The Weekly Armadillo
Monday, February 20, 2017
"The Best School in Town"
Vision
To create an exceptional learning environment that produces remarkable students who are prepared to be successful and equipped to compete in a global society.
Mission
To prepare all students to achieve the highest standard of intellectual, physical and social growth.
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Wilt or Grow
There is no such thing as status quo.
You either wilt or grow.
Read and grow from the information below.
Reflection Item
Can fact based (knowledge based) questions be rigorous? If so, how can these type questions improve a student's ability to interact with literature more deeply? Find out by reading the excerpt below.
Excerpt IV: How Knowledge Powers Reading by Doug Lemov
Educational Leadership
February 2017 | Volume 74 | Number 5
Literacy in Every Classroom Pages 10-16
Ask Knowledge Based Questions
Another way to enrich students' learning from nonfiction involves shifting the types of questions we ask. One of the tenets of U.S. education is the belief in teaching formal reading skills—the idea that students learn to read in large part by learning to predict, make inferences, interpret character motivation, summarize, and so on. Many teachers believe that these skills are fungible—that students who learn them in one context will be able to apply them in other contexts, and will thus develop the capacity to read anything.
However, there's lots of evidence to challenge this assumption. Consider one of your weak readers. Let's call him John. Most likely, John has no problem making inferences when he watches a movie. The problem is not that John lacks skill in making inferences, but rather that he can't do it when he is reading texts—or when he is reading certain texts. Once you've ensured that he can read technically—that he can decode and read with enough fluency to have some cognitive capacity left over to reflect—it might be better to build his knowledge rather than practicing inferences with him. Or, if you're not sure, you can hedge your bets and do both, asking some skill-based questions and some knowledge-based questions.
A friend told me about her visit to a high-performing school—one of the highest in the state she lives in despite serving a population of mostly poor kids. The school is more committed to developing background knowledge than most schools. For example, kindergarteners might be sent home with a book about ants or frogs they'd read in class. Instead of asking them to read it to their parents for homework and practice their decoding, as many schools would, this school would ask them to explain to their parents everything they'd learned about ants or frogs from the book. This practice emphasized knowledge development (retelling the facts) over skill development (practicing decoding).
I'd been thinking about what this might look like inside reading classrooms, and I soon had an opportunity to think it through myself. My daughter was reading a novel set during the U.S. Civil War. The protagonist, Emma, sneaks behind Confederate lines as a spy. As a teacher, I'd been trained to ask questions like this:
- What motivates Emma to aid the Confederate soldier?
- What does she learn about herself?
- Who else in the book feels a strong sense of duty to someone else?
Indeed, those questions could have made for an interesting and worthwhile discussion. But what if I also wanted to address the knowledge deficit, to try to maximize my daughter's absorption rate of background knowledge as she read? In that case, I might have thought about some different questions:
- What does Emma tell us about what soldiers died of during the Civil War? Is it surprising in any way? (Emma notes that far more soldiers died from disease than from battle, and that typhoid fever was a leading killer. Most people think more about dramatic combat deaths, but disease killed more soldiers in almost every war until World War II.)
- Is there anything in the text that tells us why so many soldiers might have died from disease during the Civil War? (Alan, the soldier, recalls how when he started to get weak and could not keep up with his regiment, he was left behind with no food or shelter. Students might also note that Emma knows there's nothing she can do but comfort Alan—there's no medical cure, as we might hope there would be today.)
These fact-based questions are actually surprisingly rigorous, and like the more common questions, they could have led to a fascinating discussion. And the knowledge students built would have been applicable to more than just the Civil War—it could easily have been extrapolated and applied to other questions and time periods. Think of how powerful the following facts are in understanding events throughout history: Some deaths get more attention than others because they are dramatic; until recently, soldiers died mostly of sickness; and nursing used to mean comforting someone in death as much as restoring them to health.
Many of us are trained to think of such questions as second-rate or "not our job"—I know I would have for most of my teaching career—and I'm not suggesting that teachers ask only fact-based questions. But if we don't ask any such questions, we may be tacitly socializing students to believe that facts are irrelevant. By asking some fact-based questions, we can chip away at the knowledge deficit and teach our students how to unlock knowledge from what they read.
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Hey! Look us over, we are the BEST!!
Nathan Adams Armadillos always beat the rest.
We're spectacular people with wonderful spirit
Who never let you down!
Nathan Adams, best in town!
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Look Who Showed Up
Cupid's Helpers
Look What I Found on Ms. James' Desk
Have you read a great math book to your students lately? If not, here's one I'm sure Ms. James would be happy to let you borrow. Reading math based fiction and non-fiction aloud to students helps them connect to math beyond classroom tasks. This week, ask Ms. Rhoads to help you choose a couple.
Thanks to all of you for showing out the Armadillo way!
Kudos to Ms. Johnson and Mr. Palmer for helping us with behavioral issues.
Kudos to Mr. Luna, Ms. Copeland, Ms. James and Ms. Arana for supporting our small groups during the common assessments.
