Close Reading with Multi-Step Word Problems

Close Reading with Multi-Step Word Problems

Today I had the opportunity to do a lesson in Mrs. Castetter's classroom. Our focus was breaking apart multi-step word problems and giving our students a guideline to use when working on a multi-step problem. Today we looked at a multi-step word problem through a close reading lens. With each read the students picked out more information that was important to the problem they were solving. See the anchor chart below to see the different phases:

The students and I did a multi-step word problem together. We talked through each phase of the reading. See our question and work we did together below:

The last part of the lesson allowed for the students to work out a multi-step problem on their own, but the students checked in after each read. See some examples of students work below:

                                 

Link to Blank Close Reading with Word Problems

Point of View

Point of View

Recently I had the opportunity to visit all our third grade classrooms and focus on point of view. To begin the lesson we used an anchor chart and talked about the different points of view that a story can be told in. We also talked about how characters within a story can have a certain point of view depending on how the story is being told. 

We started the lesson by reading Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds. At the end of the story we talked about what point of view the story was being told in. Then we talked about looking at the story through Jasper the Rabbit's point of view and the Creppy Carrot's point of view. The students noticed how Jasper loved to eat carrots because it was his food, they also noticed that the carrots didn't like being eaten and started to haunt Jasper. We used this chart to the left to record our thoughts.

To end the lesson, we read, The Three Little Pigs and The True Story of The Three Little Pigs. Then students used a Google Docs to compare points of view from each story and how the points of view changed! Check out the Student Examples Below:

                                  

Making Predictions

Making Predictions

This week, I had the opportunity to go into two first grade classrooms and co-teach with our EL teacher. Our lesson focus was on making predictions before, during, and after reading. Before the lesson was taught to both classses, Mrs. Hildreth, Mrs. McIntire, Mrs. Murphy, and myself collaborated by email for specifics regarding the lesson. I started the lesson using an anchor chart and defining what a prediction was and when and how readers make predictions. Mrs. Hildreth jumped in and introduced the sentence stem that ALL readers can use when making a prediction. The sentence stem we used today was, "I predict that ______, because _____." 

Mrs. Hildreth had the students practice repeating the sentence stem before the students tried it on their own. Before practicing it during reading, we practiced making predictions using pictures. Mrs. Hildreth and myself modeled how we "turn and talk" and using the sentence stems. Then the students were given the opportunity to turn and talk with their partners using the pictures. We would then have students share out, using the sentence stems to answer. 

The final part of the lesson focused on making predictions as we read. We used the book, "Duck on a Bike". We made predictions before we read, during the reading, and after. We talked about if we could verify our prediction or if our prediction was left unanswered! 

                                              

Prediction Pictures to Introduce Lesson