Hello, March. I'm Feeling Lucky! March *Currently*

Ahhhh, March.  This month always brings along a few bonuses: longer days, warmer weather, Spring Break and leprechauns!   Because of these, I'm always happy to welcome March.  Anyway, the fantastically fab Farley is hosting another Currently.  I'm linking up to share #widn and to find out what my blogging friends are up to on the first of this month.  

Listening: In the background, I hear my kiddos playing with one another on this sunny March morning.  Lately, *Super Heroes* is the name of the game in this household.  Ever since we checked out Super Hero ABC from the library, they've ditched the princess and pirate costumes (for now)... 

Loving: I recently ordered Beyond Leveled Books from Amazon. I've only just begun reading it and am already loving the book.  It explores the uses and limitations of leveled texts in primary reading instruction.  It's a very easy read and includes a good deal of practical ideas, as well as sample mini-lessons that are worth putting into action.       

Thinking: Yay, the time gets to *spring forward* next weekend!   Even though we'll lose an hour of sleep, the thought of knowing spring is near makes me happy.  When the sun still peeks above the horizon after 5 P.M., I know warmer weather is on it's way.

Wanting: It's fun being an Irish gal, especially when I live 20 minutes west of Chicago.  I'm wanting to celebrate my Irish heritage on March 17th.  I love heading into the city to watch the parade and see the river being dyed green.  It's something I've done with my family and friends ever since I was a kid.  It'll be a nice tradition to start once my own kids get a little older.  

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day in school with the students is entertaining, too.  When I taught Kindergarten, First and Second Grade, I loved *brining a little magic* into the classroom.  The students' faces spotting chairs tipped over and little green leprechaun feet all over the room was priceless.  Now that I'm a Reading Specialist, it's not quite the same, since I don't have my own classroom.  However, I do love reading and discussing St. Patrick's Day themed books with them.  A few of my favorites are below.  

Needing: I'm needing a vacation and am ready for Spring Break to arrive...STAT!  

Spring Break Plans: My husband and I are both teachers, but unfortunately our breaks don't coincide this year.  Even though this saddens me, I am looking forward to some time to ??? while my husband and kids are at school.

Okay, okay, all kidding aside.  For all those out there who know me, I can't allow myself to do absolutely nothing.  Most likely I'll spring clean the house and do a little closet organizing.  After that, I'll surf some remarkable blogs for classroom ideas and continue to read the professional books I purchased on Amazon and checked out from the library because...

Well, happy March and don't forget to link up with Farley!

Thinking About the Text: Using Textual Evidence When Responding to Reading- Freebie Included!

I'm linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday to share my Thinking About the Text: Using Textual Evidence When Responding to Text freebie.  This is a *throwback* post I shared on Adventures in Literacy Land as a guest blogger, in case you missed it.  

As we all know, the Common Core State Standards declare students should be able to *read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it* as well as *cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text*.  That may be very difficult for students to do.  The majority of struggling readers and writers in my RtI groups often respond to their reading with brief, fragmented statements without text evidence supporting their thoughts.  Getting them to support an analysis of their reading with textual evidence takes much EXPLICIT guidance before they are able to be successful on an independent level.  

Students are not able to answer questions purely based off of their prior knowledge or personal experience.  Making personal connections to the text is still important, however, text-to-self connections are no longer a focus when responding to reading.  Students need to stay within the four corners of the text.  They need to carefully read and answer questions only referring explicitly to the text.  When discussing texts with my students, I pre-plan the direction I'd like to take them.  Under the proverbial umbrella of text-dependent evidence falls questions that can 1.) get to the general understanding or gist of the text 2.) be literal, but must also involve evaluation, synthesis and analysis and 3.) focus on particular vocabulary words, sentences, paragraphs, events and themes.  

When planning lessons to get my students to think more concretely about their reading, I often turn to K-2 Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach K-2 Informational Text and Literature and Chart Sense: Common Sense Charts to Teach 3-8 Informational Text and Literature.  I purchased these books at the tail end of last year and have not regretted it!  These books are fabulous and can really help guide teachers in implementing anchor chart visuals for students that encompass every reading standard.  Yes, anchor chart ideas for every Common Core reading standard, both informational text and literature, is addressed in these books!  Wow, right?

Below are some of the tools my students use, a text-evidence chart example taken directly from Chart Sense, pictures of my students using the chart and a brief description of the procedures I use with them. 

