Elementary Essentials
May 5, 2023
ELA
Writer’s Workshop Tip #2: Planning with Efficiency!
Post-its, pens, and highlighters ready? Marking up your manual makes an easier reference when referring to the book during your mini-lesson! Whether planning a full bend with your PLC or planning one session at a time, here are some tips…
- Start with the “Link.” Ask, “What will I be sending my students to do?”
- Next, head over to the “Teaching Point” and “Teaching.” Remember, WUOS is not a script. Make it yours! Use personal examples that are exciting to you.
- After “Teaching,” plan the “Active Engagement.” Ask, “How will this section set my students up for success during independent writing time?”
- Last, plan the “Connection.” Again, this could be the manual’s example or an example that you and your class will “connect” with. Planning the connection last is the most efficient. You know where students have been, and you know where you want them to go.
Note: Some Olathe teachers have found that planning in this order helps save time. Some have found reading the “Teaching Point” first works best for them. You will find what works best for you!
This week we continue our spotlight on familiar, tried-and-true reading strategies that have a high impact on reading comprehension, according to What Works Clearinghouse.
These strategies are applicable to all grade levels K-5.
PART 3: Guide students through focused, high-quality discussion on the meaning of text. (SL.1)
PART 4: Select texts purposefully to support comprehension development. (RL.13, RI.13)
Early exposure to different types of text builds the capacity to understand the large variety of reading material that students will encounter as they move through the grades. Teachers should introduce students to a variety of texts. Selected texts should be rich in depth of ideas and information, have a level of difficulty comparable with the students’ word-reading and comprehension skills, and support the purpose of the lesson. Students’ comprehension could always be enhanced by retelling elements of the text.
Teach reading comprehension with multiple genres of text.
- Literary texts – ex: poetry, fairy tales, folktales, or any narrative text
- Informational texts – ex: science, social studies, or any expository text
Choose texts of high quality with richness and depth of ideas and information.
- Rich content
- Strong organization
- Variation and richness in word choice and sentence structure.
Choose texts with word recognition and comprehension difficulty appropriate for the students’ reading ability and the instructional activity.
- Text complexity
- Text interest
--Making tracks/Annotating
----Checklist from Instructional Playbook
Use texts that support the purpose of instruction.
- Consider the Text Structure
--Checklist from Instructional Playbook
- Apply strategies, such as Summarization
- Give time for Predictions
- Read-Aloud – include texts well above the students’ reading level but at their listening comprehension level
- Scaffold the instruction
Attention 4th & 5th Grade Teachers
In response to teacher feedback about the modifications to Vocabulary Surge, your MTSS team has developed a more user-friendly version for students and teachers! The basic structure has not changed, but the layout has—and there are answers in the teacher manual.
Please visit with your MTSS Literacy Support Specialist to preview the materials. Beginning June 2023, the materials we used this year will be removed from the ELA website and replaced with Version 2.0. These new materials are available for order on DSF now. Please follow these directions when ordering:
- Go to Digital StoreFront "DSF" (www.olatheschools.org/dsf). Log in using the beginning of your email and your district password. Once logged in, you should see your name in the upper right corner.
- On the left side of the website, under Online Catalog, click Curriculum. Scroll to the bottom and click Vocabulary Surge. Add the quantity to the items needed and add to cart.
- Items will stay in your cart until you complete the checkout process.
- NOTE: If it's for the next school year’s budget, order with an August 1st due date. We can print and send quickly, but we can't complete the job in DSF until the beginning of June to go on next year’s budget. If the due date is for May or earlier, it will be charged to this year’s school budget.
- You will need to enter an account number to complete the checkout process. If you do not know your account number, please ask the bookkeeper/secretary at your building.
- You will know the order is complete when you see an order number.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Our Social Studies contest round 4 winners know a thing or two about the history of Olathe in the 1970s and 1980s! Teachers who got all the questions correct won either a social studies t-shirt or a teacher tumbler! Congrats to our round 4 winners: Angie Gustin (WV-K), Maggie Gechter (MB - PE) and Lea Finfera (RR-5)!! Our social studies contests will begin again in the fall.
Check out the newsletter for important social studies information!
ELL
Using KELPA Data
This spring, 2,502 of our Olathe Students (about 8%) took the KELPA assessment to measure their English language proficiency in listening, reading, writing, and speaking. This issue’s ELL Spotlight provides you information regarding how to interpret your students’ scores.
See the attached flyer for more details.