July

Summer Reading for Teachers!

I hope you are getting some time to read for yourself.  While these aren't professional texts, I love the travel writing and humor of Bill Bryson, so I've continued with his work, and just finished reading Neither Here Nor There. I also managed to squeeze in The Mango Season by Amula Maladi, which shows a great picture of the Indian culture. 

What are you reading?  (add some titles to the comments section below). 

If you need help finding something,  this is part of the list generated by teachers when consultant, blogger, and online instructor, Lisa Dabbs asked teachers to share summer titles for her Blog Teaching with Soul. 

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
The New Leaders 100 Day Action Plan by George Bradt
Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators.
The Element by Sir Ken Robinson
Drive by Daniel Pink
Curriculum 21 Heidi Hayes Jacobs
The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives by Peter H. Johnston
A Nation Rising by Davis
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (Smith, 1943)
"Teaching to Transgress" (hooks, 1994)
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher
Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins
Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives by Peter Johnston
Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit
The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller
A Place for Wonder By Georgia Heard
Mindset by Carol Dweck
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

You can download the whole list as a PDF on the Teaching with Soul Blog

Looking for Professional Development?

Ingham ISD has sessions this summer on creating SmartBoard lessons, and using iPads in the classroom.  Read and register HERE.

June

Summer Reading:

Don't forget the summer reading resources from the May Literacy Newsletter. You'll find resources from Scholastic, NCTE, and the New York Times to share with students.


Also, don't forget the Dream Big...READ program for summer reading at any of the Capital Area District Library locations.  This is for all ages and includes a free Summer Event and Information Guide you can send to parents on the many activities including magic, critters and creatures, art, music & theater, puppets and storytellers, and teens and tweens! 

Ed Tech Freebie:

The 2012 Free Education Technology Resources eBook is packed with 65 pages of free applications and tools to help teachers and other educators engage students and improve learning outcomes, and resources to help enhance administrative productivity. 

Topics include:

• Collaboration & Brainstorming Tools
• Educational Games
• Educational Videos Lectures
• Podcasts
• Facebook in Education 
• Interactive White Boards
• iPads in Education
• Picture And Image Editing Applications
• Presentations & Screencasting
• Surveys & Polls
• Twitter in the Classroom

TO GET YOUR COPY Just provide your name and email address in the “Sign Up!” form in the side bar on the right side of the page.

May

Looking for something to send off with the students for the summer? ReadWriteThink is gathering ideas. Check out engaging activities for reading and writing including poetry, trading cards, superheroes, and even constructing an argument!

More for Summer Reading:

• Education Week Teacher has a helpful article from Donalyn Miller on things schools can do to prevent the Summer Slide.

• Check out the New York Times Summer Reading Contest

• Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge
 Begins on May 1, 2012! Kids of all ages are invited to participate in an exciting global reading competition that is fun and friendly. The more kids read, the more rewards and recognition they earn for themselves and their school

Also see their related link for Summer 2012 Booklists for ages 3-teen, and more summer reading challenge activities to download for FREE.

• Summer Reading Tracking Sheets
to distribute to kids to keep track of titles read each month.

May Professional Development Opportunities for Literacy Instruction

Centers and Stations - May 1st 4:15-5:30 115 MMS

Register here

Fusion Reading Demo: Grades 6-12    Reading Intervention    May 3   3:30-4:30   Room 115 MMS     

     Fusion Reading provides explicit instruction using age-appropriate leveled text to effectively teach reading skills and strategies and engage students. It adapts to various instructional settings and easily adapts to multiple block schedule formats making it flexible for middle or high school.Students learn the skills and strategies necessary to become better readers, both in their reading classes as well as their other academic classes. Jamestown´s popular non-fiction texts provide the high-interest reading selections to support this program. Students in Fusion Reading have made statistically significant gains in reading scores.  *E-mail Melissa Yip to register.

Teaching Reading Street K-6  May 15 4:00-7:00  Ingham ISD

This session is for educators within the Ingham ISD service area that support Reading Street instruction. A first grade teacher  will explain how she organizes her 90 minute block and small groups using the materials from Reading Street. This session will also cover how to establish and manage small group instruction. Register here

Creating Smart Board and PowerPoint Lessons Using Reading Street Materials  K-6    May 21  4:30-7:30    Ingham ISD

Do  you want to learn how to create engaging student lessons, while saving time lesson planning? During this Reading Street Technology training session, participants will learn to use Smart Notebook Software to create Smart Board lessons and power point slides to create engaging daily lessons for their students.   A first grade teacher from Haslett will teach educators how to use Smart Notebook Software to create smart board slides to use during the 90 minute literacy block, using materials from the core program, Reading Street. Teachers will need to bring a teacher manual and Reading Street Sucessnet logins, and a flashdrive to save work on. Register here

