A Call to Arms (full of books)

A Call to Arms
(full of books)

I worked for several years in granite fabrication -this when I was much younger and better suited to the cold and heavy work. I get shivers just thinking about the water jets in mid-winter now. My time as a fabricator was fairly typical: I gawked at the many large machines, endless rows of granite slabs and half-formed mantles or tables, and wondered. "How will I ever learn this stuff?" 

As noted, my developed was not particularly unique. I learned my way around the workshop through watching more experienced men at work, asking questions, and practicing. There was a great deal of on the job practice and on demand performance, and I quickly learned not only about the machines, templates, and time frames for projects, but about the many materials I was asked to use. 

Marbles are far softer to granite, for example; and some marbles are particularly difficult to handle in wide spans as they have soft, fault lines in them. I learned which granites needed a heavy hand to make shine and which to avoid any contact with oils. Eventually, I knew much about the pluses, minuses, and plain oddities to the many materials I was expected to work with; and, having shown some semblance of mastery with them, I was allowed to complete large projects independently as well as form works on my own that I thought might turn a profit for the company.

So, how does this possibly connect with school and Language Arts? 

Simple.

No reader's & writer's workshop can be said to be complete without having a healthy, ever changing, classroom library. Classroom books are the marbles and granites of a workshop model. Books are the necessary material  for students to study the Language Arts craft and complete their own projects. The young and developing minds that amble, hop, saunter, and race into a room dedicated to learning the crafts of reading and writing in a workshop setting must see, read, and practice with as many books as possible -books, which are in reach, and not down the hall in stacked rows awaiting discovery. (If you're so interested, you may want to read a piece I wrote about turning our school library inside-out. School Libraries: The Blockbuster of Today?)

We need books, armfuls of books, today! If you have any reading materials that you're confident will not feel the warm embrace of curious minds and eager fingers anytime soon, then please put them in a bag and drop them off in the school office. Don't think that any book is too damaged, or easy, or difficult, because in a workshop classroom the breadth of desires to explore and levels of reading abilities is vast. Books as low as third grade are as welcome as are those for early high school. I am more than happy to sift through stacks and stacks of your donated books to see they get into the right classrooms for students. If something is deemed too hard or too low, it will find a place in another school. I promise. (I'm clutching a nearby book to my heart as I type this, the universal oath of a Reader.)

This is my call to arms (full of books, please.).

 

Workbooks -Worth the Time or Time Wasting?

Arghhh...technology!

I'd written a -well I thought it was- sound composition on the merits and pitfalls of using reading comprehension workbooks with your child over the summer, but thanks to a slip of the finger and the autosave feature on Blogger I've nothing left of it for you to read. 

Hmmm....maybe this is to your benefit, as it was long and most of us are pressed for time. Being too lazy this fine Saturday afternoon to recollect my thoughts, I present a list of reading comprehension workbooks you may want to use this summer. Each has a picture and a thumbnail review. While I'd rather see your child reading from authentic literature each day, there is a place for reading shorter, controlled, passages and responding to comprehension questions during a period of the year when so little focused reading and thinking often occurs -what with swimming to do, sports, travel, video games to master...

a challenge but above average

Reading Detective: Using Higher Order Thinking to Improve Comprehension by Cheryl Block (Author), Carrie Beckwith (Author), Margaret Hockett (Author), David White (Author), Susan Giacometti (Illustrator)

I've used this workbook on and off over the years and I like it. The book, as the title suggests, shoots to develop higher end thinking. It does have some straight-forward questions too. There are numerous excerpts from well-known authentic books like Island of the Blue Dolphins and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. There are also original pieces, which vary in terms of student interest. It's not perfect, however, as there are no attempts to collect materials under a theme and there's no attempt to incorporate useful graphic organizers. This workbook is also the priciest of the lot, but I would recommend it in tandem with some of the better liked workbooks below.

more of a companion, workbook

Kumon Reading Workbook Grade 6 Reading by Kumon Publishing

The cheapest of the bunch and that so often means it’s synonymous with poor quality. It’s not wholly true here as I liked much of what was in this workbook. Most of the passages are of quality and interest. I’m a fan of theme related articles that have different written forms and the writing was generally good. My knock on this book is that, like many workbooks aimed at parents, it tries to provide everything without developing enough well. Their idea is that certain skills are learned first and lead into the next, more challenging it’s presumed, skills until the reader is a dynamo by the end of the workbook. Well, that’s simply not reality. I can see this appealing to kids and the price (6.95 on Amazon) is solid, but I’m not sure it’s enough on its own.

