From the Desk of Kelly Harmon
December 2014 Newsletter
Dear Educators,
-Kelly Harmon & Randi Anderson
Ideas for Incorporating the Holidays in Your Classroom
1. Holiday Reader's Theater
Have students work in groups to read, rehearse, and create props or a backdrop for a holiday play. Perform for your school or other classes. This is also a fun option to do at your holiday classroom party! For great holiday scripts, click HERE!
2. Holiday Karaoke
Kids (and adults) love to sing holiday songs! Use YouTube.com to pull up holiday songs for students to sing. Students will be practicing fluent reading (and not even realize it). My students use to have competitions on who could perform Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or Frosty the Snowman better! Be sure that when you search on Youtube that you put the word "karaoke" at the end of the song title in the search bar. Click HERE for a song!
3. Holidays Around the World
Gather your team or entire school and select countries around the world to research holiday traditions on. Students will be using their reading comprehension and writing skills all while learning about traditions around the globe. Each classroom can become experts on a country and even make a tasty treat to share with others. Select a day to rotate through classrooms to learn about how others celebrate the holidays around the world.
4. Giving Back Project
As a class, decide on a charity to contribute to this holiday season. Create advertisements, commercials, or letters to help collect your needed items. Students will be giving back and using their reading and writing skills at the same time. Some ideas for charities might be the local food bank, humane society, or local adopt an angel tree.
Happy Holidays & Teaching.
-Randi Anderson
Reading Strategy of the Month: Decoding and Predicting Practice
A few weeks ago, during a small group reading observation, I watched a group of five learning-disabled students struggle with key vocabulary in a reading passage. While the goal of the group was to develop comprehension, it was clear that these learners needed a strategy and practice for decoding new words. Here is an easy-to-implement strategy that can be used to warm-up for a reading group.
Select 4-8 important words from the text. Make sure that the words will help your students make a prediction about the content of the text. Click here to read more about this strategy.~Kelly
Evaluating Educational Apps for Student Achievement
1. What standards align with this app?
2. What level of thinking will be utilized?
3. How motivated will students be to use this app?
4. Will students be provided specific feedback?
5. Can content be altered?
6. Can content be shared? If so, will students be able to share the content? Can teachers approve the content before it shared?
7. Is this app appropriate for students under 13?
For a checklist of evaluation criteria, click HERE!
-Kelly Harmon
Making Grammar Easy: Calling The C.O.P.S.
An easy way to teach editing is with this simple acronym: COPS, or Call The Cops. It stands for Capitals, Omissions, Punctuation, and Spelling. This is a simple tool students can use as a checklist when they are ready to edit compositions.
Teach your students to write COPS at the top of the paper. Have them go letter-by-letter to edit the paper (first with C for capitals, then with O for omissions, and so on). One trick you can use for spelling is to read the paper backwards, like a word list. Your brain will catch a spelling mistake faster by going in reverse.
This strategy really helps students as they develop automaticity for editing using the C.O.P.S. strategy. Get my Calling The Cops strategy and bookmark reminder HERE!
Happy Teaching.
-Randi Anderson
Winter Workshops
Literacy Centers + Reader's Theater= A Winning Combo
8:30am-3:30pm
San Antonio, TX
Learn how to create meaningful learning stations and activities where students work with partners or independently during small group reading time. Add a ten-minute-a-day reader's theater and you've created the perfect recipe for accelerating reading achievement. Click HERE for more information!
Comprehension Strategies: Following Figure 19- Reading with Meaning
January 22, 2015
8:30am-3:30pm
San Antonio, TX
Title I Conference: Strengthen Your Title I Program
Two Day Conference
St. Louis, MO
You will learn how to build on the success of your current program, identify the key components that have the greatest impact on student achievement and find the specific areas you need to target for implementation and improvement. Leave equipped with a wealth of the most effective Title I instructional strategies. Click HERE to learn more!
More Upcoming Workshops
January 26, 2015- Northern Virginia
January 27, 2015- Baltimore, MD
January 28, 2015- Cherry Hill, NJ
January 29, 2015- Long Branch, NJ
February 10, 2015- Raleigh, NC
February 11, 2015- Atlanta, GA
February 12, 2015- Knoxville, TN
Two Day Intensive Title I Conference
Texas Literacy Resources
Email: kelly@texasliteracy.com
Website: www.kellyharmon.net
Phone: 817-583-1290