I walked by our executive teacher's office (I know, that's a topic for another entry!), and on her desk was a photo-copied (I've quit saying Xerox copied, cuz they all laugh at me for saying odd things) version of Linda Hoyt's Revisit, Reflect, Retell. I came to a screeching stop and smiled so big! It's like walking down the aisle in the grocery store and seeing the little roll packages of Oreos! A sign from Home!!
I found Deb and exclaimed how I was thrilled to see her interested in Linda as well! She spoke of her vaguely that she seemed like a very interesting educator and she was just learning about her. Ahhhh!
I tried to not leap out of my seat and blabble on and on about loving all of her books, going to numerous sessions, interviewing her for special projects in grad school, and how she was once upon a time a lowly teacher at Sunrise Elementary!!!!! I restrained myself and mentioned how I'd brought many of her response sheets from Re,Re, and Re with me here and how her videos are certainly worth purchasing. I did mention she was a Portland girl . . .
It's a small literacy world. Let the revisiting begin!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Maths
Yes, I said 'Maths.' That's the first difference. This was, initially, the most confusing part for me, the maths program. Now that I'm rolling along, there is nothing to it, and I'm finding it very fun. I may have touched on this in months past here on the blog, but I'm finally able to put into words how I do maths each week.
Albany has made an effort to streamline our math curriculum per grade. That is, breadth, not depth, is the catch phrase. So, we are to teach a certain number of strands over a term before we change to the next set for the next term.
Here the strands are taught, perhaps two per week, and then reviewed (or "revised") throughout the following terms. So at first, to see a practice page of "mentals" that included 4 - 5 strands at once seemed very overwhelming. My mind was thinking, I have to teach a lesson for all five before I can give them this! Well, they are basically already aware of all 5. It's up to me to review and extend each of the five. I know that now!
It was a switch to come into a maths program and not be familiar with the materials. That is, I'm used to knowing what's in my cupboards to pull from, which resource book I can get more fraction pages from, which teacher still has my Judy clocks, which of my math story books goes with counting coins, etc. I brought quite a bit of Kim Sutton materials with me, including double dice, place value dice, resource books and CDs, to leave for my partner when I go. Hopefully she is using mine in Albany and loving them as much as I do.
I'm lucky to have a wonderful volunteer in the room two mornings a week. She loves being with us, and I love having her, so I'm set! Tuesdays are rotating math groups, a la Liberty with Mrs. Ramsey and Mrs. Mathios! We're able to pre-teach, re-teach, and give some manipulative/building time to the kids.
I'm also lucky to have one of two resource persons who comes 5 days a week for an hour. He or she is assigned to help my aboriginal students. One is truly low, and benefits from an independent learning program that comes from me (no Mr. Nimmo equivolent here). My second student just needs a lot of one on one to focus and buy in. Beautiful boys, both of them.
The kids work from a big glossy maths book, again, a new strand for every page. So I go through and lump the strands I think we could practice with and group teach the graphing pages, the spatial pages, and the intro to multiplication pages.
We teach the same material with a few exceptions. In Albany we would be teaching double digit add/sub with regrouping. I don't see that in the maths book here. Instead, they are asked to consider 'groups of' like I used to do with my third graders. Spatial relationships are taught in the maths book, for example, in front of, behind, etc. Describing properties is also a topic they learn, such as curly, smooth, bumpy, rounded, and straight. Time is only taught to the hour and half hour here. In Albany we ask they know to the minute by the end of second grade. The money, of course, is different, and much easier to teach! No dimes, quarters, and nickels to confuse anyone! But, since there are no pennies, we teach them to round to the nearest 5 cents! No one seems to mind paying the clerk .40 cents when the price tag quoted .38 cents! Who in the U.S. wants to pay more than the price tag says?? No worries, mate.
