Improving Reading Comprehension

Sometimes parents worry when their kids doesn't seem to enjoy or don't seem to comprehend the things that they read. I believe reading should be natural and enjoyable. If your child doesn't enjoy reading the best thing to do is to read with them. Snuggle up, make it special time. If they don't want to read to you, don't fuss. Read to them. Read chapter books together. Encourage them to take the book to school and read a chapter during DEAR time at school and read that chapter on your own. Talk about it later in the day and compare notes. Talking about it should be natural and fun.

"Were you surprised when...."
"My favorite part was...."
"Why do you think..."

They don't need to be grilled on what they read.

Think about how it is when you go to a movie. You don't say, "Okay, re-tell the move in your own words." Instead you talk about what your favorite parts were, how sad you were when something happened or how funny something else was.

That's how we should talk about books. Reading doesn't always have to be an academic and assessment riddled experience.

Did I mention that if your child doesn't like reading, you need to make a concerted effort to read with them? It is critical!

Terry Fox Run

What a great day! Today we bussed all our kids along with all the kids from the north east elementary school over to the middle school for the Terry Fox Run. It was very exciting! There were about 1100 people there. Quite a crowd!!

My crazy friend, Pat

We were supposed to write the name of someone we would be running for. Some of my students couldn't think if anyone so I told them that my dad passed away from cancer and they could put him on their tag. It eared up when I told me about it, and then to see those kids running with his name in their tag did it to me again.

I wonder when I will be able to talk about cancer and my dad without tearing up.

Apparently not quite yet.

Author Visit Coming Up!

They say the early bird gets the worm. I am the epitome of the early bird. Sometimes working late gets one the goods too!

I got an email after school today from the people at Wordfest. It seems that one of the authors, Dennis Lee, must have had some cancellations as they sent out an email saying he had some openings for school visits. I emailed my grade level team to see if they would be interested and I emailed my admin team to see if it would even be possible to have Dennis Lee in. We went back and forth and finally decided to book it!!

I am so excited to have Dennis Lee visit our school!! Now we have some work to do to get ready!

Skip counting

JUMP math is awesome for games. We played a skip counting game today that we just can't seem to get enough of! This game makes for awesome practice. We played that the first person to get to 100 wins.

....I've never had kids  get so excited about skip counting!

Crazy for DEAR Time

DEAR time has been a bit of a challenge this year. My class seems to think it's time to use to finish up work, go to the bathroom, talk to their friends....anything but read!!

I've been thinking and thinking about how to fix this. I decided enthusiasm is what I'd try first. Sometimes I think getting kids to read is as much sales pitch as it is helping them develop reading skills.

Today when I met them outside after recess I said, "You're not going to believe what I have! When we go inside go quickly to your desks and I will tell you!"

I introduced them to Shel Silverstein this morning and at lunch I went over to our school library and got a bunch more poetry books. While I was there I noticed a full shelf of Babymouse books, so I decided to grab those too.

I told them how awesome Babymouse is. I clarified that it isn't just for girls (in case some were worried about the abundance of pink!) and we watched a book trailer:




Then we went crazy reading!!

DEAR time ended up being way too short!