Managing Student Learning Goals

                           Managing Student Learning Goals

As educators, our job is to help our students reach their highest potential. However, not all students are created equal. They all have different needs. Some need to grow academically more than others. Some students need to grow their personal independence. Some just need to get through a period of time on task. And many of MY little sweeties need to learn to tie their shoes on their own!

WHAT'S A TEACHER TO DO?

As educators, we need to help our students work towards achieving goals that are meaningful to THEM! 

How do we tackle this task?

I have always struggled with helping my students set and follow through with individual learning goals. I would usually start off strong and then as the year progressed, it would fizzle out. I would forget to follow through with them and before I knew it the next reporting period had come and gone. 

UNTIL NOW.... I saw this great idea, first, on Instagram from @misswestbest. She has her student goals on their name plates. I LOVED the idea but wanted to change it a bit to meet the needs of my second graders. My students have their names on their supply boxes already. I wanted their goal cards to stay at their desks and be a constant reminder for them.

I know what you are thinking....This is all great, BUT how do I get my students to buy into this? 

1.  GOALS NEED TO BE REALISTIC 

Before we wrote our first goals, we had a class discussion about what a realistic goal would be. Many students wanted to write: "I will get 4s on all my tests." While that is a great goal, it's not realistic. We discussed picking a specific test they wanted to do well on. This narrows their focus and gives them something specific to work towards.

2. GOALS NEED TO BE MEASURABLE

I had to guide and help my students understand this concept. I had students who wanted to write, "I want to do well on my math test." What is "do well?" This little guy wanted to get all his IXL math problems correct. While this is a great goal, I wanted him to feel successful. We talked and decided 85% accuracy was a realistic goal he could achieve. AND...it's measurable.

3. GOALS NEED TO BE CELEBRATED

When my students reach one of their goals, they earn a brag tag to celebrate their accomplishment. They hand me their Post-It note with their goal and the date they met the goal. I put the Post-It on a sheet of paper in their portfolio folder. Everyone claps and cheers for the student! It's an amazing site! Students beaming with pride!

Note: After a few weeks of setting and achieving goals, my students were able to manage their goals themselves. They write their goal on their individual white board and put it on top of their desk. This let's me know they need their goal checked by me. If the goal is appropriate, I hand them a Post-It and they write their goal on it and place it on their goal card. I usually adjust or guide my students into a goal that I want them to focus on improving without them realizing it.

There is no pressure to achieve a goal by a certain date. However, if I see a student hasn't met a goal in a few weeks, I ask them to rewrite it or make it more realistic and measurable. I want them all to feel success within a reasonable amount of time.

(thanks)

Reading Comprehension For Beginning Readers

 I liked how independent the kids were.  I liked how I could joke with them and they actually got my jokes.  I especially loved how those years were such a huge turning point in a child's elementary life and I was the one to help them through it.  Students in those grades actually remember, for years, the things you do in the classroom....and come back to tell you ALL about it!  It really is a great age to teach!!

What I didn't love, however, were the state assessments.  Yuck!  They really sucked the fun out of teaching for so many weeks leading up to the tests.  Then when Common Core was adopted and the tests consequently changed to being so much harder, so much longer, and frankly - so much more unfair....I decided I needed a change too.  That was when I took the opportunity to move to 1st grade.  This was the best decision I could have ever made because 1st grade is just ME. 

First grade and me go together like peanut butter and jelly. 

I could go on and on about the things I love about my little firsties, but what I love the most of all is knowing where my students have to get to in a few short years and being confident that I can be the person to help them get there.  I feel effective!  And isn't that what all teachers want to feel? 

You might be wondering why I went on and on about all that and how it has anything to do with reading comprehension.  Well I'll tell you.  When I watched my little third graders - and yes, they are still little in 3rd grade - struggle through a reading test for HOURS and feel defeated, it broke my heart.  I wanted to do anything I could to try to prepare them for the stamina they would need and the strategies to get through it.  Now that I'm in 1st grade I feel like I can help them on this journey by providing as many opportunities to practice strategies they will need but at their level and with my support.  It is my hope that I can give them the foundation that will help them down the road.

