if you can. I will be posting about it as soon as I can as well. I just find it fascinating. Plus, if I have a student who is having trouble, we can just back it down to where he has a solid foundation and move up from there. I know this is something we should be doing anyway, but I often had trouble knowing the progression well enough to use it in a meaningful way.

So, fifth grade starts out with place value (same as fourth grade and third grade I think). The place value chart has expanded to show millions through thousandths. It has a decimal point in it. I think this was introduced in fourth grade. Students then learn/review multiplying by tens, hundreds, and thousands. They also work on dividing by tens, hundreds, and thousands.

If you look closely, you can see that when we move to the left we multiply by tens, and when we move to the right we divide by tens. This is the same as fourth grade, so kids should be able to stretch their thinking to include the tenths, hundredths, and thousands.

Something new in this first topic is exponents. I think Engage New York does a nice job of showing the kids that they have already been using exponents when they multiply by ten multiple times. However, some kids may need more practice with this idea. If I can, I will put together something. If you know of a resource already out there, please share it in the comments.

Finally, I really like how the last lesson or two brings everything back to the metric system. We can just layer the names of each unit of measurement on the place value chart and suddenly we are working with measurement and real objects. It makes so much sense to me. Again, some kids will get it really quickly, and others will need more practice. If you have a great resource for this, put it in the comments.

So, this is just Topic A of Module 1 for the fifth grade math unit. I have completed my notes for Topic B, and I will be putting them into computer form today. I might not get it all done because I am teaching some of my fellow teachers how to get started on Teachers pay Teachers, and I have an interview later today. I had been planning on just doing TpT and TN next year, but an opportunity came up that I just couldn't refuse. I will have a lot of freedom in my classroom to try out all my crazy ideas. Hopefully, it works out, and I will be able to share what I am doing in my classroom with you all. If it doesn't work out, that is okay too. I have a notebook full of things I need to be working on.

The fifth grade modules are not for sale yet, but stay tuned!

Self-Directed Learning

Growing up I loved the idea of school, but I hated actually going to school. I hated getting up early, and I spent a lot of my school day waiting. Waiting for kids to finish reading, waiting for the teacher to give instructions, waiting for the day to be over.

Now I was by no means good at everything in school, but one area that was easy for me was reading. I loved reading and read all the time at home (and I mean, all the time). At school we would all learn reading together - 30 kids at once. I remember listening to kids struggle to sound out words from a book we were all reading together. It was torture - all I wanted to do was race ahead to see what happened next, but I couldn't because I could get called on to read at any time. It was painful.

This is the image I always hold in my head when I am planning my own lessons. I literally ask myself, Will this be painful for anyone?

Lately, I have felt the need to take this belief even further. I started reading about a school called Acton Academy based out of Austin. They do a lot of independent learning using technology. One of the many things I admire about this school is that kids are working at their own pace, and on things that they care about. People always work much harder when they have chosen their task.

I began working on ways to implement these ideas into my own classroom even though we are not yet a 1-1 school.

I started by organizing the resources in my room, so kids could have access to anything they needed to learn. That included games in plastic shoe boxes, office supplies in a central location, and a file cabinet organized for student use.

Finally, I turned one of our bulletin boards into our "Hero's Quest Board". The idea of the student as a hero is something I borrowed from Acton. We study cultures in third grade, so I put up paper continents and then printed out a picture of a famous place from each continent. I labeled each picture with one of the seven most important things we would be learning this trimester - writing paragraphs, information writing, answering questions about what we read, reading fluently, fractions, and two more I can't think of right now. I will post a picture of the board when I get back to school. As kids master concepts their names are put up on that part of the quest. By the end of the trimester, every name should be up on the board.

My room was ready for students to make choices and get learning, but were my students ready? After all, these are eight year old who had always been in a traditional classroom where the teacher tells you what to do, and you do it.

I needed one more piece to keep students accountable. I decided on the standards that we would be working on during the winter trimester and typed them up in kid friendly language.

Next, I made student planning sheets. Students pick the standard they are working toward meeting and right it in the learning target column. Then, they decide what they will do to work on that standard and write it in the activity column. After they have completed the activity, they write a reflection thinking about what they learned and how they worked.

Before I make copies of the sheet for the day I write the mini-lessons I will be teaching the entire class on each sheet. I keep it to less than four mini-lessons and try not to spend more than ten minutes talking for each mini-lesson.

After a week of using the sheets I found that I also wanted the kids to reflect on their behavior throughout the day to give mom and dad more information about what was happening at school. Also, my reminders to kids don't seem to change their behavior as fast as their own reflection on it. So, now on the back of each student planning page is a behavior page.

I am really happy with how these changes have affected my students and my classroom. I feel like I am making a difference every day because I am spending less time on classroom management and more time helping kids learn. Plus, the kids are motivated to master concepts, and that motivation is the key to success.

Teaching Fractions

Third grade is a big fractions year. Last year my third graders came to me having a very solid understanding of fractions. This year... not so much. It wasn't that they had misconceptions - they just didn't know anything about fractions.

Luckily, they did come to me with very solid number sense. Our school is in its third year of common core standards and it shows with these kids. They have a deep understanding of numbers and how they can be manipulated under different circumstances.

