Making Connections: Deepening our Comprehension

Reading becomes so much more meaningful when we are able to personally connect with the text! This past few days we have been focusing on making a personal connection with what we are reading. This means the children have been challenged to connect the story to their own life, own experiences, and own feelings. 

We enjoyed reading several books appropriate for the Halloween season! The boys and girls made meaningful text-to-self connections using these texts!

In Creepy Carrots, we met Jasper Rabbit, who loves carrots, until they turn on him and become scary! We connected with the story by sharing our favourite food to snack on!

Next we enjoyed the story "Where's My Mummy?" Where is little mummy's mama? Little mummy felt scared without mama! Here are our personal connections sharing what we do when we're scared:

When I'm scared ... (a) I jump! (b) I go to mom and dad
(c) I hide. (d) I scream!

Crankenstein features an ordinary kid who can become very cranky! What makes us cranky? Look at our cranky faces!

The Littlest Pumpkin is about a teeny tiny pumpkin that nobody picks from the pumpkin patch.  The students will be challenged to think of a time they felt disappointed! 

Continue to reinforce those personal connections as your child reads. Connecting to the text is an excellent way to increase and develop your child's comprehension!

Where's My Mummy activity and craftivity from Deanna Jump's unit. 
The Littlest Pumpkin activity and craftivity from Cara Carroll. 
Crankenstein activity from Falling Into First. 
Creepy Carrots inspired by Anita Bremmer. 
Connections poster from the Comprehension Strategy Poster collection made by A Year of Many Firsts.  

Making Connections When We Read

Reading becomes so much more meaningful when we are able to personally connect with the text! This past few days we have been focusing on making a personal connection with what we are reading. This means the children have been challenged to connect the story to their own life, own experiences, and own feelings. 

We enjoyed reading several books appropriate for the Halloween season! The boys and girls made meaningful text-to-self connections using these texts!

In Creepy Carrots, we met Jasper Rabbit, who loves carrots, until they turn on him and become scary! We connected with the story by sharing our favourite food to snack on!

Next we enjoyed the story "Where's My Mummy?"! Where is little mummy's mama? Little mummy felt scared without mama! Here are our personal connections of a time we felt scared:

The Littlest Pumpkin is about a teeny tiny pumpkin that nobody picks from the pumpkin patch.  The boys and girls thought of a time they felt disappointed, and also made matching mini-pumpkins!

Crankenstein features an ordinary kid who can become very cranky! What makes us cranky?

We tried to pose with our crankiest faces, but it turned into giggles!

Watch for these activities to come home next week and continue to reinforce those personal connections as your child reads. Connecting to the text is an excellent way to increase and develop your child's comprehension!


Where's My Mummy activity and craftivity from Deanna Jump's unit. 
The Littlest Pumpkin activity and craftivity from Cara Carroll. 
Crankenstein activity from Falling Into First. 
Creepy Carrots inspired by Anita Bremmer. 
Connections poster from the Comprehension Strategy Poster collection made by A Year of Many Firsts.  

Reading & Rhyming!

Rhyme Bag

We are working hard in class to develop the necessary skills for reading, and rhyming is an important part of the reading process. Rhyming allows children to play with words and makes language fun and engaging. It encourages children to listen to language and notice its sounds. Rhyming also helps children discover word families (e.g. pot, hot, and spot are in the -ot family). Rhyming is such a rich language activity! 

We have a Rhyme Bag that students are taking turns bringing home. Only items that rhyme can be placed inside! This student had fun with us by only showing us her first item, a bat! We all enjoyed guessing what else might be inside (as well as what probably wouldn’t be inside). Look at the rhyming items that filled her bag!

bat, cat & hat

When your child brings the Rhyme Bag home, feel free to not only choose items to place inside, but illustrations, words, or images printed from your computer. All items will be returned. Happy rhyming!

