By Hillary Wilkins, 6-12 ELA Department Chair and

Karen Watt, K-5 ELA Department Chair

READING STRATEGIES WORKSHOPS:

This year has been a busy year for students and teachers! Elementary and middle school teachers have been learning a variety of reading strategies from literacy consultant Barb Golub. Utilizing The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo, staff learned how to meet the needs of all students by focusing on appropriate goals based on formative assessments.

Strategies start with emergent readers, typically pre-kindergarteners and early kindergartners. Once students begin reading, strategies are focused on engagement to help students with focus and stamina. Next is print work, helping students read words correctly, helping them to think about what makes sense and reading words that match the picture or what has happened in the text. Fluency strategies help students be automatic and read with expression and proper phrasing, which aids in meaning making.

During the workshops, teachers worked through each hierarchy, learning strategies and then practicing with students.

NOTICE & NOTE WORKSHOPS:

Teachers at the middle and high school also received training in close reading strategies utilizing Notice & Note and Reading Nonfiction, by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst.

If you’ve heard your child talking about “signposts,” this is Notice and Note! The signposts were designed to help students read literary (and informational) text with deeper meaning. Students learn how to question the text and how to engage with the text independently.

Not only are students identifying these signposts, but they are also writing about them in the form of an analytical signpost entry in which they are expected to identify the signpost, summarize the scene or passage, explain its significance to the text and answer the anchor question. Teachers have noticed an improvement in their students’ writing since starting Notice and Note in the fall.

Classrooms are filled with anchor charts as helpful reminders of each signpost and the standard the student is learning. Samples of student work reflects the identification and analysis of the signposts in their independent texts.

This collaborative effort between the Language Arts and Social Studies department helps build consistency in instruction between the disciplines and also supports the district initiative to improve students’ literacy skills.

Under construction!

Middle School Media Center Website

Rebecca Ciannello, media specialist at Neptune Middle School, is in the process of utilizing Google sites to update the current media center website. The new site will feature book trailers, student and teacher video book reviews and streamlined resource lists for both teachers and students.

The site also includes a Book Blog that includes teachers and students “blogging” about their latest read!

What will you be reading over the summer?

Summer reading information will be distributed soon to elementary and middle school students. Each grade level will have several titles and genres from which to choose. School librarians will distribute books and instruction packets to students beginning in mid-May.