Day 3 – PM Session1:00-3:00

OUTCOMESParticipants will increase their knowledge of:1. The Foundations of Reading – COI Publication2. Writing to sources and research;3. Review text complexity with paired texts.

Common Core State Standards

The Foundational Reading Skills

Why the Foundational Skills?

• Explicit and systematic instruction is particularly helpful for students at risk for reading difficulties.

• Children's reading development is dependent on their understanding of the alphabetic principle – the idea that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language. Learning that there are predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows children to apply these relationships to both familiar and unfamiliar words, and to begin to read with fluency.

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Foundational Skills of CCSS

• Please read the COI document.

• Note items in the left hand column are directly from CCSS and are end-of-the year expectations.

• The right hand column are the skills and understandings that underpin the outcomes on the left—the prerequisite skills.

• How can you make use of this document in your classroom? AUDIENCE DISCUSSION - SHARING

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Possible Classroom Uses• To ensure systematic, explicit instruction in a scientific,

developmental sequence;

• Place the skills in an EXCEL document to track an entire class across time and to be able to group based upon need;

• To assess student writing and control over “encoding” skills – planning instruction for spelling.

• Accelerating student development (K-5 continuum)

Analyzing Students’ Writing Using the COI Document

What does their writing show us about their control and understanding of the “encoding” of

the alphabetic language?

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Use the document to assess this students’ writing

Where would a teacher start on the continuum with this young writer?

How does the continuum help you assess this writer?

To develop him as a writer, (adding details) –

Why are they sitting at the table? What will they do next?

Add that to your writing, and I’ll be right back.

This child understands words are separated by spaces in print.

Next:-saying words slowly and “hearing” ending sounds.

Assessing Student Writing and Spelling Page 8Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables;Demonstrate understanding that a vowel team syllable contains two adjacent vowelsbecause

Her Strengths and Next Steps• CONTEXT: This second grade student wrote this in response to a teacher asking

them to write about an animal that lives in one of the habitats they were studying during science.

• STRENGTHS: She has generated an idea about an animal she feels strongly about; she sticks to the topic; she shows a beginning sense of sequencing in her text. She uses the capital letter for “I”.

WHAT DOES SHE NEED TO LEARN NEXT?• She would benefit from seeing different ways to organize factual information. The

teacher may show her different examples of nonfiction animal books. She and her classmates could look at nonfiction text features and try to use them in their own writing (table of contents, captions with pictures, bold words, close-ups, diagrams with labels, an index). She needs to find more information about white sharks, so she has more to say and think about how to organize it in a multi-page format. This would be an effective tie to a nonfiction reading unit. She should be guided to replacing the use of “cool” in describing her subjects with more precise language.

STAND AND STRETCH

Writing and the Common Core State Standards

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Writing: Text types, responding to reading, and research

The Standards acknowledge the fact that whereas some writing skills, such as

the ability to plan, revise, edit, and publish, are applicable to many types of

writing, other skills are more properly defined in terms of specific writing

types: arguments, informative/explanatory texts, and narratives. Standard 9

stresses the importance of the writing-reading connection by requiring

students to draw upon and write about evidence from literary and

informational texts.

Writing To Sources – a Key Task

The standards require students to show they can analyze and synthesize sources and present careful analysis, well-defended claims and clear information through their writing. Several writing standards require students to draw evidence from a text or texts to support analysis, reflection or research.

Informative WritingWhile narrative writing is given prominence in early grades, as students

progress, the standards ask students to write arguments or informational reports from sources.

The standards call for:30 percent of student writing to be narrative30 percent of student writing should be to write arguments35 percent of student writing should be to explain/inform

These forms of writing are not strictly independent; arguments and explanations often include narrative elements, and both informing and arguing rely on using information and evidence drawn from texts.

Extensive Practice with Short, Focused Research Projects

Writing standard 7 emphasizes that students should conduct several short research projects in addition to more sustained research efforts.

Teaching Students to Write an Argument

Show children an example of an argument. (models)

Demonstrate how the argument was planned; dissect the argument together.

Provide framework for the children to plan their argument.

Students work together in partners/small groups developing their reasons for their own arguments.

Building a Logic Chain – Organize your Reasons and Visualize an Argument

Water bottles are made from plastic.

Fuel is expensive to produce.

Our landfills are filling up.

17 million barrels of oil (enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year) to produce 28 billion plastic water bottles

We throw away water bottles every day.

