A TEK-a-Day: Texas Test Prep Made Easy! *Freebie!

As an instructional coach, I spent a lot of time trying to find good quality resources for my teachers to use when teaching literacy.

Sometimes this was easy and fun! Mentor texts! Classroom libraries! Sometimes this wasn't so fun. Texas reading test prep. Yuck.

The most important things we do aren't test prep, but you wouldn't know that from looking at the reports released from the state!

One resource my teachers frequently asked for, but weren't able to find, was a test prep resource that would allow them to teach test prep a little at a time, rather than a huge, long, horrendous, boring passage. 

They wanted a short passage to use each week, and then different types of questions each day. 

One question a day, they said! 

That'll help us reinforce the skills without drilling and killing, and spending so much of our time on test prep! 

I searched high and low but couldn't really find exactly what we were looking for.

So I decided to make it. And so the TEK-a-Day Test Prep was born!

Please know that I didn't create this product so you could spend more time on test prep. I created so you could spend less, better quality time on test prep.

I've really worked hard to ensure that this resource is TEKS and test-aligned. My pet peeve is when untested TEKS are included in a reading passage, or when the test prep materials sold by big companies don't match what kids will actually see on the day of their test. We should teach widely, of course, but if we're preparing them for something high-stakes, shouldn't our materials be accurate?

Here's what's in the resource. If you're like my teachers, it's exactly what you've been looking for! 

Short Genre-aligned Texts & Daily TEK-aligned questions

Each week has one short text - a half-page text - in different genres that are tested in that grade. For example, in third grade, I start the first nine weeks with literary genres (fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction), and in the second nine weeks I add informational genres (expository and embedded procedural). 

In fourth grade, students are exposed to these genres plus drama, and in fifth grade, they also receive persuasive passages.

For each text, there are five questions: one for each day of the week. Monday is a word study question (context clues, affixes/root words, and dictionary definitions where applicable). The other days spiral TEKS tested on the state test. If it's not tested, I didn't include it. The purpose is to focus test-taking skills on the kinds of questions kids will see.

I used a variety of question stems and focused my efforts on those TEKS that are most heavily tested, although all test-eligible TEKS are introduced (except for one in fourth and one in fifth that have never been tested, but are eligible for testing).

Each nine weeks adds a new layer to what kids are asked to do in preparation for their test. In fourth and fifth grade, the third and fourth nine weeks include questions in the 19F style - questions where the kids compare the readings from the previous two weeks.

Academic Vocabulary Word Wall & Guide

In order to make this an all-inclusive test prep resource, I also added in academic vocabulary.

The word wall includes vocabulary that is generic to reading (summary, infer, support), and genre-specific vocabulary (main character, cause-and-effect, cast, props).

Word wall cards are included and a vocabulary guide explains when each word is introduced to you can build a word wall by genre.

Writing & Reading Extensions

To support kids making connections to texts, I also included writing extensions and recommended

readings to continue the learning.

These recommended books are thematically or topically connected, and it can be as easy as checking some out from the library and leaving them on a book display for interested readers!

The writing extensions are from a variety of modes of writing - all of them supported in the TEKS. I wrote the expository prompts in the fourth grade Texas writing test style.

It's also a great way to keep those kids who finish quickly engaged.

Answer Keys & TEKS Data Trackers

Answer keys are included for everything, and they include the TEK/SE coding as well, so you can track student data and see how they're doing in each area! 

I also included several versions of the answer sheet - one that doesn't include the TEKS and one that does, in case you have kids track their own data.

To help you track student data, there's a data tracker in printable and digital format (Keynote and PowerPoint) so you can edit on your computer if you prefer!

  

Large Print Versions
So many teachers have to provide a large print version to their students, and I know from personal experience that this can be very time-consuming, and sometimes difficult, depending on the formatting of the document. So I included large-print versions of the passages for each week. This should save you some time!

Teacher pages are also included that explain how to use the program and all of its resources.

So you might want to check it out! If you download the preview file for each bundle on TpT, it will share exactly what is included in the entire bundle, as well as a TEKS alignment guide to help you with year-long planning.

Want a sneak peak? Enter your email address to get a free week from third, fourth, and fifth grade! You can try it out with your kids for free!

I truly hope this resource helps you spend less-but-better test prep time with your kids.

