preparing and practicing

The children have been eagerly preparing their final How To Books for publication. We will be gathering with the 4th graders on Thursday, April 19th for a special read aloud. They have been researching and preparing for a read aloud specific to a young audience - the Kindergarteners! Following their read aloud, each Kindergartener will read their How To Book to a 4th grader. It will be a special morning rich with literature, community, and the sharing of knowledge. We have also discussed baking a special snack to share with our older peers, making it a true publishing party.

As part of the process for preparing their writing for publication, the children have been using a checklist to support their work, ensuring their step-by-step guides have diagrams, labels, and lots of information. Our ongoing shares provide opportunities for work partners and the community to give thoughtful feedback and celebrate the work of their peers.

In the below two photographs, KC and AR provide feedback for ML's How To Book. Both of them notice her detailed and carefully labeled diagrams.

 

Writers use a checklist to help guide their work - preparing one How To Book for publication.

 

 

Our Morning Message continues to provide opportunities for the children to practice reading various sentences connected to our literacy work - sometimes a repeating or patterned sentence from a favorite book, sometimes a poem, sometimes phonological work, and sometimes information about our day. At this time in the year, it is empowering for the students to take on more with our morning message. I have left more and more parts blank; vowels, digraphs, and blends for the students to fill in. For the choral reading of our message, I've recently been inviting one of the children to point and guide their peers. All of our morning meeting work is thoughtful and engaging. The children have been working hard on recognizing word endings, such as ed, ing, and s.

 

 

Readers practice introducing their books, retelling the parts in order, and reading to their partner. This work supports oral language development, speaking and listening skills, and text comprehension. Our book talk is often the most powerful part of our read alouds.