Ch. 7 Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

I liked her reminder on page 149 when a fourth grader says, "I don't have my lead" and can't start. She said, "Your lead and title can come later. Just start." Students do need to get their first thoughts down. I believe this is when they truly have their own voice. The chapter also reinforced that I need to be writing and thinking aloud more in front of my students. I just honestly find it hard when I'm teaching 4 grade levels to find the time. At one conference I had one student who wanted to share his writing paper over his computer projects. It was so up lifting seeing him celebrating his writing with parent and teacher.

Ch. 6 Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

Last week I took the district reading tests and made individual lists of all the many skills my students needed to work on. But after reading this chapter I need to find time for my poor readers and writers just to be reading their own materials, and have their teacher read to them every day. I loved on page 123 where she tells them to read like a wolf eats.

Ch. 5 Do More Shared Writing

We did pieces in my class on who they admire. This was a new vocabulary word for many of them so we needed many examples. We really shared before writing. On pae 85, I liked how "In shared writing the the teacher does not place expectations for correctness on the students." This speaks volumes to me since I'm always looking for that piece they need to improve and instead I need to be building their confidence. I also liked the idea of using their writing to develop their fluency since I see their great love to share.

Raise Your Expectations

My students are usually seen as disadvantaged but this is far from the truth when you see how creative they are. I do agree with the author on p. 56 when she said they just need more demonstrations, more shared experiences, and more guided practice to become successful. This week we did a writing prompt and we started with conversation before they wrote. They benefited from my model, but I think the conversations we had before they starting writing was even more motivational. They were so excited. They wrote and wrote the entire period. My students come in at different times, but they are asking when do we get to share our stories. I just started working with a 1st grader and I needed the try it and apply it reminders on page 68. I wrote her name in the margin thinking about how I can develop her writing.