Dear Parent/Guardian,
Since the year is starting to come to a close I wanted to check in to inform you of what has been going on in the classroom and some changes that are going to be happening. As you may be aware, we spend a great deal of our time during the day with literacy. Fourth grade is a very crucial year for literacy in that this is the time when the children transition from learning to read to reading to learn. Comprehension is a huge part of this transition and many of our literacy lessons involve strategies to improve this. Sarah is a great reader but at times I am not sure if her comprehension level is where it should be. I have noticed lately she struggles when it comes to decoding and making inferences while reading. During our literacy time I am going to be making a few small changes to how the activities are presented that I think will allow for me to work with the different areas the students in the class are struggling with. Right now during literacy I use many different literacy centers. During the time the students go from center to center working on different activities related to their current reading. For the remainder of the year I am going to change from using the centers to more structured group work. By doing this I will still be able to have the students working on different assignments but I will be able to put the students where I think they need the most help. During this time is when Sarah will be able to participate in activities that will help build her comprehension level. The activities she will be working on in the next few weeks are different concept maps and character development, we will also work on retelling and building background knowledge. I am confident that with this change in instruction Sarah will be able to raise her comprehension level to my desired point. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me.
Thanks,
Danielle
I love how you said "fourth grade is a very crucial year for literacy in that this is the time when the children transition from learning to read to reading to learn". That is very true and I am experiencing this in my fourth grade class right now. As I mentioned last week, the students are used to reading about animals, but now their teacher is asking them to read about animals but also write about them.
ReplyDeleteThere are many 'great' readers out there but they are unable to comprehend and understand what they're reading. I like how your idea about switching to a more structured reading group that will focus on what she needs to work on. What type of structured reading group are you going to use though? Tompkins lists whole groups, small groups, or individual. She would probably be more interested in small group work rather than individual. This way she can gain ideas from her peers which may be at a higher reading level than she is. Also, do you know exactly what type of activities you will use? We cant always rely on worksheets but a concept map would work well for her.
I agree with Courtney, that when you say "children transition from learning to read to reading to learn" is a great way to sum up what I've been seeing in my placement (which is also a 4th grade classroom). I also think it is very important to notice that although students might be excellent readers and excelling in that area, they might not be comprehending the information. There is one girl in particular in my literature group that is one of the best readers in the class, but she focuses so much on the words rather than the message, that she tends to be lost when she's asked a comprehension question.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great idea to change up your routine from reading centers to more structured group work since it'll be easier for you to focus in on individual areas that students need to work on. One fun activity you can do with the whole class to help strengthen their comprehension skills, is the prediction activity we did with the storybook in class the other day. This will help students infer events in the story and use characters to predict the storyline.
I think centers is a great way to allow the teacher to work with small groups individually. Small groups also allows the children to work with each other, helping others learn and progress. So I really like how you would have 4th graders use centers. Especially with Sara in the classroom. This allows you as the teacher to help her out one-on-one while the rest of the class is working independently. However, next year I will be in a 7th grade classroom and I don't think 7th graders would enjoy working in centers. Coming up with ways to differentiate instruction in 7th grade compared to the 4th grade class I am in right now will be very different since it's a huge gap.
ReplyDeleteBut overall, your letter was good! It allows the parent or guardian to understand what is going on in their child's class right now. Being able to explain these differences to others not in the education world will sometimes be a challenge, but with practice our letters will be able to inform parents and guardians of the work done in class.