Third Grade TEK-a-Day Test Prep Bundle
Fourth Grade TEK-a-Day Test Prep Bundle
Fifth Grade TEK-a-Day Test Prep Bundle

   Pin It

A poetry strategy that works for upper elementary

When our standards changed and poetry was suddenly really important, a lot of us had to re-evaluate our approach. Poetry was being tested on our STAAR test in more and more complex ways, and so students were being held accountable for more than simply loving poetry.

I loved reading poetry with kids and having awesome discussions about the language, message, and the poet. But when it came down to it, without my guidance, kids just didn't know where to start when reading poetry.

They'd read the title, fumble through the stanzas, find some figurative language, and have absolutely no idea what the poem was about.

I knew this wouldn't work. How could I help kids use a consistent approach to poetry so they'd know where to start to comprehend a poem?

I spoke to several experts, and something that kept coming up was the SOAPSTONE strategy used for high school and college students. You might remember using it in school yourself. It's a handy acronym that helps students identify the essential elements of the poem.


My colleague and I decided to create something similar for our upper elementary students, and so POETS was born!

The POETS acronym stands for the following. We color-coded each part so students would have a visual connection to these elements:

Preview (black - pencil)
Occasion (green)
Emotions (red)
Theme (blue)
Speaker (yellow)

When students are faced with a poem, they use the POETS acronym to understand the poem and summarize what it's about! Here's how it works:

Preview
This step takes the longest. Students do several things to get their brain ready to think deeply about the poem.
1. Read title, notice illustrations
2. Number lines & stanzas
3. Read a stanza at a time, make a sketch of the details in that stanza
4. Find the rhyme scheme by noticing pattern of rhyming words
5. Identify the type of poem: narrative, lyrical, free verse, etc.

Occasion
In this step, students identify what the topic of the poem is, or what the poem is all about. What is happening that the poet is writing about? In a narrative poem, the occasion is the story the poet is telling. In a lyrical poem, the occasion is the topic the poet is describing.

Emotions
Poetry is chock-full of emotions; many of them inferential. Students hunt for evidence that can help them infer the emotions in the poem.

Theme
This is the most challenging part! In this step, students look for clues to help them conclude the theme. What is the message the poet is sharing with the reader? (In a humorous poem, there might not be a deep message! It's hard to take away a life lesson for "Be Glad Your Nose Is On Your Face".)

Speaker
This is so important that I actually have students do this step right after the Preview step. In this step, students identify the point of view the poem is told from (1st person, 3rd person limited/omniscient), and they figure out who the speaker is. Whose voice is speaking in the poem?


Get em' engaged!

To help kids get used to the POETS strategy, I tried out a little engagement strategy with our most reluctant readers. Each student received a copy of the poem. They were asked to complete the "P" on their own (Preview). Then, I gave each student a different-colored post-it. I used the four colors that we used to color-code our POETS strategy: blue, green, red, and yellow. Whatever color the student received was the element of POETS that they had to hunt for.

Using their colors, they got into expert groups and marked evidence for their element. They wrote their answer statement on the post-it. Then they went back to their home groups and took turns teaching their element to their home teams.

Afterwards, I randomly called on students to come to the charted poem in the front of the room and share their evidence. They used their post-it to mark the line they found their evidence in.

To add to the challenge of the next round, I took the title off of the poem. Students used the POETS strategy to decide what the poem was all about, and then they came up with a title for the poem. They loved this lesson! They were each adamant that their own title was the best!

Over time, and after aligning this strategy 3-5, our students have started to show an improved confidence in reading poetry. They know where to start, what to look for, and how to help themselves! It's actually become one of their strengths!

In case you're looking to try out this new strategy, I have provided a day-by-day guide for introducing it to your class, complete with questioning, in my Teaching Reading by Genre product on TPT!

       

      Pin It

Camp Write-a-Lot STAAR Writing Test Prep & Review

Test, test, test, blah, blah, blah. It seems like that's all we hear this time of year. Underline your evidence. Mark out unlikely choices. Check your bubbles. Blah, blah, blah. Tests are boring. There's no way around it.

We don't have much wiggle room when it comes to giving state-mandated tests, but we do have a choice in how we prepare for them! Last year, my teachers and I talked about this during PLC and decided we wanted an engaging, stress-free review for kids.

That's why I put together this camping-themed Texas State Writing test prep and review to help students get ready for their big writing test in a fun and engaging way. It's also important to help reduce kids' (and your!) stress about the big day of the test.