Yes, the entire class is in the room at the same time. No grouping here. We buddy a lot and coach each other. The small groups are invaluable. I've gone to mostly small group work each day with a practice page and fix and finish time. Kim's dice games save the day. When they finish, there is almost always an option to begin a dice game. We do number chats on the overhead and record in a maths booklet/journal. I think it would be correct to say, with the exception of my one "lowbie," that I have no "low" maths students. I have those that aren't motivated or confident (my girls :( ). I have the naughty bodies, for sure, who can certainly do the work, but who are distracted, distractible, and/or distracting. Put them all in a small group for this or that, and they shine. Assessments may take them for-ev-er, but they can do the work. It's a juggling act, but with Kim Sutton by my side, I love maths every day, and the hour flies.
Albany has made an effort to streamline our math curriculum per grade. That is, breadth, not depth, is the catch phrase. So, we are to teach a certain number of strands over a term before we change to the next set for the next term.
Here the strands are taught, perhaps two per week, and then reviewed (or "revised") throughout the following terms. So at first, to see a practice page of "mentals" that included 4 - 5 strands at once seemed very overwhelming. My mind was thinking, I have to teach a lesson for all five before I can give them this! Well, they are basically already aware of all 5. It's up to me to review and extend each of the five. I know that now!
It was a switch to come into a maths program and not be familiar with the materials. That is, I'm used to knowing what's in my cupboards to pull from, which resource book I can get more fraction pages from, which teacher still has my Judy clocks, which of my math story books goes with counting coins, etc. I brought quite a bit of Kim Sutton materials with me, including double dice, place value dice, resource books and CDs, to leave for my partner when I go. Hopefully she is using mine in Albany and loving them as much as I do.
I'm lucky to have a wonderful volunteer in the room two mornings a week. She loves being with us, and I love having her, so I'm set! Tuesdays are rotating math groups, a la Liberty with Mrs. Ramsey and Mrs. Mathios! We're able to pre-teach, re-teach, and give some manipulative/building time to the kids.
I'm also lucky to have one of two resource persons who comes 5 days a week for an hour. He or she is assigned to help my aboriginal students. One is truly low, and benefits from an independent learning program that comes from me (no Mr. Nimmo equivolent here). My second student just needs a lot of one on one to focus and buy in. Beautiful boys, both of them.
The kids work from a big glossy maths book, again, a new strand for every page. So I go through and lump the strands I think we could practice with and group teach the graphing pages, the spatial pages, and the intro to multiplication pages.
We teach the same material with a few exceptions. In Albany we would be teaching double digit add/sub with regrouping. I don't see that in the maths book here. Instead, they are asked to consider 'groups of' like I used to do with my third graders. Spatial relationships are taught in the maths book, for example, in front of, behind, etc. Describing properties is also a topic they learn, such as curly, smooth, bumpy, rounded, and straight. Time is only taught to the hour and half hour here. In Albany we ask they know to the minute by the end of second grade. The money, of course, is different, and much easier to teach! No dimes, quarters, and nickels to confuse anyone! But, since there are no pennies, we teach them to round to the nearest 5 cents! No one seems to mind paying the clerk .40 cents when the price tag quoted .38 cents! Who in the U.S. wants to pay more than the price tag says?? No worries, mate.
Yes, the entire class is in the room at the same time. No grouping here. We buddy a lot and coach each other. The small groups are invaluable. I've gone to mostly small group work each day with a practice page and fix and finish time. Kim's dice games save the day. When they finish, there is almost always an option to begin a dice game. We do number chats on the overhead and record in a maths booklet/journal. I think it would be correct to say, with the exception of my one "lowbie," that I have no "low" maths students. I have those that aren't motivated or confident (my girls :( ). I have the naughty bodies, for sure, who can certainly do the work, but who are distracted, distractible, and/or distracting. Put them all in a small group for this or that, and they shine. Assessments may take them for-ev-er, but they can do the work. It's a juggling act, but with Kim Sutton by my side, I love maths every day, and the hour flies.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Teachers Federation Council Meeting, Sydney
I was invited as a Special Observer by my school's union rep to attend the Federation meeting in Sydney on Saturday. With the tug and pull over their state testing last month, I was very curious to see how their organization operates. When the meeting began, I was welcomed by the president in his welcome speech, but not waved to or put on the spot, thank heavens! With so many surprises and unknowns in this experience, I was glad this one came off without embarrassment or stuttered "thank you it's a pleasure to be here" input by me!! Whew! I could sink into my squishy auditorium chair and soak it all in. I didn't catch everything, I must say. I either couldn't understand the accents in the microphone (telephone conversations are the same for me and for Australians listening to me, too, I've learned) or my rep was translating or explaining details of the organization to me as we went along.
