Writing

Thanks for the feedback on writing tips!

About a month ago I decided to take a writing sample from each child, put it on construction paper, laminate it and I made it into a book.  The students LOVE it!  They fight over who gets to read it all the time.  Since then I have made three more books.  I just finished a Halloween book, which they were even more excited about.  For some students the just like seeing their work in a book.  For other students this is exciting because this is a book that they can actually read because they wrote one of the pages.

I have found that on days that I tell students we are writing to make a new book they really try a lot harder to write words correctly, include punctuation, and have a matching picture.  These are all part of the first grade writing rubric.  If only I had realized this before our writing test... I guess now I can focus on growth for the next test.

Frustrations

I guess I'm just to the point of the school year where I am feeling a little overwhelmed.  Even though I have settled into teaching 1st grade I still feel like I am constantly working to keep up with my lesson planning because it is all new to me.  We had our first round of testing last week and my students did poorly on the writing because I had not prepared them since I did not know we had a writing test.  This is something that I have started to spend more time on but it is hard to fit it all into a day.

I am also stressed out about completing my action research project.  I have made progress on my first two chapters but I have not done any work on chapters 3 and 4.  I collected my test results and inputed the data into excel but I have forgotten completely what to do now.  I emailed my advisor who sent my info to Dr. Tracz who ran my stats but now I am not able to open the file...

So, I am hoping that it all comes together somehow over the next month so that I can finish on time.

All about my research questions

How can teachers help all students learn these skills in a way that will be beneficial to all students?

I have found that some students are able to quickly learn new skills like blending and rhyming while some students have a lot of trouble learning these skills.  I know that I need to continue practicing these skills with my students but I want to do it in a way that is fun.

I think that using partners makes it more fun and also allows students to help each other learn.

I also am curious to know if English learners (especially Spanish speakers) progress through the same stages of pre-reading and reading.  In my experience my Spanish speakers have a hard time learning how to rhyme.  When I asked a coworker who is bilingual she told me that rhyming is less common in Spanish and that there are not many rhyming book like there are in English.  I think that English-speaking children grow up listening to rhyming stories and songs and this makes rhyming easier when these students get to school.

This information gives me an excuse to do more read alouds in class.  I make sure to choose some rhyming books when I am reading aloud to students.