By this time tomorrow I will be finished with my work for National Board certification. My test is at 11:30 tomorrow. I feel ready, like I've run a marathon studying and now just have to run the last few blocks. I've attempted to narrow down each assessment center exercise to some big ideas that I can apply to most any stimulus.
Today I've spent at least five hours studying, of course getting way off track as I did...reading articles about Sarah Palin, updating my Netflix queue, fixating on Pandora, reading random blogs that had nothing to do with anything, and putting books on hold at the library. But, you gotta take a break sometime. So now, my final (well, maybe) act of studying: summarizing here.
Exercise Eins: Reading Comprehension
- Metacognitive strategies
- Double Entry Journals
- Graphic Organizers
- Literal understanding
- Inference
- Think Alouds
- Mosaic of Thought
- Strategies that Work
- Reality Checks
- To Understand
Exercise Zwei: Oral Language Development for ELL
- Strength/Weakness...Goal...Strategy...Rationale
- Vocabulary...Use correct vocabulary related to specific context in discussions with teacher and classmates...Read aloud texts related to contexts, making picture cards afterward where student draws pictures and writes word...Drama...Field trips...BookFLIX
- Grammar (articles: a, an, the; pronouns: I, they, we; tenses: past, present, future)...Student will use __________ (specific articles, etc.) correctly in conversations...Reader's theater to hear the sounds and become familiar with the articles, shared reading, poems, chants, to see, hear, say examples of correct grammar...then engage in conversation to assess and practice correct use of grammar.
- Sentences and phrases vs. one word...Use complete sentences in conversation...teach child to use sentence stems...practice and assess in conversation.
Exercise Drei: Emergent Literacy
- Phonemic Awareness (ending sounds, beginning sounds, middle sounds)
- Spacing
- Sight Words
- ...Student will use _________ sounds correctly in writing...
- Students will use spaces between words consistently in writing
- Students will write and read the sight words _______ and _______ correctly.
- Shared writing to model thinking about the sounds and figuring them out (stretch it out like a rubber band), Elkonin boxes ("push the sounds up"), Making words, Starfall.com, Mentor texts, Shared reading, Word/picture sorts, Word Wall, Multi-sensory work (sand, sandpaper, shaving cream, act it out), cheers, chants, songs
Exercise Vier: Analyzing Reading
- Monitor comprehension
- Attend to visual cues/decode correctly
- Teacher modelling/Think alouds
- Double entry journals (reading-writing connection, self-evaluation, reflection, assessment tool)
- Teach cross checking (arms cross the body--"does it look right, sound right, make sense?")--involves learner, accomodates kinesthetic learners
- Word study to increase decoding ability
Exercise Funf: Visual Text
- Identify message and how use of graphics, text, literary devices communicates that message, identify target audience and how the text targets the audience.
- Literary devices: irony, humor, hyperbole/exaggeration, satire, theme, symbolism, analogy, mood, point of view, metaphor, allegory
Exercise Sechs: Writing Development:
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Goals, Strategies, Rationale
- 6-Traits
- Graphic organizers
- Mentor texts: contextualized grammar instruction, model
- Mini lessons
- Conferences: constant feedback, assessment, tailored instruction
- Small groups
- Teacher modelling
- Study-driven