The meeting opened with "Questions Without Notice," and included reps from all over the state raising concerns and asking for the Federation's input. One such question involved violence in the schools, both physical and verbal, student to student or student to teacher. The recommendation was that notes should be taken and incidents documented, but at this time the Parliment (and therefore the Federation) was not making any decision or taking any actions on this topic. I hate to think that something big needs to happen before someone does "take any action."
I also attended the Women's Caucus, which, besides serving Cheerios and toast with Vegemite at a table that resembled our kitchen counter any given morning with cereal bowls, milk bottles, and coffee mugs, included discussions around lactation breaks, equal pay, and percentages of women in principal jobs and executive council positions. With such a relaxed-looking meeting, complete with baby strollers parked here and there, I expected a relaxed agenda. On the contrary it was the most efficiently-run meeting I have attended since landing here! These women knew how to get business done!
The Israeli attacks on humanitarian activists was discussed in detail during the full council meeting. One Australian teacher who had been on exchange in Palestine gave her emotional account of students living with 2 hours of electricity a day. One student would do his homework under one of the security lights he found. For me it was interesting to hear world-wide politics being discussed with respect to the women and children involved and what Australia's education system's responsibility might be to support them.
One council member asked for reps with personal stories from their schools on how the state tests have affected their teaching, curriculum decisions, moral, etc. to jot them down and submit them to her as a data collection process. Anyone with verbal descriptions was welcome to meet her in the lobby to discuss. I followed her out and asked if I could listen in as a fly on the wall, since we have the very same issues in the states. Sure enough, rep after rep came to discuss the woes of teaching to the test and using the test as the teaching resource for grammar, writing genres, or comprehension. They complained of non-English students not having the experiences or vocabulary to draw upon. They talked of abandoning math games as a form of skill practice for more traditional skill drills. Sound familiar? What they don't have yet, however, is any of the computer details to work out. The tests are still given paper and pencil, with boxes stacked in the principal's office for each section.
No answers, just more of the same it seems. But it was acknowledged that the moratorium of last month, no testing if league tables are to be published, was the tip of the iceberg. That is, my thoughts had been, league tables? That's nothin'! Wait till the real issues surface and the real fight needs to be fought. But they do see the real fight coming. It's just in slow motion still here.
I was interested to learn that teachers are given pay increases for experience in industry and that years home with family are counted as half year in teaching field. To my knowledge no allowance is made for life experience in our Oregeon district, whether it be in the workplace or at home.
I also learned that the teachers' federation treats their Special Observers very nicely and that may be the only time I get to have such swanky quarters when I stay in Sydney!
Don't know how I can use this to change the U.S. world. Let me know if you have thoughts on it.
The meeting opened with "Questions Without Notice," and included reps from all over the state raising concerns and asking for the Federation's input. One such question involved violence in the schools, both physical and verbal, student to student or student to teacher. The recommendation was that notes should be taken and incidents documented, but at this time the Parliment (and therefore the Federation) was not making any decision or taking any actions on this topic. I hate to think that something big needs to happen before someone does "take any action."
I also attended the Women's Caucus, which, besides serving Cheerios and toast with Vegemite at a table that resembled our kitchen counter any given morning with cereal bowls, milk bottles, and coffee mugs, included discussions around lactation breaks, equal pay, and percentages of women in principal jobs and executive council positions. With such a relaxed-looking meeting, complete with baby strollers parked here and there, I expected a relaxed agenda. On the contrary it was the most efficiently-run meeting I have attended since landing here! These women knew how to get business done!