Kids love (and remember)  hands-on, interactive activities that require them to figure things out and actively apply their learning. I wanted to balance that with making sure that they had practice in the important areas they'd be tested on. 

Setting the Scene

Some teachers decorated the hallways or their classrooms with cute butcher paper cut-outs of trees, rivers, and bushes. Wearing a cap or visor and a whistle adds a little camping-themed fun to the day! I'd also recommend reading aloud a fun camping book, such as A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee to get your day started in a camping frame of mind!

Moving Through the Stations

We did our test prep review the day before our big test. We took the whole day and used it to go through some fun, hands-on writing stations! Every student got a fun paper bracelet with an image for each station on it. As they completed a station, we used a hole puncher to mark them!

Another easy way to record the stations is with a punch card, or a signature card. Other teachers in the grade level used these cute badges to show which stations the kids had completed. As they finished the station, they colored in the icon on the badge and they glued it on their badge sheet. (My personal preference was the bracelet :)

If you have a group of teachers who'd like to do this fun activity with you, you can each take a station and have kids move from class-to-class to accomplish them. If not, it's just as fun in your own classroom!

Camping Stations!

We had ten engaging stations to get through on our fun camp day. These are some of my favorites!

Sentence Sort

 

One skill that's necessary for both revision and editing is being able to identify complete sentences, run-ons, and fragments. I recorded a ton of each of these phrases and sentences on sentence strips and had kids sort them into those three categories. 

In the complete sentence category, I tried to include simple, compound, and complex sentences so students had practice in reviewing each of those sentence types. 

     

Revision Station

 

For this station, I wrote several boring compositions on chart paper. I tried to do a lot of the things kids do that make their writing uninteresting: repeating lines and words, having little development, unoriginal details. 

Students were tasked to revise the composition using more interesting details and sentences. They were challenged to use the skills they had learned all year to make this piece of writing engaging and convincing to the reader. 

As you can see, this piece is still under construction, but students have begun to think about using different types of sentences and specific language. 

     

Editing Station

Do your kids love using dry-erase markers? Mine always do! For this editing station, I wrote sentences on sentence strips. In each sentence there was one specific error, whether it was spelling, capitalization, punctuation, or grammar. I laminated the sentence strips and had students use dry-erase markers to make the corrections to each sentence. Bonus points if you have kids sort the sentences by the error afterward: capitalization, spelling, grammar, or punctuation?

  

Using Transitions 

One area that students often need practice in is using transitions meaningfully. I decided this was important enough to merit its own station!

For this station, I wrote a couple compositions on chart paper, but I left out the transitional phrases, instead marking a blank line where they belonged. I wrote the missing phrases (and a few extra ones) on some sentence strips. 

The kids worked in partners to figure out which sentence strips belonged in the composition to improve the flow! They used a little piece of tape to stick them on. You could also laminate the chart paper to re-use next year, or for the next group!

   

Build-a-Composition

In this station, kids have to engage a lot of different revision skills to create a composition out of sentences. This can easily be written on sentence strips, but I typed this one out and cut it up so we could do it in a small group setting with teacher support.  I wanted to use this as an opportunity to review and apply the revision language we'd been using during our writing lessons!

Kids figured out the organization of the composition and then sequenced the details in an order that made sense. This station might be my favorite because it requires so many skills!

 

These are just a few of the fun stations we used to review and get ready for our big STAAR Writing test. It was a fun day, even though the stressful test was on its way! We can't change the test, but we can change the way we prepare for it!

Want to grab a freebie from this resource? Enter your email address for a freebie sent right to your inbox! You'll also get some great writing tips and resources!

What's the best part of all these stations? They can easily be made with markers, sentence strips, chart paper, and dry-erase markers! But if you're looking for a ready-made Camp Write-a-Lot, look no further! Get these stations and more at my TPT store!

 
Pin It

Making Inferences in Expository Text: Test Prep *Freebie!

So it's official. 

It's test prep season.  

Blech. 

Good test prep has a few characteristics: it's precise, it's engaging, and it helps kids bridge all the awesome stuff you taught all year to the boring stuff they'll have to do on the test. 

Sometimes kids can do all the big thinking: making connections, making inferences, synethesizing, and more. But you put a test in front of them and it's like they've learned NOTHING all year. Because it looks different (and doesn't really serve as a measure of what they know) and they have trouble interpreting what the test is asking them to do. It's all about the format. 