I think this understanding is a big part of their success with this brand new concept. It is also my third year teaching fractions which hopefully means that I am teaching them better as well.

We started fractions last week with fraction strips. I have a magnetic set of fraction strips on the board and the kids were given paper to fold/cut. I let the kids who felt confident work independently. The rest of the class joined me on the carpet for some fun folding time.

First came halves. That was easy - fold the paper in half and then cut along the fold. We ended up with two equal pieces or two halves. Then we were ready for fourths. We folded a piece of paper in half and cut it again. Then we folded these two pieces in half and cut them. Four equal pieces or fourths. Repeat with eighths.

Then we get to thirds. That was tough. I did my best to show them how to place the ends of the paper on top of each other until they lined up in three equal pieces. Some of the kids got it, and some weren't ready yet. :) After thirds we folded sixths.

For homework that night they took home a worksheet from Super Teacher Worksheets on basic fractions - one piece out of six colored in means 1/6.

As a side note - I love Super Teacher Worksheets. I use them all the time for homework or class practice. They have worksheets on a ton of topics and fun worksheets for early finishers.

Anyway, once we were clear on what a fraction was (it took us about two days) we were ready to move on to equivalent fractions. We talked a lot about how equivalent meant the same size. They were able to find equivalent fractions using fraction strips. We have a class set of the plastic fraction strips from Lakeshore Learning. This was very helpful because we found that many of the students' paper fraction strips did not have equal pieces.

We used the fraction strips to compare fractions as well. In about a week and a half my students went from knowing basically nothing about fractions to being able to find equivalent fractions and compare fractions using the fraction strips. Unfortunately they can't use the fraction strips on any testing, so we would have to move away from these manipulatives.

We spent some time drawing fractions (halves, fourths, eighths, thirds, and sixths) on rectangles. We haven't done circles yet, but we will. Rectangles alone are very difficult for my students. They always have to ask me if they have equal pieces. It makes me wonder, can they not see if they are equal or not? My best guess is that they know it isn't very equal, but they want to know if the pieces are equal enough. :)

This week we moved on to numbers on a number line. I am embarrassed to say it, but this has been a weak point in my teaching the past couple of years. Both years I thought the kids would understand it right away, but they didn't. Then, it was really hard to figure out where they were having trouble. I just gave them too much at once I think.

So, this year I was really careful with how I introduced fractions. We started with an organic number line. I don't know where the original idea came from for the organic number line, but it is something we borrowed last year during a planning day. I had already started teaching fractions on a number line before we had the planning day, so we only started using the organic number line after struggling with fractions.

The idea of the organic number line is that the students build it. I strung a piece of string across a bulletin board in the classroom. Then I talked about how the number line is a model to show our thinking about fractions. I related it to a rectangle as we placed 0/2 and 2/2. Then a student placed 1/2 right in the middle.

We were ready for a challenge, so some students placed the fourths as well. It was amazing to hear the comments from students as we worked. They were making connections between what they already knew and the number line. They made predictions about where other fractions would go. They were able to kindly explain why a specific placement was right or wrong. They were incredible sticklers for having equal spaces between the numbers. I may have created some monsters.

Our number lines continue to go well. I skipped the first lessons in Engage New York (or Eureka Math) for Module 5 (Fractions) because I didn't think they made a lot of sense. The number line part of the module is really strong, so we used lessons 14-20 to study number lines in addition to the organic number line.

Next week we will continue with the Engage NY lessons - we need to cover lessons 18 - 20 - and then we will start working on comparing fractions and finding equivalent fractions using number lines. I personally think that the number line is the easiest model for students to draw well (and quickly), so I think this will be an important step in our fractions unit.

One other thing I did for the fractions unit was to make a fraction mini-book for every student. It covers every standard that they are expected to know under common core.

You can visit the product page my clicking the picture below.

Well, that is where we are with fractions right now. We have also been playing some games. I will post about those another time.

Have a great weekend!

Talkative Classroom

Let me start this post by saying that I am incredibly lucky this year. My students are kind to each other (and me), they try their best all day long, and they say funny things that make me laugh. The downside of having such a fun class is that they love to talk. More than that, they can't seem to stop talking. Ever. Sometimes they aren't even talking to another person. They talk to themselves. Sing to themselves. Hum to themselves. All. day. long.

I have spent the last two months of school constantly saying, "Please don't talk to your neighbor right now." "No talking, please." "Zero voices." They always stop right away, but a few minutes later I have to remind them again. It was driving me bananas. And I am guessing they didn't like it either.

I remembered an app I used last year that showed our class volume on a meter, but I couldn't find it. Luckily,  found something better.

Too Noisy Pro's screen looks like this, and the meter moves as the volume of the class changes. The class earns stars when their noise level is in the green, and a warning goes off when the noise gets to the red. The meter is very sensitive, so it keeps the kids whispering which is perfect.

You, as the teacher, can set how long students have to be quiet to earn each star, at what level the warning should go off, and a bunch of other stuff. There are even different backgrounds and meters to choose from.