Steck-Vaughn Core Skills: Reading Comprehension: Grade 6 by author Resnick

take a pass on this one

This was one I thumbed through in a local book store and ended up putting back on the rack. The articles were not terribly appealing and there seemed to be a shotgun method to assembling them. There weren’t examples of fiction and non-fiction articles related by theme, for example. The workbook also tried to hit at least once on every type of skill: main idea, inferring meaning, using context, etc. This gave it a diluted feel and would most likely not be of much benefit to a developing mind. I’d pass on this one.

 

Spectrum Reading: Grade 6 by Spectrum Publishing

easier fare and serviceable

I’ve used this item in class a few times. It’s important to know that it’s targeted for students ages 9-12, which is appropriate considering idea behind it is to help struggling readers. I like the variety of materials in this workbook. There are fiction and non-fiction articles ranging from recipes to science experiments. There are also often 4-6 articles at a time related by theme, bees and finance as examples. The writing is highly-controlled, again good for a student who struggles, but not so good for someone looking for authentic reading. Questions that follow each chapter tend toward the literal which disappoints me. I often had to add another layer of questions myself for deeper meaning. This is decent, but not something to run out and snap up. If you want something you can more or less give to a child to work on independently, then this could suit your needs.   

 

a firm buy, small reservations

Paired Passages: Linking Fact to Fiction Grade 6 by Ruth Foster

In all, I like this workbook.  As the title notes, there are two passages paired together each time. One is fiction and the other is non-fiction. After reading both, there are multiple choice questions hitting on each separately and both taken together as in what does each article share and how do they differ. I mainly appreciate the use of graphic organizers throughout and the fact that any part of the book can be read, it's not sequential. Most articles are interesting too, like the one on why most castles in Ireland have uneven steps. The aim, as the author, notes is to improve standardized test taking, which is one detractor for me. Not that I don't want student scores to improve but this means the collection of articles are not excerpted from authentic sources. There were also no examples of poetry, which is used in many standardized tests. While, by comparison, this book is the priciest option, it’s still a recommended buy.

IF you happen to buy and use these something, possible this very summer, I'd love to know what you think.

 

Kindles Can Do

     After a period of considering and testing several other portable reading platforms, I ended up exactly where I had originally planned when applying for a grant to fund eReaders for my young readers. After buying and trying the Nook, the result is we've become a Kindle-toting classroom.
     After the perfunctory introduction to all the little buttons and tasks a Kindle can perform, the students have settled into reading from them as they would any other print -albeit with a few positive wrinkles.

* We all have a voice: Kindles offer a voice-assisted reading program, which when activated  translates displayed text into audio. Several students make regular use of this feature and appear to enjoy it. Personally, I find the computer-assisted reading feature off-putting, but that's me.
* Swiss-knife eReading: Many students have been interacting well with their Kindles by making use of the ever-present dictionary. When they discover a word that confuses them during read, they can move a cursor to a spot just before the word and then glance to the bottom of the viewing window. There they will find a suggested word meaning in a slim pop-up window. This is one of the least intrusive ways I've seen for learning about challenging word and I like it a lot. The Kindle is like a Swiss-knife reading unit in this way because it has all you need, and more, packed into a portable package.