So this year I started creating some opportunities to guide my students through the process of reading comprehension.  It definitely is a PROCESS - am I right?  So besides being able to read (kinda important) - what DO children need to be able to do when answering reading comprehension questions?

Here are 5 things that I think young readers need to learn when it comes to reading comprehension



One of the hardest things for students is just knowing what exactly a comprehension question is even asking.  I spend time teaching those question words: who, what, why, where, when, and how.  I teach them how to read those words, of course, and then also what kinds of questions they might see with each of them. 

As with anything we teach, it's important to start out with some modeling and guided practice.  I use my whole group reading time to model using our read alouds.  I use my guided reading time to practice with texts at their level.  When it comes to practicing independently I wanted to give my students the opportunity to just work on the questions, so I made these Picture Comprehension pages with some basic questions like: Who is in the picture? What are they doing? Where are they?  And then also some inference questions like: Why do you think they are doing that?




These allow the students to practice reading those question words, but keeps it quick and simple for independent work.





he next skill that children need to learn is to read ALL of the choices when answering multiple choice questions.  They need to get used to being tricked by similar answers and not just pick the first one they read.  So again, I use the Picture Comprehension to practice this, but I also made these simple Sentence Comprehension pages for that as well. 




Many of the choices are similar and students really need to pay close attention to the answer they choose. 




It's important for us as teachers to understand that children don't naturally know how to answer comprehension questions.  We need to start out simple in order to help them practice and be successful from the get go.  When students get into reading longer passages they will need to pay close attention to detail and be able to search for important clues in the text.  Again, I like to provide the support of pictures to help students practice this.  Important clues can be found in the text and also in pictures.






These Picture Match Books have become a favorite in our classroom.  The kids cannot get enough of them!!!





I also use these CLOZE Comprehension pages for practice.  Children need to fill in the missing words and then answer a couple questions about a short passage. 







One of the hardest parts of reading comprehension for beginning readers is the amount of time it takes to get through a reading passage and THEN they have to go back and find answers to the questions.  Teaching students to find the key words in questions and then skim through the text to search for the answer is one of the best skills they can have in their back pocket.   This takes TONS of modeling and guided practice.  When I am working on this with students I really like to have a short passage with questions to answer. 



I teach them to read all the choices first, pick out key words to search for, and then skim to find those words.  In the Earth Day example shown I would have students read #1 and the choices.  Then we would skim for the numbers 2 or 22 in the passage since numbers are easy to skim for.  The next questions in this passage involve a little more inferring, but we would still search for key words to give us clues that help us answer the questions. 



The final strategy I teach my first graders really goes along with #4.  When they are skimming for key words, they then need to underline where they find the proof for their answers.  We try to make this more interesting by using crayons or highlighters when we practice.  This also lets me see quickly if students are actually using this strategy and doing it correctly. 



When we take the time with our beginning readers to model, model, model, then guide, guide, guide, and finally practice, practice, practice -- it gives them the time they need to internalize these strategies.  They do so with manageable texts and are able to build up their comprehension confidence.  I strongly believe that providing these opportunities for them early on is the key to helping them further develop these skills in later years. 

So for a quick recap, here are the 5 strategies again:

I have to start out with a little disclaimer---------

I DO NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS 

(not even close, really!)
Which is why I'm making this a linky so you can link up with what you do in your own classrooms =)

So, I am writing this post, not to TELL you how to teach phonics, but to EXPLORE how to teach phonics. If I did have all the answers, as if there was only ONE way to teach phonics, then I'd be very famous.    But... sigh... I don't, and I'm not.  And as far as I know, there are a variety of different approaches and theories about how children learn to read.  Teaching phonics isn't necessarily included in some of those theories.   But for me, my own theories, and the district I teach in - we teach phonics.  Even looking at the Common Core Standards, I think a teacher would almost have to teach phonics (and phonemic awareness) in order to reach those standards.  (Again, I could be wrong because remember I don't have all the answers).  