My students loved being able to see their volume on the meter. As I said above, they really are great kids and they want to be quiet - I just don't think they knew how loud they were. The best part of using the meter is that I don't have to remind them to be quiet. This app made Friday such a great day for all of us! I am hoping it works again next week.

If you are thinking that your kids would get tired of this little gimmick, you are probably right. I built this into our existing classroom management system. Actually, the kids suggested it. Every time the kids get all seven stars on the screen a giant star pops up. You then need to start over with the meter. Well, when a giant star pops up in my classroom, a kid jumps out of his or her seat, resets the meter and adds a smilely face to our class tally (smileys for awesome behavior, sad faces for unexpected behavior). If we have more smilelys at the end of the day we get to do something fun. More sad faces and we need to build or working stamina. The only time my kids get more sad faces is when they are having a chatty day. Friday they got five smileys and no sad faces!

Anyway, I hope this tip helps! I know that I have Googled what to do about a noisy classroom and I have had a hard time finding something I could try the next day. You can definitely try this the next day. (PS - There is a free version, but I happily paid the $3.99 for the "PRO" version.)

My First Video Lesson on YouTube!

I have been wanting to start making lesson on YouTube for a long time. Even before one of the panels at the Teachers Pay Teachers conference said it was a good marketing strategy. I tried working with a computer interface - like Khan Academy, but it just didn't work well for me. Then, I tried recording myself as I worked on paper. This didn't work either. Finally, many months (if not years) into the process, I decided to just do the videos the way I teach at school - using a whiteboard.

Here is the finished product. It isn't professional by any means, but I think it will be helpful, especially to parents who are trying to understand common core math.

I really enjoyed the entire process of making the video. There will be more to come! 

I will also be publishing a tape diagram product to my store to accompany the video. It will be up soon.

Five for Fraturday 10-3-15

It has been a while since I have been able to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday, and I am so glad that I can share today. I don't know if you are like me, but I always have these great ideas to blog about while I am teaching, and then I either don't have time or forget them by the time I get home. Which leads me to...

Feeling grateful this week. I am always so busy and our house is always on the verge of being a mess (or an actual mess), but I am really trying to focus on the good stuff that this means. For example, I am always busy because I have a job that I love that I want to give 100% to. I also have a wonderful family with kids who are healthy and happy. Who would complain about either of these two things? And my house is a lot of work to take care of, but I have a house. We all (my family) has a safe and cozy place to come home to every night. That is definitely not worth complaining about.

We have had some stress at school lately, kids are moving around - two teachers had to switch grade levels. It was easy to get caught up in the chaos. I really had to work to remind myself that everything was going to be okay. This was not a tragedy. The kids being moved would become a part of their new classroom communities, and the teachers being moved would figure things out too. I am finding that there isn't really very much that we should be getting stressed about in our lives. Trust me, I still feel plenty of stress, but I am trying to cut back. :)

At school this week we started learning about the distributive property of multiplication using Engage NY Grade 3, Module 1. Last year I made a mess of this for my students. It was so weird to me that I was fumbling my way through it with them. As a result, I didn't feel like my students understood it the way they should have. This year, we are taking our time. We will be working on models and the distributive property all next week. I have going to be busy this weekend making worksheets and activities to help them become distributive property masters.

On Friday my class was able to do a really fun art project. Last year my mom traveled to southern India. While she was there she saw women decorating the dirt in front of their homes with amazing designs using chalk. She bought some stencils for the patterns and loose chalk and gave them to my kids when she got back. My kids loved making the designs.

Since our third grade team teaches cultures around the world I thought it would be a perfect activity for a Friday. My students loved it, and our principal even told the school about it over morning announcements. We had kids admiring our work all day. As you can see, it wasn't perfect (and it was definitely messy!), but we got to do some true learning. Next week, when I give them a reading passage about Kolam (the art we did), I know that all of my students will have the necessary background knowledge to understand it.

This was the first week that my husband and I have had a date night courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law. She has offered to come over every Thursday evening, so Chris and I can go out alone. It was amazing to sit and have a conversation - that doesn't happen very often with four kids running around. We ate delicious Mexican food, had drinks, and really enjoyed ourselves.

Do you use learning targets in your school? My guess is yes. Our school is all about learning targets. This summer I read something I found really interesting about learning targets in Why Kids Don't Like School. The author wrote that giving kids the "I can" statement is kind of like giving them an unwrapped gift. You still get the good thing that you want, but the reason we wrap gifts is the surprise of it. That is what makes getting gifts fun. 

So, instead of writing an "I can" statement, the book recommends posing a question. For example, instead of "I can use the distributive property to solve multiplication problems." I write "What is the distributive property, and how can I use it to solve multiplication problems?" If you are like me your brain wakes up at the question. It is like a puzzle that my brain wants to solve. I immediately start making guesses about what we are going to be doing. 

I have been writing questions instead of statements all year, and I really think that it is helping to build a curious culture in my classroom. I highly recommend you try it.

Also, as a bonus #6, make sure you look at my post on sharpening colored pencils. If you have a classroom, I am betting this has been a issue for you. I have found something that works for me, and it is so simple!

Have a great week everyone!