The Israeli attacks on humanitarian activists was discussed in detail during the full council meeting. One Australian teacher who had been on exchange in Palestine gave her emotional account of students living with 2 hours of electricity a day. One student would do his homework under one of the security lights he found. For me it was interesting to hear world-wide politics being discussed with respect to the women and children involved and what Australia's education system's responsibility might be to support them.
One council member asked for reps with personal stories from their schools on how the state tests have affected their teaching, curriculum decisions, moral, etc. to jot them down and submit them to her as a data collection process. Anyone with verbal descriptions was welcome to meet her in the lobby to discuss. I followed her out and asked if I could listen in as a fly on the wall, since we have the very same issues in the states. Sure enough, rep after rep came to discuss the woes of teaching to the test and using the test as the teaching resource for grammar, writing genres, or comprehension. They complained of non-English students not having the experiences or vocabulary to draw upon. They talked of abandoning math games as a form of skill practice for more traditional skill drills. Sound familiar? What they don't have yet, however, is any of the computer details to work out. The tests are still given paper and pencil, with boxes stacked in the principal's office for each section.
No answers, just more of the same it seems. But it was acknowledged that the moratorium of last month, no testing if league tables are to be published, was the tip of the iceberg. That is, my thoughts had been, league tables? That's nothin'! Wait till the real issues surface and the real fight needs to be fought. But they do see the real fight coming. It's just in slow motion still here.
I was interested to learn that teachers are given pay increases for experience in industry and that years home with family are counted as half year in teaching field. To my knowledge no allowance is made for life experience in our Oregeon district, whether it be in the workplace or at home.
I also learned that the teachers' federation treats their Special Observers very nicely and that may be the only time I get to have such swanky quarters when I stay in Sydney!
Don't know how I can use this to change the U.S. world. Let me know if you have thoughts on it.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Reading
First thing each morning we spend an hour with reading materials of some kind. The school has sets of readers in a leveled series. The children are "benchmarked" with the program's running record system. Then I group the children and teach my own class.
I decided to have 4 different groups of 4 - 7 students in the room, and one student who works on his own at a very low level with volunteers each day. I collect sets of little books from the Book Closet where they are stored. I check them out and return them when finished for everyone else (K-6) to use if needed. Each group reads one book over 2 weeks. The teachers agree that the books have been there for many years and are well overdue to be replaced. If so, it would be done with our school's budget, and of course cost plenty.
To be honest, this is the first time in all my years of teaching that I've taught reading to my own class all by myself. Even in the 1980's, our reading group rotated every two weeks to a new teacher. I've had a chance now to put into practice all the many management techniques, strategies, and purposeful activities I've learned about over the years! Thank heavens for wonderful volunteers!!
I spend time over the 2 weeks on vocabulary, strategies, grammar, and enrichment between the 4 groups. I'm given the books, but the materials I make myself. Without many community committments, a large house, and extended family nearby, I have the time to make it all in the evenings!! I'm also thankful I brought with me Linda Hoyt and Sharon Taberski resources.
I'm able to use Book Bags with the children at least once a week. The children have an individual folder of a checklist, a book they've chosen from a leveled basket I've prepared, and a response sheet. They are involved reading, retelling to a friend, responding on the strategy we're focusing on, and editing their work. I meet with them one by one to check over their work, listen to them read, and chat about books and their interests. The children love the independence of these, and I love the anecdotal notes I gain from our conferences.
We also have an SRA box where the children choose from a variety of stories in a leveled color. They self test and correct with me. I use this once a week.
Each class has a collection of Home Readers that the children check out each afternoon to take home and read that evening. There are maybe 4 - 5 students who actually trade books regularly. And guess what? They read well! But you knew that.
I am responsible to keep the running records on the students, and I move the children to a different group, depending on their progress.