Behold the power of "Text-Evidence Detective Tools"! 

After much discussion, the students were asked to become *Text-Evidence Detectives*.  "Prove it with text evidence!" was a phrase they heard me say over and over again.   I gave them eye-lighters and magnifying glasses to locate the evidence for the first few go-arounds to get them excited for the hunt. ;)

For this particular activity, the students orally explained their thoughts and located text evidence to support them.  Because they were busy with the eye-lighters and magnifying glasses during this activity, I wrote their responses onto Post-It notes for the students to place on the chart.  Each day, we'd recap the previous day's notes as a review.  We'd then continue with our next text, using the previous day's notes as a reminder.  The various colored Post-It notes represent three texts read and discussed throughout the week. 

Since I work primarily with the texts in Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention kits which contain series of books, I also created anchor charts dedicated to the series' characters we often read about.  Some of the series within the F&P LLI kits include Moosling, Froggy, Fox Family and the Fix-It Family.  For this post, I chose to use our Moosling anchor chart as an example.

Since I can't claim to be an artist, I photocopied the cover of a Moosling book to place in the center of blank chart paper.  I then put "Moosling is..." and "Prove it with text-evidence!" at the top of the chart.   Easy enough, right? :)  Then, using a character trait poster, the students discussed possible traits Moosling possesses in the texts we've read thus far.  The students were given a few pre-read titles in the series to locate text evidence to support Moosling's traits.  They were responsible for writing down their evidence on the Post-It notes for this activity, so no "eye-lighters" or magnifying glasses were used during this part.  The students had a great time with this.  They took their job as "Text-Evidence Detectives" very seriously and were quite successful with it! :)  

After much guided practice my students were ready to test their skills independently!  For independent practice of citing textual evidence, I created a simple graphic organizer for my students to use, as well as a prompt poster for them to reference when responding to their reading.  You can see them in action below!

Student using the Textual Evidence Sentence Starters poster below
for her written response...

I created the organizer to mimic what we were doing together in a small group on the large chart paper, so it correlated with what they had been practicing.  My graphic organizer and prompt poster are FREEBIES, if you'd like to download them from my TPT store.  

My product includes black & white as well as color versions of both the graphic organizer and prompt poster.  I know teachers aren't always able to print in color. :)  

So, there you have it...a few simple and easy-to-implement ideas for your classroom to get students thinking inside the four corners of the text.  What are some ways you get students thinking about and citing from the text? 

Enjoy your day and don't forget to grab your freebie!

What I'm Loving Wednesday: *Techy* Ideas to Support Student Responses to Reading

I'm linking up with BigTime Literacy this Wednesday morning to share a few FREE technology resources I'm loving right now (besides the tech ideas I previously posted HERE).  This is my first time linking up for *What I'm Loving Wednesday*.  Thanks for hosting, Michelle! :) 

After my students learned to identify and analyze the compare-and-contrast text structure, I gave them the opportunity to *show what they know* about locating similarities and differences within a text.  With that being said, I'm absolutely loving how easy it is for my students to compare and contrast characters with the use of an App called Venn Diagram. 

Ever heard of Gliffy?  It's another one of my favorites right now.  It's a site that enables students to create diagrams and flow charts to organize information in their text which supports comprehension.  Each student's *gliffy* is used as an informal assessment of their understanding of the text.   

My students are loving the GlowNote App for word work.  The option to have their words shown bright in neon colors thrills them. Because they're so engaged when using this App, it has become yet another favorite of mine.  

Jump on the Padlet bandwagon if you're interested in using a site that is simple for students to use!  Click HERE to learn 32 interesting ways it can be used in the classroom. :)

Finally, I'm loving the privilege of being tagged by First Grade Buddies as being an inspiration to others on Instagram.  I couldn't wait to pay the #instateachinginspiration forward to Michelle over at @bigtimeliteracy, since she's one of my *bigtime* inspirations! :)

Well, that's all for now.  Thank you to Graphics from the Pond for the heart graphics.  Don't forget to link up what you're loving this Wednesday. :) 

*Sunday Letters*, I'm Back For the Link-Up!

I'm linking up with Michelle over at BigTime Literacy for another edition of Sunday Letters.  You can join her every other Sunday to write letters to people or inanimate objects for fun!

A thank you needs to go out to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da for the paper clip art used for my letters.  Okay, enjoy the rest of your Sunday and don't forget to link up with BigTime Literacy.