American tap water is among the safest in the world

It takes almost 7x the amount of water in the bottle to make the bottle itself

REASON 1 REASON 2 REASON 3

A logic chain looks like this:

Conclusion Call for Action

Cut up and sort the reasons. Add your own reasons as well.

Planning An ArgumentTitle/Topic/Heading: Reducing Plastic WasteStatement of Opinion or Claim:Most bottled waters come from local municipal water sources; people should switch from plastic bottled water to stainless steel or aluminum containers and fill them at the tap.

REASONSConnect some of your reasons using logical connectives:If…then….SoThereforeAs a resultBecause

If all people use at least one water bottle a day, then a city of one million people uses more than 360 million water bottles per year.17 million barrels of oil (enough to fuel 1 million cars for a year) to produce 28 billion plastic water bottles

We throw away all these water bottles

This will cause landfills to overflow eventually

As a result we will have to buy more land just to throw away our water bottles.

SUMMARY Throwing away water bottles is a waste of land and a waste of money.

CALL FOR ACTION For these reasons we should all drink out of reusable water containers.

Audience Discussion

Discuss with the people around you:

--your classroom strategies for teaching argument writing

--how you might adapt some of what has been shared regarding argument writing?

Report Writing for the Young Learner

“Leaves found in the Schoolyard”

Classification of Plants in Your Schoolyard

This lesson is designed for students to classify plants in the schoolyard or neighborhood. Students will use their knowledge of plant structure and observation skills to determine the defining characteristics of plants. If desired, students can classify plants using plant reference material or the matrix based key on www.discoverlife.org

Outcomes or Standards

• Students will communicate scientific investigations and information clearly.

• CCSS - W.K-2.7 Research to Build and Present Knowledge Participate in shared research and writing

projects (e.g., record science observations).

Procedures1. Instructor Preparation: Plants in the schoolyard should be

identified, marked and characteristics noted a day or two prior to this activity being conducted. Use utility flags numbered as necessary to mark the plants, or bright colored ribbon.

2. Class Activity: Review the characteristics of plants that students will be observing in the schoolyard. The next few slides will help you do that with the students. Characteristics will likely include leaf type, leaf arrangement, and leaf margin. Students should know and understand the difference between monocots and dicots.

Monocot versus Dicot• Look at leaf venation

Monocots – parallel-veined leaves Dicots – Net-veined leaves

Dicots Leaf Structure

CompoundSimpleSingle leaf blade

Leaf Arrangement

Leaf Margin Observations

Smooth Toothed Wavy Lobed

Out in the Schoolyard

• Equipped with a clipboard, pencil and characteristics chart, students should observe the plants and fill in the plant characteristics chart for each plant marked. If desired, during this time plant clippings may be obtained to create a herbarium for the class.

• Also pictures of the plants may be taken if a camera is readily available to further aid in classification.

Students sketch, label and observe

Plant Number

Type (Monocot or Dicot)

Leaf Type (Simple or Compound)

Leaf Arrangement (opposite, alternate, whorled)

Sketch

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Field Chart for Student Observation of Leaves

Labeling the Leaves

• Classification of the plants using reference material at the school, or web based.

• Labels applied to the herbarium specimens. Labels should include:– Scientific name– Common name– Date collected– Where collected– Who collected

Brainstorming

• What are some common, everyday materials or experiences you use for your students to do scientific observations and write about their observations?

• Make a list at your table and be prepared to share some of these.

Sharing in a Large Audience

• Raise your hand, we’ll provide you with a post it note to record the ideas.

• We’ll place the ideas on the parking lot chart.

• To share, the speaker will read them to the audience so everyone can hear the ideas.

STAND AND STRETCH

Other Ideas for Nonfiction WritingTHE PULL OF MAGNETS

DOES DOES NOTChairFridgeKey ringScissorsTacksForkSpoonPinsEarring

TablePaperRubberPencilsPencil caseHairGrassJeansBrickCurtain

Student writing:

“I tested things I found at home and school. Some things I could pull with the magnet. Some things won’t stick to a magnet.”

Reviewing Text Complexity with Paired Texts

Paired Texts

You will need three items for this activity:

1. The page with two versions of the Crow and Fox fable – Version A and Version B

2. Qualitative Scale3. CCSS Text Complexity Rubric

Partner/Triad Work• Read the two versions of Fox and Crow

• Rate both versions using the Qualitative Scale and the CCSS Text Complexity Rubric

• Write some text based questions that require students to wrestle with the vocabulary, syntax and meaning of the more complex fable.

Sharing

• Please raise your hand to share your analysis and questions for these texts; we’ll come by and pick up your paper to read to the audience.