Thanks everyone! I use many of these strategies and they have been showing signs of improving. I frequently reference the book "Strategies That Work" often too and they really have a good handle on what students need to know. I recently found some websites that have good skill practice for ELA so I have been using those in the classroom and the kids really enjoy it. They are: http://www.willoughby-eastlake.k12.oh.us/classroom/technology/5th_grade_language_arts-.htm http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_5th_original.htm#lang Some of the tasks are way too easy but some are right on level. I had to go through and pick which ones were good as a review and which to skip over. Hope they are useful to someone else as well. Anyone have other sites or ideas to make learning more fun for the students?
ncteach <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Hi, I agree with Heather's comment..."teach the standards through good teaching, you will get to everything and the kids will do fine." I also make sure the kids know: -some answers can be found in the text and some must be inferred -author's craft (i.e. why did the author use italics, etc.) -they need to support their answers with details from the text -they need to pay attention to the non-print features of the selection (e.g. diagrams, etc.) -the vocabulary used on the test (e.g. conclude, reflected, infer, fewer, fewest, etc.) The book, Strategies That Work, has a good section on teaching test taking as a genre. I too spend only a few days on straight test prep. The rest of the time we're working to become skillful readers and writers. One thing I did start doing this year which has helped with my low-level readers is making the kids go back in the text and underline where they found the answer (if possible). Kim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Heather Poland" To: "A list for improving literacy with focus on middle grades." Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:44 PM Subject: Re: [LIT] Integrating Curriculum To Prepare For High Stakes Testing Here in CA we start those tests in second grade!!! I don't know what you state test is like, but I'm guessing it is similar to the CA one - based off of the standards. My feeling is that if you teach the standards through good teaching, you will get to everything and the kids will do fine. Then, there are 2 ways you can do some test prep w/out it being too awful. Throughout the year, you can introduce terminology they use in test questions: "choose the best answer" "Which title fits best" etc. I explain what "best REALLY means to the people who write the test. We go through other words that are in test questions, and really look at that academic language. Usually closer to the test I will go through some test taking strategies, but I don't let it take up a lot of my class time. I don't think kids need a lot of practice tests because they have been filling in the bubbles for many, many years. Oh, we also will look at some released test questions and go through them as a class, usually just ONE question and talk about the language, how the question is set up, how to figure it out, etc. But there is instruction with that, not just, "here take a practice test" On 10/30/07, Sean McGraw wrote: > > Hey Everyone, > > This is my first time using a program like this and it is part of a > Technology course I am taking for my masters degree. I just had a question > about integrating test-taking skills into your ELA or Reading curriculum. > I > teach in New York and we have state tests every year starting in third > grade > >Not Fun!< Many teachers feel that it is necessary to have their students > >do > well on these tests and feel the pressure of preparing them. We never > really > "stressed" the test at my school but we are feeling the crunch this year. > I > was just wondering if anyone had some good ideas on how to integrate > test-taking into the curriculum and make it more fun that just doing > practice tests. I will not be the teacher to just teach my students how to > take the test because I feel they need so much more to be successful in > the > real world but I do have to please my school and district as well. Anyone > else feel this way? Any help would be great! Thanks > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org > > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive > -- - Heather "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." --Clarence Day "While the rhetoric is highly effective, remarkably little good evidence exists that there's any educational substance behind the accountability and testing movement." Peter Sacks, Standardized Minds "When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding. When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding. " Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