So I used this lesson with a fifth grade class (and then a third grade class tried it out) to help them take the awesome learning they'd done about making inferences and apply it to the test-taking situations they're likely to see. Because here's what a lot of kids don't realize. When it comes to making inferences, the test is likely asking them to do two different things.

They need to:

1. Use evidence from the text to make an inference. OR
2. Locate evidence from the text to support an inference that has already been made.

These are two inverse operations. So what do you do? Well, here's what I did.
 
First, we started with a text. To help students bridge what they've learned to the test, I used an expository passage from a released test from a few years back. It was about how a specific kind of pine tree survives in its harsh environment.

I provided each kid with a copy of the graphic organizer (provided in the freebie below!) and I charted it. We reviewed the strategy - making inferences using evidence; supporting inferences with evidence. We previewed the text, read the first couple paragraphs and decided on the topic: Bristlecone Pines. Then I asked students to find details in the text that were about bristlecone pines. I wanted them to focus on the topic - that's what readers do!

They came up with three things: The pines are the oldest trees in the world, the conditions the pines live in kill other trees, and the roots of the pines help them survive. These were taken directly from the text. I had students write them on post-its and stuck them in the "Text Evidence boxes."

Then we talked about how to make an inference - you put clues together (details) to think about something that's not directly stated in the text. That's why it happens in your brain, and why I wrote "BRAIN" down the side of the inference box!

We put the clues together and realized that there was something special about the bristlecone pine that other trees didn't have - that was our inference.

Here's the tricky part. How will this look on the test?

Here's how I did it:

For example, in the question, "Based on the details in paragraph 4, the reader can conclude..." is asking students to use the evidence in paragraph four to create a conclusion. This means that the right answer will not be directly stated in the text; it will be created in your brain based on the details in the text.

Another type of question sounds like this: "Which statement from the text best supports the idea that bristlecone pines have special adaptations to survive in their environment?" In this question, the inference is provided - Bristlecone pines have special adaptations to survive in their environment is the inference that has already been drawn for you. Your job as the test-taker is to find the evidence that supports that statement, or proves that it is true.

After we practiced identifying this on a few questions on the anchor chart, it was time for students to practice in partners (or so I thought).

Each student, on the bottom of their graphic organizer, had a two-column chart. One column is labeled, "Questions where I have to make an inference or draw a conclusion," and the other is, "Questions where I have to find the evidence to support the inference or conclusion."

As you can see, the first time kids tried this, they did not have an understanding of what the question was asking them to do.

I gave each student a stack of test questions that were asking them to make an inference based on provided evidence OR support a provided inference with evidence.

They sorted. Badly. Like, really badly. It brought up so many misconceptions, misunderstandings, and struggles with sentence structure - a huge underlying issue in reading comprehension. So we retaught, intervened, etc. But the fact that they struggled so much to identify what the question was asking them to do tells me that we needed to do this lesson!

 Grab the materials free on Google Drive!

Happy Teaching! I know test prep is torture, but it will all be over soon...

Want more practice in making inferences? Check out this freebie Reading Strategy MiniPack on TPT!   Pin It

The Test: What Teaching is All About

 
So a week ago, I got an email that I needed to report to a "mandatory meeting" about the "state test" after school. Needless to say, I. Was. Psyched.

I mean, let's get real: that's why I got into teaching! Watching kids fill in little tiny bubbles with #2 pencils? Who could ask for a more fulfilling day? So I made sure to arrive early at the meeting. I brought my handy dandy notebook and a purple pen. I staked out a spot in the front. I didn't want to miss a thing.

When my AP arrived at the meeting, I could tell she was pretty excited about the training, too. She'd made a powerpoint and everything! And it was full of citations of legal documents and pictures of non-examples! This was going to be good.

I was riveted during the whole meeting. Here are some of the things I learned about:

The day before the test, I get to plan out a new seating arrangement for my room! The kids shouldn't be able to communicate at all. Let's get real here; that's not what education is about. It's about choosing the right answer out of four choices! That's what we do in real life! 

So anyway, my seating chart is really really important. At any time during the test, some person I don't know and have never seen before (can you say Mystery Date?!) can come into my room and demand to see it! I have to show where each nine-year-old is sitting and write their test booklet number and their student ID! Now, that's thorough!

During the test, I get to do this really cool thing called, "Active Monitoring." That means that while the kids are taking their four-hour test, I don't have to sit behind my desk and read a boring magazine or et some work done onmy laptop. In fact, I'm not supposed to bring my laptop on that day at all! Instead, I'm going to actively monitor my students by walking around the room and making sure they're working on the right part of the test.