We are given professional development at school twice a month and we discuss strategies and strands to cover on a regular basis. The teachers k - 2 discuss literacy activities and we share many ideas together.
Also, there is one and one half (!) Reading Recovery for the very low readers. They work with one or two students at a time. Only my very lowest reader has this help 3 times a week for 1/2 hour.
Besides the reading hour, I read a novel aloud at the end of the day. I also break for stories whenever possible and always with the science and social studies theme.
Are they progressing? Yes. I wish it was more, though. I have two who haven't budged. They aren't progressing like I believe they could be. There are always those kids, right? We're not quite half way through the year, so I've got time to push them along.
I'm really missing the literature that I know so well and the ability to match kids with books for their level. I spend time in the library, but there are many many titles I'm not familiar with. I'm helping the children learn to choose books that are a good fit for their own reading level, but I'm not confident that I'm providing the right books for them to choose from. True confessions.
I've also had the crazy thought of designing my own mini A.R. program with a point system. I never thought I'd say that. But it could just be the hook I need for my reluctant boys, particularly. Hmmm. I'm still tossing that one around in my head . . .
I decided to have 4 different groups of 4 - 7 students in the room, and one student who works on his own at a very low level with volunteers each day. I collect sets of little books from the Book Closet where they are stored. I check them out and return them when finished for everyone else (K-6) to use if needed. Each group reads one book over 2 weeks. The teachers agree that the books have been there for many years and are well overdue to be replaced. If so, it would be done with our school's budget, and of course cost plenty.
To be honest, this is the first time in all my years of teaching that I've taught reading to my own class all by myself. Even in the 1980's, our reading group rotated every two weeks to a new teacher. I've had a chance now to put into practice all the many management techniques, strategies, and purposeful activities I've learned about over the years! Thank heavens for wonderful volunteers!!
I spend time over the 2 weeks on vocabulary, strategies, grammar, and enrichment between the 4 groups. I'm given the books, but the materials I make myself. Without many community committments, a large house, and extended family nearby, I have the time to make it all in the evenings!! I'm also thankful I brought with me Linda Hoyt and Sharon Taberski resources.
I'm able to use Book Bags with the children at least once a week. The children have an individual folder of a checklist, a book they've chosen from a leveled basket I've prepared, and a response sheet. They are involved reading, retelling to a friend, responding on the strategy we're focusing on, and editing their work. I meet with them one by one to check over their work, listen to them read, and chat about books and their interests. The children love the independence of these, and I love the anecdotal notes I gain from our conferences.
We also have an SRA box where the children choose from a variety of stories in a leveled color. They self test and correct with me. I use this once a week.
Each class has a collection of Home Readers that the children check out each afternoon to take home and read that evening. There are maybe 4 - 5 students who actually trade books regularly. And guess what? They read well! But you knew that.
I am responsible to keep the running records on the students, and I move the children to a different group, depending on their progress.
We are given professional development at school twice a month and we discuss strategies and strands to cover on a regular basis. The teachers k - 2 discuss literacy activities and we share many ideas together.
Also, there is one and one half (!) Reading Recovery for the very low readers. They work with one or two students at a time. Only my very lowest reader has this help 3 times a week for 1/2 hour.
Besides the reading hour, I read a novel aloud at the end of the day. I also break for stories whenever possible and always with the science and social studies theme.
Are they progressing? Yes. I wish it was more, though. I have two who haven't budged. They aren't progressing like I believe they could be. There are always those kids, right? We're not quite half way through the year, so I've got time to push them along.
I'm really missing the literature that I know so well and the ability to match kids with books for their level. I spend time in the library, but there are many many titles I'm not familiar with. I'm helping the children learn to choose books that are a good fit for their own reading level, but I'm not confident that I'm providing the right books for them to choose from. True confessions.
I've also had the crazy thought of designing my own mini A.R. program with a point system. I never thought I'd say that. But it could just be the hook I need for my reluctant boys, particularly. Hmmm. I'm still tossing that one around in my head . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