Kudos to Nathan Adams teachers for successfully completing the TELPAS training.
Kudos to Mr. Lugo for always being available to help when I need him.
Kudos to Mrs. Johnson for assisting with student accountability and up holding fair consequences for kiddos that did not do their project.
Kudos to Mrs. Morales for helping me call parents of those students who did not do their project, VERY HELPFUL so I can get progress reports ready to go home.
Kudos to Mrs. James for assisting me with foundational skills for my 5th graders, helping WAY more than you know. Xxoo … seriously cannot thank you enough.
Kudos to Mrs. Bricker for ALWAYS knowing what I need, when I need it- could not do a fraction of the stuff I do without her
Kudos to Mrs. Smith for taking one for the team-
Kudos to KA for rocking the hallways while 5th grade took their practice STAAR, we did not hear a peep- we appreciate that!
Kudos to Mrs. Amaton, Mr. Harris and Ms. Diaz for keeping the building disinfected and clean so we won’t continue to have several sick students and staff.
Kudos to Mrs. James , Mrs. Copeland, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Morales for aiding in assisting everyone in having a positive attitude during this week’s practice STAAR testing.
Kudos to Mia Garcia's and Brandon Danna's families for their incredible support.
Kudos to the A team for their immediate support with our behavior issues.
Kudos to Mrs. James for getting the Science Fair and results ready and going to Dallas ISD STEM day with our winners. Getting our Math T-shirts and Math night ready for next week.
Kudos to Mr. Mendoza for being an all Star Carpool person, he knows his students’ cars and gets them to the correct circle before even calling their name.
Kudos to Mrs. Johnson's endless support in and out of the classroom.
Kudos to Mrs. Silvio for keeping her students accountable for their work.
Kudos to Myers, Vallejo, Emad, Spears, Bennet, Blake, Hall, McDaniel, Bricker, James, Copeland, Luna, Mason, Crowder, Ma and Sowards attending the February PTA night, showing support for our students.
Kudos to Mrs. Rhoads for helping with Six Flags Reading.
Kudos to Mrs. Morales for holding stress free TELPAS sessions.
Kudos to Coach Crowder for helping with a bulletin board.
Kudos to Nabors, Sevilla, & Spears for completed TELPAS writing samples.
Kudos to Mrs. James for her continuing support with a student of mine and being a motherly figure to him at school. He LOVES you!
Kudos to Mr. Sevilla for being such an awesome teammate!
Kudos to Mrs. Nabors for letting me borrow a couple of her books on famous African Americans.
Kudos to 5th grade for overseeing a successful can food drive.
Kudos to Mrs. Morales for doing a great job with TELPAS.
Kudos to all TA's for filling in with a smile anywhere they are needed.
Kudos to Mrs. James and Mrs. Copeland for the sweet treats on the Valentine cart!
Kudos to all teachers for your patience with the fourth six-weeks common assessments.
Kudos to Ms. Johnson, Mr. Palmer, Ms. Meeker, Ms. Moore, Ms. Arana and Ms. Manwani for your help with small groups at the last minute.
Kudos to everyone who purchased math nigh t-shirts.
Kudos to Ms. Johnson for helping us prepare for the upcoming math night.
Kudos to Ms. Gibson for always being willing to help out when needed.
Kudos to my leadership team. You truly are A+!
Kudos to Ms. Mullaley for preparing the Black History Month bios for morning announcements.
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2/20 Staff Development Day/ No school for students
2/21 Volleyball: Nathan Adams vs. Withers
2/22 GLL Meeting in 132 @ 3:15
2/23 Family Math Night
2/23 Feeder Pattern Principal Meeting
2/24 Black History Month Luncheon (during your lunch period)
2/28 District-wide Principal Meeting
3/1 PTA $1 Casual Dress Day
3/1 Hall Party (sponsored by 4th Grade)
3/2 Dr. Suesss Day - Read Across America
3/2 Dual Language PLC (Sidney Lanier Vanguard 2:00-5:00)
3/6 Teacher/Counselor Transfer Period Opens
3/6 1st Grade Financial Literacy (9-10 in auditorioum)
3/6 Preschool Story time (10:00 in the library)
3/6 Feeder Job-a-like (3:45-5:30 @ various campuses)
3/7 SBDM in 132 @ 5:00
3/7 PTA (kinder performance)/ Student of the Month @ 6:00
3/8 Class Pictures (students must wear uniforms)
3/8 GLL Meeting @ 3:15 in rm. 132
3/9 Monthly Fire Drill
3/9 1st Grade Financial Literacy (9-10 in auditorium)
3/10 Leadership and Longhorn School Spirit Forum @ WTW (details forthcoming)
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Created by Adrian Luna, Principal
Nathan Adams Elementary School
Dallas Independent School District
Email: aluna@dallasisd.org
Website: www.dallasisd.org/nathanadams
Location: 12600 Welch Road, Dallas, TX 75244
Phone: 972-794-2600