Pruett's AIG Blog for IBJ

Hola! Here's a blurb from a letter that was sent home with fifth grade advanced subject group in reading. There are video highlights featured elsewhere on this blog.  Happy Thanksgiving, btw!!  Fifth grade classroom teachers identified reading fluency as the focus of reading instruction for the initial weeks of school. To this end our fifth grade Advanced Subject Group in Reading has been working on a couple of different fluency exercises. Our initial work was a readers’ theater play. In readers’ theater, students show the action of a dramatic presentation with the tone and cadence of their reading. The play students read and presented was A Spark of Genius about Ben Franklin. Students initially reflected on what they understood about Franklin with words and pictures. We then had several small groups that read the play. After reading and presenting, students again reflected on their understanding of Franklin. Their work, both pre and post reading, are included in thi...

Here's a couple of more performances. I have a couple in addition that are still 'queued' with YouTube to be available. I'll get them up asap! Enjoy!

I'm going to start rolling our student videos of our "Poems for 2 Voices" work. Remember, these are presentations using Fleischman's Joyful Noise . \

My iPad camera doesn't do justice to how wonderful the Jones production of Peter Pan truly is. Make it a point to catch a performance!

Here is an sampling from a letter that went home with fourth grade students in ASGR. Our fourth grade Advanced Subject Group in Reading has been working with introductory materials from Junior Great Books (JGB). JGB materials provide clear lessons to help students more deeply discuss and understand a text. JGB also provides concrete behavioral expectations for participants in these discussions – sometimes called seminars. See blog from 10/10/14 to see 'do's and don'ts list) Tally marks on the participation maps indicate students sharing comments about our work – based on open-ended questioning. A higher number of tally marks does NOT necessarily mean a higher grade or more meaningful role in our discussion. Tally marks just show participation. I also include arrows noted with “a” or “d” which means an agreement or disagreement. Both are valuable parts of our work. This introductory work is an important foundation for our work with literature throughout the...

Our fifth grade ASGR has been reading aloud readers theater plays and now poems as part of a grade-wide focus on reading fluency.  Joyful Noise  is a selection of poems for 2 voices by Newberry-winning poet Paul Fleischman and has been the subject of our work. Here is one pair presenting their poem! Check out others in future blog posts!

Our fourth grade enrichment study group has been busy locating and saving space probes lost throughout our solar system. In this simulation, small groups of scientists use challenging background reading, video transmissions, and the collaboration with colleagues to make consensus decisions. Each decision costs money, and the team (there are 3) spending the least will win the GSSR!