Mindful Book Selection

 This week we read a journal article titled, "Putting First Nations Texts at the Center" by University of Alberta professor, Roxanne Harde.

The article talks about using and supplying authentic Indigenous texts in the classroom. To start off our live Zoom class, we read When I Was Eight by Canadian and Indigenous authors, Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. Looking at the First Peoples Principles of Learning, we engaged in thoughtful discussions about how to use these principles in our classrooms in a meaningful and purposeful way. We also explored the Strong Nations, an online bookstore and Indigenous owned and operated publishing house.

Image from http://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/

Check out all of the amazing resources we found filled with Indigenous and Canadian content.

This week we looked at being purposeful in our book choice as teachers and also in how to teach our students how to choose appropriate texts for themselves to read. We looked at the iPICK lesson from The Daily 5.

Image from https://grade1and2beveridgeps.wordpress.com/tag/ipick/

Thinking about The Daily 5 and word work, we explored the Words Their Way program. This word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction uses word sorts to engage students with word patterns. We used some of the manipulatives in our course kit to focus on words with short and long vowel sounds.

Here is a look at a sample week with The Daily 5 in Grades 2/3.  

The Daily 5	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
Read to Self	Students can explore a book of their choice independently from their Book Bin.
Work on Writing	Journal	Punctuation Tales activity	Blog Post comment on Class Blog	Creative Writing prompt using the book Tuesday by David Weisner
Read to Someone	Guided Reading/Literacy Circles: Student groups are assigned a levelled reader from the Circle of Life series. Teacher works with this group to introduce a new book. Read text as a group aloud. Discuss any tricky words. Talk about the story. Read again with each student reading a page aloud. Revisit problem areas. Reread to a partner or independently. May engage in activities to extend or respond to text. (Refer to page 7 of Guided Reading)
Listen to Reading	Robert Munsch books on CD. Paper copy of book for group to follow along. Play CD of Robert Munsch reading quietly in one corner of the classroom. If time remains, group rereads the book by each taking a turn to read a page.
Word Work	New words for each group. Cut, colour, and sort. Write in planner.	Sort. Write in notebook.	Rainbow words. Choose three colours per word and write out overlapping the letters.	Choose an activity from the Word Work tic-tac-toe sheet.

English Language Arts Curriculum Connections

Grade 2:

• Content
  
  • Story/text - elements of story
  • Strategies and processes - reading strategies; writing processes
  • Language features, structures, and conventions - word patterns; word families; letter formation; sentence structure; conventions
• Curricular Competency
  • Comprehend and connect (reading, listening, viewing)
    • Read fluently at grade level
    • Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community
    • Show awareness of how story in First Peoples cultures connects people to family and community 

Grade 3:

• Content
  • Story/text - elements of story; literary elements and devices
  • Strategies and processes - reading strategies; writing processes
  • Language features, structures, and conventions - features of oral language; word patterns, word families; legible handwriting; sentence structure; conventions
• Curricular Competency
  • Comprehend and connect (reading, listening, viewing)
    • Read fluently at grade level
    • Engage actively as listeners, viewers, and readers, as appropriate, to develop understanding of self, identity, and community
    • Show awareness of how story in First Peoples cultures connects people to family and community 

In our readings this week we also looked at Guided Reading. Being mindful with our book selection can also be reflected in our book choices for this activity. Levelled readers such as the Circle of Life for Grades K-6 "build knowledge and understanding of Indigenous culture and traditions while developing literacy skills". There are many different levelling systems for Guided Reading. Here is a table that compares some of the most popular systems.

Image found at https://www.ghsd75.ca/documents/general/ReadingLevelComparisonChart.pdf 

Next week we will be learning more about Running Records and how they can be an effective assessment tool to use with levelled readers.