Reading

Each morning the boys and girls are paired up and share their Home Reading books with each other! Then they exchange their book for one at the same level and quietly read the new book. I am able to read individually with 4 to 6 students in this short time, allowing progress to be assessed, feedback to be given, and book levels to be adjusted. What phenomenal readers we are becoming!

For the next few weeks, the books that come home will be basic pattern books. My goal is to build confidence, make the experience of reading enjoyable, and develop reading behaviours! 

Here are a few strategies to support your child as he or she reads:

• Finger-track: Ask your child to follow the words with their finger. Today we used googly-eyed reading buddies to remind us to track!

• Look at the Pictures: The pictures are loaded with information that our beginning readers rely upon. Please never cover the pictures. For example, we can see flowers painted on Froggy's picture!

• Check the First Letter: When stuck on a tricky word, ask your child to say the sound of the first letter. For example, in the picture below, when we check the first letter and see an "h", we know the word cannot be "chicken". Must be "hen"!

We have keen readers and rhymers in our class! 

Awesome Day, Awesome Learning!

Today was one of those rare days; one of those days that appears ordinary at first glance. No special guests, no crazy activities, not even a library period or a Music class. Just 14 students and their teacher, working hard, learning and encouraging each other. 

But as we gathered for prayer at the end of the day and took a moment to reflect, it was clear; awesome day, awesome learning! 

To begin to document a day in grade 1 would take paragraph upon paragraph, so I'll offer just a few peeks into our "average" little Wednesday. 

We have been working with numbers up to 100, and today we were reviewing skip counting by 10's. Here is the Math Journal problem the students tackled (and conquered!)

Students were encouraged to show their thinking in whatever way suited them, and they rose to the challenge! 

Please look for opportunities to practice skip counting:

• by 10's to 100
• by 2's to 20
• by 5's to 100

We have continued to practice applying reading comprehension strategies in our language lessons. Remember when we first started making text-to-self connections? 

Last week we focused on making predictions. It is important to make predictions before and during reading. It helps students monitor their understanding of a story, while encouraging them to think ahead. 

We've read several stories, making predictions before and during reading, however today we shook up our prediction mini-lesson! We watched a fun little clip about a pig who sees a cookie jar sitting high on top of the fridge. The cookies are just out of reach! The boys and girls LOVED making predictions about how he might get the cookies!

"I predict he is going to kick it." (the fridge)

"I predict he gets a ladder to get the cookies."

We watched this clip, pausing it to make frequent predictions:

Thank you for sharing your children with me each day. We'll see what tomorrow brings ... never the same day twice!

Prediction poster from the Comprehension Strategy Poster collection made by A Year of Many Firsts.  Prediction mini-page from Kindergarten Boom Boom. 

I'm stuuuck!

"Mrs. Beliveau, I'm stuck on this word!"

Boy, learning to read is challenging! A huge part of Grade One is arming the students with strategies they can apply when faced with a tricky word. 

We have a special bulletin board in our room that helps us remember useful reading strategies. There are many more strategies not posted on our board that can help a reader, but the ones we focus on are the ones that will help our beginning readers get "unstuck" most often. 

If you ever want to hear a funny story, ask Mrs. Beliveau about how her husband ended up buying all of these Beanie Babies!

We have not yet introduced all of the strategies posted, but have worked with several so far. Mrs. Beliveau frequently meets with small groups of kids who have similar needs to practice applying reading strategies.

Can you see the strategies posted behind our reading table?

Knowing the strategies your child is familiar with, as well as the vocabulary we use in class when discussing strategies, can be helpful when reading together at home. Here are the strategies we have worked with so far:

• Stretch out the sounds in the word slowly. (Stretchy Snake)
• Look at the first letter of a word. Get your lips ready to say the first sound. (Lips the Fish)
• Look at the pictures for clues. (Owl Eyes)
• Find a chunk/part of the word you know. (Chunky Monkey) 

Above all, always encourage your child to ask "Is what I'm reading making sense?". 

Watch for a strategy bookmark to come home with your child soon!

Reading strategy posters from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.