| Curriculum Highlights |
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| Self Selected Reading (SSR) The Self Selected Block provides students with the opportunity to practice reading appropriate level material. In SSR, children get to. . . -choose what they want to read -build background knowledge -read on their own level -develop listening and speaking -share and respond to reading and books vocabularies -talk with their teacher about their books -develop a sense of story -improve their own writing Comprehension The Comprehension Block begins daily with a whole class mini lesson focusing on the area of comprehension the teacher wishes to teach. Following the mini lesson, the children are placed into flexible groups and given a purpose for reading. They work in these small groups, reading and discussing the selection. The guided reading block concludes with the whole class discussing their reading. Comprehension Strategies... -inferencing -monitoring -summarizing -question generating -content words (genre, lead, body, conclusion, etc.) -fact/opinion -using context clues -point of view -making predictions -setting a purpose for reading- good idea to connect purpose for reading with skill addressed in mini-lesson prior. "Read to find out. . . Phonics Block The Phonics Block begins every day with the word wall. The children clap, snap, cheer and write the word wall words for the first 10 minutes. In addition, On the Back activities are completed to help children use these words to write others, such as rhyming words or words with endings added. The remaining 20 minutes of this block are devoted to developing students word attack skills. Activities such as Guess the Covered Word, Be a Mind Reader and Round up the Rhymes help children notice patterns in our language. Once a week, a making words lesson is done. This interactive, hands on activity develops phonemic awareness as children build words with letter tiles. Sorting is also done during this lesson, further developing their recognition of patterns and word families. Goals of the Words Block: 1) Learning high frequency words and commonly misspelled words (to automaticity) 2) Learning 1 & 2 syllable words that follow a pattern, but are used less frequently. 3) Spelling words with 2 or more possible patterns 4) Spelling and decoding polysyllabic words. Especially those with prefixes, suffixes, and roots. 5) Applying strategies while reading and writing. Writer's Workshop Each day in the Writing Block we have a mini lesson which lasts about 10 minutes, based on need as indicated by the children's writing. Generally I use the overhead projector to model the writing process. Some days I write, modeling how I use the word wall to find sight words, or how I sound out words when I'm not sure how to spell them. Other days, I start with a written piece and go through the editing process. Following the mini lesson, the children are writing while I conference. I walk around, or call a group of children over to me. This portion lasts about 20-25 minutes. When time permits, we go longer. We conclude our session with a group share, in which designated tables share a piece of their writing. This could be a finished piece, a draft, or a piece in progress. This is perhaps the most important piece, as it provides the audience for each writer. Generally, I do not use fancy writing books, or even prompts. The writing in my room is as authentic as possible. |
| Language Arts Curriculum: Our current reading curriculum is Open Court Reading by SRA. Teaching reading and writing is my passion so I will often supplement the curriculum to help your child success and Pennsylvania State Standards. For many years I have utilized the Four Blocks framework for teaching language arts in my classroom. There are many ways children can learn to read and write. I have found this to be most effective. Using this method ensures that every child is reached. I will incorporate into this model, 6 Traits Writing and the principles of Differentiating Instruction! Here is more about Four Blocks: |
| Math Curriclum: Currently the district purchased a brand new math series to meet the Pennsylvania State Standards. It will be a new adventure to use this great series!! We will also be using a problem of the day book to prepare students early on to solve word problems. A large goal for first grade is to learn basic adding and subtracting facts by memory! |
| ~~ Learning is a journey....not a destination. ~~ |