* Chocolate Sampler: The students have explored almost 25 books in only a few classes using their Kindles. The ability to download a sample for almost any new book has been awesome, because while my room is filled with books, which students can easily examine, I couldn't possibly fund bringing in all the latest books for review. The Kindle can and, unlike a laptop, presents all of this in one easy-to-survey glance. Students have poked their minds into many books samples to date such as Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen, Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne, and Sharks by Peter Benchley -none of which I have in my room in hard copy. Of these three titles, I've ordered the latter two because interest in them has been significant. Sadly, and maybe only for the moment, Paulsen's Woods Runner is not in demand. His book, apparently, is the butter creme of the bunch for this discerning group of readers.
* Making the Most Cents: Another powerful aspect of having Kindles has been the number of copies I have been able to bring into it with a simple click of a button. When I noticed the book Boost was a hit with students in other classrooms, I made that my first Kindle purchase. It cost 9.99, which seems fair, at first, and then quickly became a steal of a deal when I transferred 5 more copies of the book at no additional cost to four other Kindles. (Most ebooks allow for 5-10 copies to be used at a time from one an account.) So, the real math worked out to less that two bucks a book, which makes the most (sorry) cents to anyone running a classroom and promoting reading. I now have about half my students reading Boost and being in a position to share their reading experience. Thus, for 10 bucks I have 5 happy readers. Excellent stuff!

     It's not all been perfect in this early going. Because I have ebooks spread unequally across several Kindles and far more students than Kindles, I've had to track which person is reading from which Kindle. Then everyone has had to learn the art of recording a location number to find their place for when they return to their book a few days later. Also, while the American and Oxford dictionaries are excellent sources for finding definitions, many continue to be too difficult for the younger audience. I wish there was an intermediate version available for installation. I'd happily pay for those to be on each Kindle. Still, these are minor nuisances when compared to how well they're enjoyed in the classroom.

     Maybe your child has come home asking about one already? I will say that -if you can swing it financially- it worth buying one. And, there's a chance Kindles will drop to 99 dollars by the summer as that seems to be a good price point to sell even more. 

The Kindle is Kewl!!!

Kindle = Kewl

     I made the beginning transition from book toter to Kindle carrier this week. I'll admit that I had a momentary bout of buyer's remorse when I started examining the Nook color, but came to my senses when reminded that my goal is to read from a portable device -not access email and play games in-between the reading. So, what are my early thoughts? The Kindle is (pardon my adolescent-ish behavior) Kewl!

     After the initial hours of playing with every feature I could find on the unit, I eventually settled into reading from it -go figure. The fact is I've been reading a great deal this week because of the Kindle. The special e-ink gives the screen a fake look (as if someone typed on a plastic overlay) but it's perfect for reading. "Page" turning happens quickly, which is good because I'd read  that this was an issue for some of the earlier Kindles. The font size is completely adjustable too, another helpful feature when reading for prolonged periods. Probably the most influential factor to my heavy use of the device has been the variety of material it can hold.

     Next to my bed is a stack of books, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty. I'm reading from more than half of these at the moment, a habit adopted years ago that, surprisingly, hasn't confused me. (A common reaction when people hear this is, "Oh, I couldn't read more than one book. I'd be too confused." The fact is it's the same as watching 10 TV shows. It's about interest not memory. Trust me, you can do this too.) Now, twenty books makes for a nifty pile and quite the project when I want to quickly switch to something else, or try and take more than three of these with me somewhere. The Kindle solves all of this. My Kindle has over twenty reading items at this moment, and I find myself jumping from one item to the next. While it sounds like inattention at work it's had the net affect of keeping me reading longer.
     Just this morning, I read a bit from the Wall Street Journal, then switched over to a Sherlock Holmes story (free), then back to WSJ, then to a PDF document (which I converted to a book format using Calibre), and then over to a contemporary novel. I don't think I moved physically more than three inches in the process. If I had to round up these materials the-soon-to-be-old-fashioned-way, I would have had to collect my laptop, a newspaper, and two books. I have enough trouble rustling up a spoon for my cereal in the morning. Most likely I'd have just read the newspaper from front to back -even the stuff I could care little about. So, for now, the Kindle has translated to more enjoyable and purposeful reading for me because I can access anything I'm interested in reading anywhere. Yes, this is no different than when we all began converting over to MP3 players and no longer had to worry about shelves of albums to sift through and be in a range of to enjoy.

