Journeys Reading

Have you ever been trained in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys? I'm attending a training on the program next week. I haven't used a basal reading program in 4 years! I used Open Court / SRA and Reading A-Z for the two years I taught second grade. I found it to be a bit weak in phonics and spent a decent amount of time coming up with graphic organizers for comprehension. I did like how the spelling words followed phonemic patterns and were embedded into the stories, though.

When I taught third grade, we used core novels (Mr. Popper's Penguins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Stories Julian Tells, and Ramona the Brave) as well as Rigby Readers for guided reading and Rebecca Sitton Spelling (which was too easy). My students really struggled with decoding and deriving meaning of the vocabulary words through the novels, plus we've all seen Willy Wonka in the movies, and even though we compared the book and the movie before taking the test, students were still confusing the two. Can you believe they're ALL now movies except Julian?! Needless to say, those novels are no longer used.

I used Project Read and Explode the Code (LOVED it!) plus a few other resources when I taught basic skills, and didn't teach reading for the past two years while I was in science lab.

Journeys uses the Focus Wall concept and Irene Fountas created the guided reading part. There are books for below, on, and above grade level as well as ELL and vocabulary. It has a good deal of vocabulary development and non-fiction reading. From what I can see, everything is created for you. Lesson plans are prewritten and student pages are easy to copy. I'm not sure how much I like the mostly worksheet approach, but I do see plans for a journal, listening center, and word work stations...not sure if the district purchased them though....  I'm also wondering if spelling words are embedded.

The website only shows the first grade teacher's guide, so I'm looking forward to getting a peek at the guides for upper grades.

Any experiences, advice, or resources?

*ADDED: My Journeys website for third grade*

Check out other Journeys posts here.

What's in a name? Freebies and Back To School Sale!

I have a pretty unique name. It doesn't rhyme, but it kind of flows. People love saying it once they can actually pronounce Alysia correctly (Uh-lee-sh-uh Buh-tee-st-uh). I've had kids who couldn't say Alysia Battista call me Pizza Pizza, and some kids I substituted for years ago call me Miss Butt-ista. People I've never met swore they've met me before or "heard of" me because my name "sounds so familiar!" But hey, it's hard to forget a name like mine...except if you're my mother, who has 5 daughters, 2 granddaughters, and a grandson! So I will respond to Amanda-Melissa-Shannon-Jaclyn-Ashlyn-Savannah. I haven't been called Christian yet...lol.  Today is her birthday, so I wanted to say Happy Birthday, Mom!!!!
Anyway, one of the first things kids learn how to say, read, and write is their name. I created these simple pages so that kids can practice writing and recognizing their names or alphabetizing them. I hope these pages are useful! Leave a comment here or on my TPT store (don't forget to become a follower there!) with your email address and I will send you an editable version.

Name Practice Sheet

ABC Order Name Game

Name on Top Poster

They're free, so while you're downloading them, please rate them and check out my other materials, which are 10% off until September 6 if you use the code B1T1S. Check out my classroom jobs labels / clipchart

and Center Signs! 

Revising and Editing Writing - Painlessly

My third grade students used to really struggle when it came to the part of the writing process that required editing and revising. Some weren't even capitalizing their own names! Not only could they not catch their own mistakes, but they also HATED to see the corrections that were being made to their papers. I came across Marvelous MiniLessons for Teaching Beginning Writing K-3 and discovered A Star and a Wish. It's a simple strategy that gives students positive feedback for their writing in addition to a correction that can be made during revising. I created this sheet and attached our school rubric to the back. We spent several lessons comparing writing samples to the rubric and samples to each other so that students understood how it worked. When students were ready to work with partners, they were paired up when a writing sample was finished. Each student had A Star and a Wish paper; they wrote something they really liked on the star (a short phrase) and something they wished the author did better.... like/star - described characters; wish - include dialogue. Then they scored their partner's work according to the rubric. Students then moved onto peer-editing and then had a final conference with me before publishing. Click the image to download it for free from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

When it came to editing, my Morning Message did the trick. Each day I'd write a 3-5 sentence paragraph to my students telling them what we'd  be doing that day and asking them a question. The first thing they had to do after unpacking and writing down homework was to read the message and use colored chalk (haven't had a chalkboard in 3 years now!) to make an edit to the message before starting their journal question. Here's an example:

tuesday september 6 2011

deer childs 

today we will had our first day of school  arent you excited we will start of making some class rulez  can you think of nething important

  your teacher, 

 Miss Battista

                                              

By third grade, they were expected to know the parts of a letter (we acted that out using our bodies from top to bottom, touching our heads for the heading, waving our hands for the greeting, touching our stomachs for the body, "closing the door" for the closing, and signing for the signature), where to indent, what to capitalize, what to punctuate, and how to correct simple spelling and grammar mistakes. When I taught second grade, I limited the mistakes to a skill we were working on. For example, if we were learning about proper nouns, we'd only work on capitalizing them or I might put several of our spelling words in the paragraph and misspell them. I chose one student to be the "teacher" after I modeled calling on students to explain why the corrections were needed. A student response to the above message might be, "You need to capitalize Tuesday and September in the heading because they are proper nouns. You need a comma to separate the day and the year." It was really important for students to know WHY they were making edits and what rules they followed. 

Side note: I switched to basic skills and then science before I got a Promethean Board. My students loved using colored chalk and markers. I'm positive that students will find it even more fun to do if you use technology! The only thing that I had to change was they got so excited to make edits that there was a long line at the board. Instead, I had them finish their journal prompts before they could edit.

Would you believe that they started BEGGING me to start writing time every day?!?

Characterization

I usually start off my first reading lesson of the year with characterization, having students use an about me graphic organizer to describe themselves and then explaining that characters from books could be described using similar organizers.. I'll probably still do that, but this summer I discovered Wordle and Tagzedo. I love them and I am sure my students will too! Check out some of these resources to help students with characterization. I like to use a Venn diagram with our Reading Buddies so that kids an easily learn about each other instead of being stumped as to what to talk about when they first meet.

Wordle

Tagzedo

All About Me book from Enchanted Learning

tons of characterization graphic organizers

Environmental Print

I remember reading a study somewhere that said that preschool kids were more likely to recognize environmental print (McDonalds and fast food chains particularly) than they were to recognize their own names! I learned this first hand when my niece (now 7) started shouting, "Yankees! Nike! Walmart!" whenever she was in the car with me or saw clothing someone was wearing. She was the type of kid who was more interested in playing with the flashcards my twin sister (also a teacher) gave her than the toys that she had, and by age 3 she was telling us the letters words were made of. I guess the important thing is that she recognized that words had a meaning and that they were made of letters.

Anyway, one of my favorite things to do with PreK, K, and 1st graders is to use digital cameras and paper on clipboards to document environmental print around the classroom, school, and outdoors. We search for letters and numbers and take pictures of them. Those who can write them do so. They don't just have to be on signs either. We sometimes notice that shadows, clouds, and plants can sometimes look like letters or numbers. We also go on Shape Searches where we look for and take pictures of objects that are different shapes. It's a great way to get students to become more aware of what's around them!
     

       

                    

       

Check out this great free guide to environmental print activities by Shell Education.

Download this free Geometry Pack from Nicole Bunt to help with those Shape Searches.