On one of my favorite blogs to read, by Donalyn Miller, talks about a letter she sent home to parents about reading. I encourage you to take a moment and take a look. Kudos to the Book Whisperer!
This part of the literacy series is going to focus on different literacy “programs”. I put the word in quotes because I am not against programs per se, but I really believe the most important aspect of a literacy program is simply letting the kids read. I am not suggesting we simply tell the kids to pick a book and read. There is so much more: getting to know what kids like to read, promoting books, making reading exciting, dedicating the time to reading, setting up reading workshops, making reading “cool”, and on and on.
The best aspect of the things above is they are free. The only expense, and it can be large, is creating your classroom library (see earlier post). There are also a great deal of reading strategies that can be accessed for free on the web. I would suggest starting with this list linked above. However, today I want to talk about the programs already out there for purchase.
Our school started using Plugged In To Reading this year. We have been very pleased with the program. Our teachers seem to love it and are using it widely. The best part of Plugged In is that it offers the teacher a wide variety of strategies from which to choose. The teacher is still the central figure in the deployment. It is not a scripted step by step program and takes a lot of teacher insight. The best part is it gets kids reading.
This fits in with my philosophy above–we first need to get the kids to read and work to develop a love of reading in them. Another great aspect of Plugged In is that it gives you a huge assortment of both fiction and non fiction books that are mostly high interest. Some of our classes have made huge strides so far and I am excited to see how that plays out at the end of the year.
We also have Compass. Compass is a computer based program that focuses on the specific needs of each student. The program automatically uses the students MAP data and tailors an instructional experience for them. This is a pretty powerful program that can be used for both math and reading. It truly makes it a data driven approach. Compass is more “self-sufficient” than Plugged In, but if you have a good teacher running it, you will get even better results.
Finally, related to the above information we are giving our kids a heavy dose of SSR. We are wroking to build their reading stamina which requires us to allow them to read in school!
What programs are you using in your school? Read 180? SSRA? Are they commercial programs or ones you have created on your own at at your school level? Please feel free to share.
Great link to a book trailer site
Here is an old African Proverb I love:
“Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle… when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
How does this relate to our profession of moving schools forward?
Testing 1,2,3
I know there are a million posts on state assessments all over the blogospehere. I think I have even posted one or two. However, a news article from Florida caught my eye the other day.
Testing, testing, testing. Has this become the sole focus of education today? There was an interesting news article out of a school district in Florida a couple of weeks ago. The School Board told the district to de-emphasize the FCAT (Florid’a state assessment). They did not say to just cut out the hoopla and glitz. They made it pretty clear–do not allow the FCAT to consume day to day instruction.
Since the big surge of state assessments have grown into the mega institution they are today, I have always been for them. I thought they would force schools to improve and in turn increase student achievement. We have all heard the endless scream from parents about the negatives of high stakes tests. My mother is included in this crowd. She always lets me know of the story of the 10 year old getting physically sick due to the anxiety that some feel during testing. She includes stories of schools dropping just about everything for extra “test prep” time (i.e. some elementary schools dropping recess or offering very little while our country faces an obesity crisis). I always kind of just listened and said, “Yeah, but…”
I wonder how the board will react if the scores go down due to the decreased focus on the FCAT?
Is this happening in your area? What do you think?
I always look forward to watching a motivational movie right before the start of the school year. I have put together a few of the most popular movies in a poll below. I want to hear from you–what movie gets you excited for the return of school?
I have not done a great job keeping up with my blog like I said I would in January! It has been busy to say the least. I have been meeting with teachers this week. I truly have a great staff who is dedicated to doing what is right for their students. I have enjoyed the talks!
We are also far along in our Web 2.0 class. We have mostly worked on setting up blogs after an overview of the need for Web 2.0 in the classroom. I love when people step out of their comfort zone to learn something new. I have gained a lot from our sessions and I hope the teachers feel the same!
I have been spending time on twitter and would suggest you try it out if you are not already tweeting. My user name is mwaiksnis. Hope to see you there!
I left off the most important part of my last post, “First Principalship”. I am calling out to my fellow educators and asking, “What advice do you have for a new principal”?
I would love to hear from other administrators, teachers, parents, students and anyone else who comes across this post. I look forward to hearing your insight!
First Principalship!
I am very excited to announce I have been named to my first principalship! I have actually been on the job officially for 3 weeks. Before the end of the school year I was working with the leadership team to begin preparations for the upcoming school year. So while I am still new, I have been on the job for a couple of months.
To say the least, I am very excited for the upcoming school year. The faculty and staff at my new school are wonderful. I have had the chance to meet with about 50 teachers individually. I enjoy spending time with them and getting to know them.
We are having our first annual Summer Bar-B-Que in a few weeks and we are all looking forward to that as well. It will be another opportunity for all of us to get together and continue getting to know one another. It will be fun as all employees and their families are invited.
I will keep you posted as the year progresses!
Our state testing is officially over today! Well, not including make up administration but one can dream. Tomorrow we are having a special event at our school. It is in conjunction with The American Cancer Society.
Our school has been involved with The Relay For Life for the past three years. At my previous school we had been involved for the past 6 or 7 years. I am a true believer in teaching children the importance of giving back to those in need. It is just the right thing to do. I also have a personal buy in to fighting cancer. My wonderful mom lost her long battle against this horroible disease this Feburary.
Our school is holding our Mini-Relay tomorrow afternoon. It is a scaled down version of the actual Relay. We participate in that one as well, but this gives all of our kids to participate. We want them to experience it as well. Each child is required to get at least $5 in donations to be able to attend. This may sound like a lot from every kid, but we work with them and give them plenty of time to gather the donations. Many teachers help support thier students and everyone who wants to attend is allowed.
We decorate our track with purple Relay balloons, informative signs from the ACS and anything else we can find. We have food and drink tents (we give each child a soda and an ACS cup filled with popcorn (all donated). This year we will have a dunking booth, snow cone machine and face painting. We will charge $1 for these. And yes, I WILL be in the dunking booth!! Hey, its to fight cancer!
I encourage any school to look into this type of event. It teaches kids to give back and care about others in their community. It helps them grow. It helps your community. You will even probably get a nice article in the paper! It shows your community that your school cares and does wonderful things. In addition to all of this, it provides donations for a worthy cause. If this is something you might be interested in, I encourage you to email me or contact the ACS at ww. cancer.org.
This is a slide deck I prepared for the South Carolina Middle School Association. It is not by any means perfect, but it is a big improvement from my previous powerpoint presentations. The presentation went well and hopefully I inspired a few new bloggers out there!
I have been trying to get the slideshow to appear on my blog. I have not been able to, but if you click here, you can see it on Middle View.
