A Conscious Connection

This year has been a wonderful learning experience to integrate vocabulary in many ways. In our kindergarten class we maintain vocabulary learning in many routines (new daily American Sign Language, a word family each week, two sight words each week to add to our sight word wall, and a content word wall). It is amazing to me how quickly the children absorb larger words and have a hunger to learn and repeat these new vocabulary words in the fitting context. For me this year, I am seeking to be versed well in academic language in order to provide the best language instruction. As research demonstrates, it is vital to provide proper language instruction and intervention if students have gaps in their vocabulary knowledge. This year we have been assessing student vocabulary knowledge since the beginning of the year. We have seen tremendous growth for some students and then for others we are continually working intentionally to provide effective intervention. Specifi...

Recently, I have been investing time in really using assessments to improve communication--and provide rigor in the classroom by providing valuable feedback. By using assessments as a way to build and strengthen classroom focus on learning, I am also seeing how organizing data is extremely useful in developing meaningful lesson plans. Lately, I saw how my students were engaged in opinion writing--and I wanted to connect that with the standard regarding author's purpose. I developed a mini-series within our Reading Workshop unit: Why do writer's tell stories;  there were three trade books we focused on to understand and illustrate author’s purpose. For each book students created a writing/illustration piece that I used for assessment. The following was a mini book they created (defining themselves as authors/illustrator) in response to Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter.  For this specific summative assessment, students were to illustrate the...