February 2013 archive

SOLO Taxonomy

Tonight I read Alice’s comments about her use of SOLO Taxonomy in her class. She has done a great job of simplifying the language and using effective visuals to communicate the message. It makes me think about what I am implementing and I wonder if it will all be a bit too complicated.

During this week I introduced a task I have been mulling over for a while. It relates to a video I saw at Deb Masters presentation last year, which related to the SOLO Taxonomy. In the video a young New Zealand student verbally described, with the aid of a visual display behind him, exactly where he was on a learning continuum and where he was heading using what he needed to be able to do to get there. The school was near a quarry and so each step on the continuum was a big boulder.

The task my students were set this week was to design a concept for a game. The game needed to have four levels, which build in complexity. It also needed to include themselves as a main character, (they could have superhuman traits, or be an animal, etc). They also needed to decide on the setting for the game, eg. Futuristic, forest, etc. They need to be able to present their concept to the class on Monday. They have been encouraged to find an interesting way to present, either orally or using visual tools.

The students have responded eagerly to this task. It could be built on to work on descriptive writing, and narrative text types. My aim is to then get students to use this as a reference point and analogy to describe their own learning in various contexts. I will introduce the Structured Observable Learning Outcomes and see if they can make the links between this model and their game. Not sure whether this will be too difficult for them? An A4 poster may be good to have as a reference point in the students’ Assessment Folder. I had thought that I would also make some sort of class chart. I was going to use a Morton Bay Fig Tree design, but perhaps this is a bit too ambitious?

Roots (Pre-structural) – trunk (Unilateral) – branches (Multilateral) – Fruit (Relational) – Seeds (Extended abstract)

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Words Their Way

Notes from reading:
Introduction can range from teacher directed sorts to students centred open sorts

Important components of a program:
Repeated sorts moving from modelled to supported to independence
Include homework sorts and speed to develop automaticity
Buddy sorts
Blind sorts
Writing sorts
Blind writing sorts
Word Hunts
Brainstorming
Draw and label – different meaning of words
Games and other activities
Reflect – Compare and declare ( position, frequency, and related words)
Extend

Questions to pose:

  • What do you notice about these words? How are they alike?
  • Where in the word do you find the spelling pattern?
  • In your word hunts, which pattern did you find more frequently? Which pattern has the most words in the column? The fewest?
  • If you’re not sure how to spell a word with a long a sound, how would you know which pattern to use? What would be your best bet? Why?
  • Can you divide the word into parts? What is the base word? Are there any prefixes or suffixes?
  • Do the word parts give you information about the word’s meaning?
  • Can you think of other words that have the same sound (or root, base word, etc)?
  • What did you learn that might help you be a better speller or a better reader?

Reference book

The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists (Fry and Kress, 2006)

 

Links:

http://www.yourdictionary.com

http://www.wordcentral.com

http://www.allwords.com

http://www.etymonline.com

http://www.wordnik.com

http://www.onelook.com

Sample letter to parents:

Dear Parents/ Caregivers,
Your child will be bringing home a collection of spelling words weekly that have been introduced in class. Each night of teh week your child is expected to do a different activity to ensure that these words and the spelling principles they represent are mastered. These activities have been modelled and practised in school, so your child can teach you how to do them.
Monday Remind your child to sort words into categories like the ones we did in school. Your child should read each word aloud during this activity. Ask your child to explain to you why the words are sorted in a particular way – what does the sort reveal about spelling in general? Ask your child to sort them a second time as fast as possible. You may want to time them.
Tuesday Do a blind sort with your child. Lay down a word from each category as a header and then read the rest of teh words aloud. Your child must indicate where the words goes without seeing it. Lay it down and let your child move it if he or she is wrong. Repeat if your child makes more than one error.
Wednesday Assist your child in doing a word hunt, looking in a book they have already read for words that have the same sound, pattern, or both. Try to find two or three for each category.
Thursday Do a writing sort to prepare for the Friday test. As you call out the words in a random order your child should write them in categories. Call out any words your child misspells a second or even a third time.

Thank you for your support. Together we can help your child make valuable progress!

Sincerely,

 

Suggested Schedule for students who sort words
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Sort introduced; studentssort at least once independently. Re-sort and writing sort:first speed sort Re-sort and Blind buddy sort Re-sort: second Speed sort andWord Hunt Testing and games
Homework: Sort again Homework: Re-sort andblind sort Homework: word hunt Homework: Blind writing sort

Popplet

We used Popplet in class today to create a web of information read from Sustainability reading. Some problems arose with laptops not having up to date Flash media players. The other problem was the inability to embed due to not having linked the students blogs to the class blog at that stage.

Students were quite motivated by this medium however, and it will be interesting to persist with this. Next week I will introduce the Rubric. Might be better to start with non-fiction one. It will fit in better with what we have started. I will need to work on non-fiction one a bit.