April

Upcoming Professional Development

April 10th: REWARDS Grades 4-12 intervention

 Ingham ISD 4:00-7:00

REWARDS® is an intense, short-duration intervention program that uses teacher-directed instruction, requires minimal teacher training, and aligns with components of scientifically based reading research. Register here

April 12th Six Minute Solution 4:00-7:00- Ingham ISD 

In same-level pairs, students do repeated readings of one-minute nonfiction passages as their partners note the number of words read correctly-an effective peer-monitoring and feedback system that keeps students motivated and on task. The Six-Minute Solution builds studentś reading fluency-essential for text comprehension-and is a valuable complement to any reading curriculum or as an intervention program. Register here.

April 20th:  Fusion Reading (Intervention)- Grades 6-12  Ingham ISD 1:30-3:30

This is an intervention program with explicit instruction and age appropriate leveled text to effectively teach reading skills and strategies to engage students.   Read more about it and register here. 

April 23rd:  PALS Kindergarten (8:00-11:00)  Ingham ISD
Peer Assisted Literacy Strategies (PALS) ensures students get a strong foundation in early reading skills. Read more and register here.
and PALS First Grade (12:00-3:00)  Read more and register here


May 1st: Centers and Stations  4:15-5:30  Room 115 MMS  (Wegenke, Person, and Yip)
Learn the management and organization of centers, creating student independence, and participate in a rotation of centers on fluency, vocabulary and word work. Participants will leave with center ideas and some materials.  Please register here.

K-12 Literacy Resources 

Free Rice is a site with an English vocabulary game. For each answer you get right, you get a harder word and if you get one wrong, you get an easier word. The best part is that each time you get a word correct, the site donates rice to the world's hungry.

 It is motivating with the differentiation for skill level and the result for correct answers. You can even customize the words by subject area! If you consider using it in the classroom, check out this additional commentary from a teacher about the site.

Comic Creator  invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). The organizers focus on the key elements of comic strips by allowing students to choose backgrounds, characters, and props, as well as to compose related dialogue. This versatile tool can be used by students from kindergarten through high school, for purposes ranging from learning to write dialogue to an in-depth study of a formerly neglected genre. After completing their comic, students have the ability to print out and illustrate their final versions for feedback and assessment.

Literature Out Loud  

Dane Allred decided to read hundreds of short stories, sonnets, and poems out loud and record them. So, he is posting them here for your use! Enjoy! 

MARCH

Upcoming Professional Development

March 5th: Six-Minute Solution-  Grades 2-12

4:15   WH Library  *See previous blog posting for a preview of this session and to register. The IISD will also have this training April 12th.

March 6th:  Centers and Stations in the 90 minute block-  Grades K-6  4:15   Room 115 at MMS.  See previous posting for preview.

March 13th and March 15th: Reading Street in the 90 minute block. Ingham ISD  4:00-7:00 PM   Register on the IISD website.

March 21st:  Secondary Reading Strategies- Grades 7-12    

Time: 3:15 Room 115 MMS 

Topic:  Discussion of Text- helping students connect and comprehend

                   

 Red Cedar Writing Project Summer Institute at MSU Click on the above link for an application. This is open to all Pre-K-12 teachers.

CCSS Resources

As conferences with parents arrive, you may find it useful to refer to this Parents' Guide to Student Success in relation to the CCSS.  These were created by the National PTA and there are versions to print in both English and Spanish in grades K-12.   

March is Reading Month

Parent Guides on Reading

Here is another resource which may be useful at conferences, there are several guides to download and print on the topic of family literacy.  Many are available in multiple languages.   Click on this Free Reading Guides Site.

We Give Books

This site contains books to read right online, in color, and are searchable by age (0 to teen). The best part of this is that each time you read a book, you give a book to an organization which provides books to needy populations all over the world.   

This makes for a great, quick read aloud and there are many popular titles. 

Six Minute Solution Intro. and Training

REGISTER ON THE DOODLE  
WHEN AND WHERE: March 5th, 4:15    Whitehills Library

(*If you cannot attend on this date, the IISD is offering a training on April 12th.)

Literacy Stations in the 90 Min. Block with Reading Street

WHEN:    4:15 
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
WHERE: 115 MMS 
REGISTER ON THE DOODLE

February 15th Secondary PD- Vocabulary Strategies

MMS Expository Writing Rubric

Organizing Reading Street Materials

See our PowerPoint from this PD on February 7.