I love your ideas and think I may adopt and adapt them for my class. I was a
little concerned, however, about the marking of the RAH-RAH sheets. If a
student takes a while to "get it" and starts the 9 week block with lots of
Xs for incomplete or work not done do they have these zero marks averaged
too. What if by the 2nd or 3rd week they get into the routine and start
completing their work in a consistent manner, do they have their mark
dragged down by the first 3 weeks of work?
--------------------------------------------------
From: "mrs. teacher" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 10:48 AM
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Reading Homework
I work in a Title 1 school, teach fourth grade, and have similar problems
with homework. I used reading logs for a few years but felt it was a
waste of time. I saw forged initials, parents signing a week's worth of
reading on Monday, etc. I felt it was just for show. Here is what I do
now for reading at home and it has worked extremely well. I stole an idea
I saw out of a Really Good Stuff magazine. I created a front and back
worksheet template. It simply has two boxes on each side. Each box is
labeled with a day (Monday-Thursday) and has a place for initials in it.
I print off enough at the beginning of each year for one a week. Each
week, I handwrite questions for each night. I try to focus on whatever
strategy we have been working on (Create a Venn diagram comparing and
contrasting 2 characters or ideas from what you read. What genre did you
read tonight? How do you know?). I call these RAH-RAH Sheets (Read At
Home! Read At Home!). Students read for 30 minutes and
then respond to the night's question. I don't expect a long response.
1-2 sentences is all I'm looking for. Now the place for initials is not
for parent's initials. Students have a RAH-RAH partner. Every morning,
they must get with their partner and share their response. Their partner
initials their sheet. If they didn't do it, the partner puts an X in the
initial box. This is part of their morning work and does not take away
any class time. I take the sheets up on Friday and grade them at 25
points a night. If their partner initialed the box, they get 25 points
and if not, they get 0 points. I average all of their sheets together
each nine-weeks for one RAH-RAH grade! Students who continue to have
problems with this are usually students who are never going to do any
homework. These students must take a book to lunch with them to read and
complete their sheet everyday at lunch. They don't have silent lunch,
they just have something they need to get done before they can
socialize.
Another assignment I do to get my kids reading outside the classroom is
Book Bingo. I give one each nine-weeks and the kids must turn it in as a
test grade. Each quarter is a different Book Bingo sheet - Genre, Author,
Subject, and Create Your Own. These are wonderful to get kids to read
things that they normally wouldn't. I have had great success with this!
_______________________________________________
Mosaic mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to
http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org
Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
_______________________________________________
Mosaic mailing list
[email protected]
To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to
http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org
Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
