Alexander!

I hope you didn't have a horrible Monday! At least, it can't be as bad as Alexander's was!

We worked on Cause and Effect today and read the wonderful...



I mean, this kid is having a BAD day. My kids had never read this book before, BUT knew that there was a movie coming out about it! So I also got to teach about making connections! Score! I love how this book has some "unspoken" causes and effects throughout. The kids got to do a bit of inferring, so TRIPLE BONUS! You can grab your Cause and Effect Recording Sheet from me here.

I also opened a Facebook page for my blog. You can check it out and like it below:

Post by The Wild West: A Teaching Blog with Mrs. Andrews.

It's new, so don't expect much yet!

I hope you are having a wonderful Monday! Make sure you enter the giveaway for my new Addends and Sums unit by Thursday!! 

Balanced Literacy-- Reading

I think a lot of schools are working towards a balanced literacy approach in their classrooms. The key components of Balanced Literacy are:

Reading Aloud

Shared Reading

Guided Reading

Independent Reading

Modeled or Interactive Writing

Shared Writing

Guided Writing (Writing Workshop)

Independent Writing

Throughout those components, especially reading, teachers need to be sure to scaffold their students. What does that look like? Well, it's helping students to story map (details, main idea, characters, setting, plot, problem and solution), analyze characters,  decipher confusing concepts. One way that I help to scaffold my student's reading is with reading comprehension sheets. They read a story and have to tell me the details.

They look something like this (depending on the skill I am addressing):

txt to txt

I just uploaded my reading comprehension packet onto my TPT store and my Teacher's Notebook store. It has 18 pages of graphic organizers for both fiction and non-fiction stories. It has varied levels, too. So if you want to use just illustrations at the beginning of the year and move to sentences/writing as your students progress, you can.