Today my kiddos took their next Star reading test this morning.  We take it at the beginning or end of every trimester to set their new AR goals.  I then usually look at the data, and send home their new goals for parents to approve.

Well, today I didn't have a chance to look at their results before our resource teacher checked them out.  She went and talked to our first grade teacher who is my Daily 5 buddy!  We originally had tried to have daily 5 meetings once a week to talk about what we were doing, but she's got four kids, I have two babies, and it didn't work out.

Needless to say we are both doing it, and loving it.  We are both worried that we aren't meeting everything we need to, but are so glad that we aren't reading the same stories over and over again, and just doing a worksheet to do one.

Well the reason my resource teacher went to talk to the first grade teacher was to talk about how awesome our two classes did!  So far my kids are doing amazing!!  Almost every kid has already shown a year's growth, and my class averaged a 15% increase in their national average!!  That is amazing to me!!  Yes, I still have my low kids, who work with the resource teacher.  I also have my above average kids who I try to challenge, but could probably be teaching us the class.

I am so proud of my kids!!  It is amazing to see such progress, and such growth!  I am so excited for my kids, and to see that our hard work is paying off!  I can't wait to see how they do on the standardized testing in the fall, and to see the growth they should show!!  I am hopeful that our new fourth and second grade teachers will be interested in what we are doing as well so we can try to keep the constancy going!!

Most of my kids are now scoring nationally above 80%, with a few still in the 70s!  I only have two kids, who aren't serviced, who are still in the third grade reading level.  I am so happy we are using the Daily 5, my kids can read any book they like, and they are able to all read at their reading level!!

What tests or ways do you measure your students growth?  I would love to hear new ideas on how to show how much my students have grown!!

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Cassandra

Wow!! What an amazing conference we went to! I need to start by saying that Gail and Joan are amazing presenters and spent a lot of time getting to know the people who came to the conference. At every break we were given they would stand and talk to whoever came up to ask questions.  During lunch they stayed to take pictures with people, and answer questions.  They did the same thing at the end of the day too!! It was great being able to talk with the sisters, and to take our picture with them after.

Our handbook and chime from day 1  - My kids already love this chime and they respond so quickly to it!!

One big piece of research I took from the conference was the 7-10 minute rule. A child's brain can only receive this long of instruction before it is no longer productive, and you'll have to come back to it and reteach. To engage students about every 7-10 minutes you need to shift what you are doing, or how you are doing it. This helps keep your mini lessons shorter. This also helps me with our math rotations to know I've got the first 5 minutes to get the instruction in, and then I need to have them practice that information.

Handbook, notebook, and pen from day 2!

Another huge piece of information was about reading just 10 more minutes a day. They showed this great data of a student who scored in the 50th percentile, and only read 4.2 minutes a day. By just adding 10 minutes of reading a day it increased their score to the 80th percentile!! I shared that with my kids and stressed how important it is that they are reading!!

I love all of the new books we were able to bring home!

We learned so much more, but this is where I will leave you for now. They talked briefly about AR as people were able to ask questions, and they answered them for us. They said AR will be going away soon. How do you feel about this?! Is AR something your school uses, and you support? I'm interested to see what every one else thinks of AR.

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Cassandra

It is taking some time, but I finally am starting to feel like I am getting my feet planted.  We are now done with our second month of school!!  It is hard to believe that we have already been in school for eight weeks, and tomorrow begins week NINE!!  I knew a class of 26 was going to keep me busy, but I never imagined it would keep me this busy!  Having my two kiddos at home keeps me busy at home as well!

My kids are loving the Daily 5!!  So far we are up to the Daily 3.  

They are doing so great with Read to Self, and I am meeting with them all at least once a week individually or in a small group.  My biggest problem is trying to find ways to "assess" them in a way for parents to be happy with a grade on a report card.  I don't want to just give them a grade, I tried to explain it more as progress.  Some parents were okay with it, and some weren't too excited.

 

Word Work they are loving!!  I asked parents to bring in some supplies for us to help out with our Word Work.  I was given one Scrabble set, so the kids love using that one!  It is the one word work option that I always see being put to use.  When I told parents about it during parent teacher conferences last week they said they would get buy us another set, so I'm crossing my fingers!

We did our first formal Work on Writing assignment over the last two weeks.  The students were able to write about their favorite thing they did this summer.  I had kids writing about trips to the Ozarks, Nebraska for the college world series, Broadway to see Annie, and the mall to go shopping!  My kids had a blast with the experience, and loved being able to draw their pictures as well. Parents were excited to see the process too, and I told them at the end of the year they would have a whole collection of writing to look at!

I have been reading aloud to my kids every day, so I feel that counts as Listen to Reading, but I haven't brought out the books on CD yet.  I don't really own any, so that is part of the problem, as well as having the CD players, and headphones available.  It is something that I will work on over time, and hopefully will be able to have up and running by Christmas time?  The kids picked out our last novel I read to them, and they chose Fantastic Mr. Fox.  We are going to watch the movie next week since we will be doing our standardized testing the morning.  I haven't seen the movie yet, but from watching the previews I can already tell how different it is from the novel.  It is going to be a great writing lesson after!!

 I am going to try my best to start posting more often!!  I will have something free for you on Friday, so make sure you come check it out!

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Cassandra