3B Blog News from Mrs. Kerian: Back to Reality and Summers End

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Back to Reality and Summers End - for Me

I am sitting here at our family cabin enjoying the morning sunshine thinking about what tomorrow brings. . . .a class and return to school to prepare for a new year! Am I excited? Yes. Am I sad to see summer end? Yes. Even though we, as teachers, have a summer vacation, I doubt any of us would say school is never on our mind during the break. With classes to take and books to read, there is really never a break for a teacher in my mind. I am excited about this upcoming year as I have been building my "learning" this summer and will be trying various new activities, techniques, and structures with my class of 3rd graders. Four of the many professional books that I read recently are The Morning Meeting Book, Habitudes, and The Daily Five/The Cafe. Each with wonderful ideas and messages in them about various aspects of education. The other component of education that I am very excited about is the use of technology and all it has to offer! As you can see, I have ventured into blogging and love it! The students in my class this year will be blogging through a "bloggers cafe" I plan to set up in the classroom, hopefully blogging with other 3rd graders around the US or world. We will also utilize a "Blogger of the Day" to blog about what's happening in our classroom for parents and friends to read and follow. Exciting! We will continue using podcast as well, with the hope of using videocasting (cross your fingers we figure that out). I am also eagerly hunting for different grants to apply for as I would love to get some iTouches for the students to use in the classroom. There is just so much out there that it is an exciting time to be in education! And yes, truth be told, I am a "twitter" junky- but there is so much information out there to be shared among PLNs! Love it!

So, as I sit here watching my children on the lake (delaying cleaning the cabin and finishing the laundry), I am teary eyed to see the great week we have had at the family cabin come to an end but am motivated and excited to start a new school year! It has been a superb summer and I know it will be a wonderful school year. Enjoying every moment - that's what life is about!

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Reading Comprehension Strategies

Inferencing: Experienced readers make inferences as they read. Readers use what they already know and think about what they have read to construct meaning. The reader should ask themselves, "What I already know in my brain" and "What did I just read or see?" to make an inferences that is not stated by the author of person.

Determining Important Information: Determining important information is a strategy that helps us pick out the most important ideas we read. The first line of a paragraph may say the main idea of the page, but a reader should read through the details to decide what is the important information. The reader should ask themselves, "What is the author trying to teach me?"

Summarize: A summary is a paragraph or a statement in your own words that gives the most important ideas from what you have read. Readers determine important information, make inferences, and visualize when summarizing. We use the graphic organizer of "Somebody....Wanted....But....So.....Then....". "Somebody" is the character. "Wanted" would be the what the character wanted. "But" would be the problem. "So" would be how the problem was solved, and "Then" would be the resolution or end.

Predicting:When a reader predicts, they use information from the text along with their own knowledge and experiences to make thoughtful or informed guesses about what will happen in the text. When your child is reading at home, encourage them to stop and share predictions he/she may have as they are reading.

Identifying Text Structure: Recognizing how a piece of writing is organized can help readers understand what is happening. There can be different ways a text is structured.

* Sequential - in order

* Cause and Effect

* Question / Answer

* Steps in a Process

When reading at home, discuss how the text is organized and structure.

Ask and Answer Questions: Experienced readers ask questions about the text in order to understand what they are reading. Asking questions helps readers visualize, monitor comprehension and determine important information. Answers to these questions may be found in the text, or put together from the reader's own experience. At home, parents can encourage students to stop and ask questions while they read and recognize when answers are within the text or needed to be answered by own experience.

Paraphrasing: When readers paraphrase, they tell main ideas using their own words. This helps them check their understanding of what they have read. At home, parents can encourage their student to read a selection, flip the book over, and tell them main ideas from their reading in their own words. Flip the book back over and read another section or page before flipping it over again and paraphrasing his/her reading.

3B Blog News from Mrs. Kerian

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Back to Reality and Summers End - for Me

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