     Another additional benefit -and this is purely a theory- is that I'm reading faster. I'm not a terribly quick reader in general. I'm probably average. But, with the Kindle screen being smaller than a book page, and the size of fonts able to be increased so that only a few words per line show at a time, the outcome is reading more quickly. The reason is quite literally because less eye movement has been needed. It seems like a small point to make but moving across from left to right to follow strings of words and then zip over to start the next line is an unnecessary task. I've noticed that in recent years, I hardly look at the edges of my reading. I try to shoot down the middle and feel almost a sense of anxiety (or is it merely irritation?) at having to move my eyes side to side. When we read it's natural to try and see things in chunks, anticipating what will show up next. So, a narrower column of words seems to work better for reading and sense-making than having text spread across several inches just outside of our visible range where it becomes necessary to shift and refocus our attention. 

     I'm not completely done with books and I know it won't be long before I'm using a Kindle color (rumor is their Chinese manufactures are playing around with new color screens) but I'm satisfied owning a Kindle. Looking forward to taking is me...everywhere.

How's Yor Speling?

            I don't make too many bones anymore about my spelling. At my age, it is what it is; and so, I’m honest about it when anyone asks. I’m average in this department, which is why the word processor is, for one like me, practically the single greatest achievement of Mankind.
            Spelling is one of those things about any language that seems to polarize many people. Rather than try to defend one side or even straddle the fence (sounds ridiculously dangerous) I’m going to avoid the discussion altogether and offer a recommendation for those who want to spell well and swell.
            Use the tools available to you and your children. The word processor is an amazing device –truly. The mistake made, as I often witness in classes, is that students either A: do not use it, or B: use it haphazardly. In the latter instance, they’ll select whichever spelling “looks” right. That “looks-right” approach is invariably employed, not because they cannot sift through to the proper spelling, but because it’s expedient to pick it. Still, as useful as all the built-in dictionaries have become, they don’t teach students to spell better in general.
            Enter SpellingCity.com. This website has been gaining some traction. My immediate thought about the site is that it’s far too busy with its advertisements and simply needs a much cleaner look to it. Hopefully, they’ll do something about this. I’m also left thinking there’s nothing original about how the website helps its users improve as spellers. Looks and lack of imagination aside, this is a great website to practice spelling.
            Site users can input and keep list of words or choose from a teacher produced list to practice their spelling. In the Teach Me mode, students see and hear each word spelled on the screen before them one word at a time. This is followed by the use of the word in a complete sentence. Once a student believes he is ready, he then selects the Test Me mode. The student then spells the word said on the screen. He is also able to hear the word repeated in a sentence. This is exactly the kind of practice I remember receiving as a child. The teacher read spelling words aloud, used them in a sentence, and I was asked to practice spelling them out (10 times for each word. 20 when I was naughty.) for a quiz. But, this is not all.
            SpellingCity.com also allows students to Play a Game with the words from the spelling list being practiced. Make that play many games using the spelling words.

Alphabetize- asks the students to put the spelling list into alphabetical order

Hang Mouse- basically hangman using the words –except no one is hanged. Of course, if you fail to spell the word soon enough, the cat captures the mouse. (The mouse is cute, but if you’ve ever had mice in your home, you’re kind of rooting for the cat. Same if you’ve watched enough Tom & Jerry cartoons.)

Word Search – yep, a word search containing all of the spelling words

Matching sentences – the word has to be matched to a sentence with a blank in it

Unscramble – the words are arcmblesd and need to be unscrambled

The list of games goes on. None of these games are novel but that’s not the point. The aim is to have the students seeing, thinking, and spelling the words over and over until it’s easy. This type of repetition, which no one loves, is still the best way to improve our spelling, like it or not.
            I think SpellingCity.com is a great way to improve spelling from home –even if it brings nothing new to the table.