Here's the really challenging part: I can't actually look at the test! I have to make sure they're working on the test without looking at it! What a riot! I'm really looking forward to challenging my management skills with this fun paradox. At this point in the meeting, I made a cute little sketch of my classroom in my notebook. I used a yellow highlighter to mark the path I plan to take around my room for four hours.

Planning this fun day makes me look forward to it even more!

We learned a lot about what happens when you don't do active monitoring. And that includes: public shaming, getting fired, and losing your your teaching certificate! Wow! I feel really good that our state takes this so seriously.

It's going to be a fun day for my students, too. It'll be their 'time to shine' and show what they know! I know they're looking forward to it because they talk about it all the time. Sometimes I feel like that's what they think school is about! Ha! Aren't kids funny?

I'm so glad I've been working on independent reading stamina, because it's finally going to pay off on the test day! I'm so relieved, because I always felt like it was so much wasted time. It turns out, the kids will have four hours to complete a 40-some question test with about five or six passages. Finally, an opportunity to put all that time spent reading to good use!

During the four hour test, if they take a bathroom break, I have to make a note on their answer sheet. They don't get that time back or anything, but data collection is kind of a hobby of mine. I'm really excited to have data on my kids' bathroom habits. I think it's the missing piece to my instruction. I might even make it into a data wall.

I haven't even told you the best part: this test is going to determine if I am a good teacher and if my students are good learners! I have to say, I am really impressed by whoever came up with this system. Why spend so much time on 'authentic assessment' when a one-shot deal will serve just as well? I can't wait to find out if I'm a good teacher!

Too bad the results on some of the tests won't be ready until a week after school lets out in the summer. At least I'll have something to do on my long, boring days at home by myself! Shout it with me: DISAGGREGATE!

I have to be honest. I was totally pumped about this awesome new teaching challenge, but I was also starting to feel stressed about administering this top-secret test. I mean, it's obviously the most important thing I'm going to do in my teaching career! I don't want to mess it up! 

Fortunately, we're going to have lots of opportunities to learn. I'll get to take some online courses about 'testing security', participate in a few more faculty meetings, and read a really long handbook that will probably clear up all of my questions. When the big day finally comes, I think I'll be ready!

Do you get to give a 'high stakes test', too? Are you as pumped as me?

Pin It

Five Ways to Keep Test Prep Fun!

Dun-dun-dunnnnn. It's that time again. That all-dreaded testing season. If you're like me, you love your job from August - January and then you'd like to use up all of your saved-up sick days to take a vacation until May.

Actually administering a state test is a horrendous experience. There are dozens of hilarious tips about what you can do during testing, but the truth of the matter is, you can do nothing. Nothing but walk around incessantly, glancing to "make sure students are working on the appropriate section of the test" but not looking closely enough to actually read the test. You have to look over their bubble sheet to notice that they bubbled, but not close enough to notice what they bubbled. Not that it matters, because you have no idea what's on that test anyway.

Basically, the test is a blind date your friend set you up with who gets to judge you by watching you through the window of the restaurant as you wait patiently for them to arrive. You don't actually get to meet them yourself, or to hear the results of this observation until months later, when you're no longer interested in meeting such a creepy person, and your opinion does not matter.

Anyway, there's not much I can do to make delivering the test more interesting, but your test preparation and review can be fun. Here are four tips to keep your test prep engaging and interesting! I've used each of these tips in third - fifth grade classes, and they worked for me!

#1 Play BUMP!

 Target: Get kids moving while practicing strategies with accuracy. Timing it creates a sense of urgency.

This is a great way to get kids moving when all you're really doing is having them answer questions you would've had them answer at their desks. To play BUMP, you'll need the questions you want students to answer all cut apart. Because I require students to use strategies on each question, I make enough copies of the question so each student can have their own.

You stack all the copies of #1 up on one desk, and all the copies of #2 at the next desk, and so on. When you say, "GO!" the kids have to use their strategy to answer the question. You give them an appropriate amount of time (maybe three minutes) and then shout, "BUMP!" The kids have to move to the next question (and I make them take their copy of the question they just answered with them) and answer that. Then you shout "BUMP!" again and the process continues. My kids loved it!

To keep it focused, I always do a little minilesson on the strategy first and then all the questions are focused on kids using that exact strategy. 

#2 Toss the question ball.