So where does one start when trying to teach children how to read.  Hmmm - this could take a while.  I think I'll skip ahead --- past letter recognition and past phonemic awareness where children learn about the sounds our letters make, or the phonemes. 

Hold on - I already went too far.  I think I need to briefly talk about phonemic awareness.  Obviously, children need to be able to recognize their letters in order to read, but more importantly, children need to realize that letters have sounds, those sounds come together to make words, and those words make sentences.  Phonemic awareness is all about children HEARING the sounds and being able to segment the sounds.  You can practice this with children by segmenting sounds out loud for them and with them.  For example, what sounds do you hear in cat?  /c/ /a/ /t/  What if I change the /c/ to /h/ - what word would that make?  And so on.  These activities can be very difficult for pre-readers, but the modeling and guided practice is oh so important.  After they can hear the sounds, they need to represent the sounds and manipulate the sounds.

This is where I would say the phonics instruction comes in - linking the sounds they hear to the letter or letters that make those sounds.  And of course, the English language has to make things extremely difficult for us by having rules and rule breakers and ifs and only whens.   It can be confusing for sure.      But as the teacher, you need to provide direct teaching and then multiple opportunities for students to practice.  With almost any learning, the way to get better is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!! 

So here is a list, in no particular order, of some ways to practice:

• Show students the letters that make the sounds-using flashcards or something visual 
• Give students examples of words with those letters/sounds.  
• Think of other words with those sounds and chart them.  Give nonsense words as well, but identify them as such.  Keep the charts up if you can.  Displaying word families is one to do this. 
• Make words using tiles, playdoh, Wiki stix, magnetic letters, stamps, etc.  Elkonin Sound boxes are helpful when doing this.
• Read the words in context - using decodable readers when possible so there is multiple exposure.

• Practice writing the words - alone and in sentences
• Sort the words 
• Be a detective and find the words - either in your reading or write the room activities
• Make it kinesthetic and/or musical and use movements or music to reinforce the sounds

And so much more!

I KNOW there are many other activities that you can do, but this is a list of what I work hard to do in my own classroom. 

Here's the MOST IMPORTANT THING about all of those activities  . . .

                                      MAKE IT FUN!!!


Remember I said how important it is to practice, practice, practice?  Well, when it comes to many things, repetitive practice can get *yawn* boring.  It's the teacher's job to make it interesting!  Spice it up!  Find something fun and go with it....and then after a while, find something new.  Of course you want routines in there, but you also need to keep things interesting and keep your students on their toes.  Children become machines if they are doing the same activities day in and day out.  They need something shiny to make it new again - which could be as simple as using a witch's finger pointer around Halloween to point to words on a chart.   Especially for younger children, little changes make a big difference.  



Here's why I think it's important to make it fun: 

One day, as I was using yet another worksheet from our Treasures program this past year, and looked around the class at my children practically falling out of their chairs from boredom, I decided I wanted to make something that was going to make this more fun and exciting - both for my students and for me.  I get bored teaching with worksheets too!  That night, as I was sitting at home, after my kids went to bed, my Phonics "Ph"riends were born.  I thought, wouldn't it be so much more fun to tie each sound to a character?  And have each character have its own story?  We could connect to the character and not just the sounds.  So here is what came from that late night brainstorming.

These pictures are from my R-Blend Pack, but is representative of the other Phonics "Ph"riends packs as well. 

I use these reference posters to display when we are doing whole group activities like making anchor charts and sorting words in pocket charts.  I like to keep these up for reference.



Of course you still need some practice pages, but these are way more interesting than just a worksheet.  These pages have your kids cutting and pasting, highlighting, and drawing. 

And of course, probably the most important of all, are the literacy centers where students can work together in groups to practice their new sounds independently.

(thanks)

How to teach kids