Target: Hold everyone accountable, but in a (slightly) fun way.

My kids loved anything where they got to move. To keep them all engaged during not-so-exciting test prep lessons, I used to use the "Smushy Apple of Knowledge." It was just one of those little stress reliever apples. Being soft is important, because basically, I spent entire lessons throwing the apple at my students.

 Oriental trading has a whole collection here. I also used to have a little Earth that we called, "The Smushy Earth of Science". We were inspired by Bill Nye.

These are the rules:
- I ask a question.
- I say a name and toss the ball to that person.
- They must answer.
- I ask another question
- They have only three seconds to decide who to toss it to.
- They say the name and toss it to that person.
- If you take longer than three seconds, I choose where the apple goes.
- If the ball bounces away from the person it was aiming for, only one person who is closest can get up to get the ball and give it to the original person.
- No one can ask for the apple. No one raises their hand; no one shouts out, "ME!" 

The last two rules were (obviously) the result of trying to use the smush apple and realizing I needed some specifics. They keep two things from happening. 1. A student will be ready to toss the apple but spend five minutes looking around the room at all the eager faces, thinking about who to toss it to, and saying, "ummmm." 2. Half a dozen students abruptly leap out of their seats and head for the same tiny apple. 3. Half the class has their hands waving frantically in the air, shouting "OVER HERE!" and the other half isn't worried about participating because those other kids will get the apple.

#3 Partner A/Partner B

Target: Each student is accountable to their partner. Great for differentiation.

In any class, you have a diverse bunch of kids. If your class requires a lot of differentiation (even in their testing), this strategy works well. Even if it doesn't require that, this will still work well. You just won't differentiate the questions.

Here's how it works:
You identify who is Partner A and who is Partner B throughout the class. You assign one problem to Partner As and one problem to Partner Bs.  This is where you can differentiate, subtly. There can be a difference in the problem you assign Partner A and Partner B.

Each student is given an appropriate amount of time to work on their problem. Then they meet with their assigned partner. Partner A teaches their problem to Partner B and Partner B then teaches their problem to Partner A. Easy peasy, but it gets kids showing their best work, communicating about their work, and listening to another student.

# 4 Stations with test prep questions

Target: Have students practice a variety of concepts or one concept in a variety of ways. Includes some movement, and timing it creates a sense of urgency.

Stations are a great way to get kids to move through a variety of practice materials while creating a sense of structure. The day feels pretty long when everyone does this, and then everyone does that, and then you do this other thing, etc. By using stations, students feel like there is a little more energy and movement in the room and adding a timer helps them stay focused and energized.

Look at the concepts you want students to learn. For third grade math, for example, I isolated six main concepts I wanted students to practice. I made a stations activity - usually a matching activity - for each concept. For example, for fractions, I made this fractions comparing station:

For 3-D shapes, I provided students with the 3-D shape forms they could hold and manipulate, and a table to record their faces, edges, and vertices.You can also find it here.

Then, I found about five test-ish questions for each concept. I wanted students to do something hands-on and then apply that immediately to some test questions. This is the bridge we have to build for many of our struggling students. They learn the content, but they don't always know how to demonstrate that on a test! I could then collect those questions and identify who was on target and who needed more support in which areas.

You can also read these posts about the fractions stations I used to prepare my kids for their test! Fraction Fanatic and Fraction Frenzy.

#5 Sorts

Target: Have kids think critically in an easily manageable format.

I love sorting activities! To help my students prepare for their big reading test, I made a sort that included the categories of the main genres tested (fiction, drama, expository, and poetry) and little cards with the characteristics of each genre and the strategies they would need to use. Then I added a sample of each genre and a ton of questions.

They had to sort the characteristics, strategies, and sample into each genre category. Then they had to read the questions, mark up their observations and decide which genre this probably came from. For example, if the question says, "Read the following stage directions from 'Bill and Pete,'" I know it's asking about a drama.

The genre labels, author's purpose cards, sample texts, and vocabulary cards are available on TpT!  Then just cut up an old STAAR test to sort the questions!

What fun ways do you get kids energized about test preparation?
  Pin It

Summarizing in Fiction

Does summarizing make you want to pull your hair out? How many times have you shouted to kids, "JUST THE IMPORTANT PARTS!" while sobbing over a stack of copied 'responses' taken verbatim from the text? 

Well, yeah, summarizing is hard. But if we can give kids tools and a focus, we can help them be far more successful when it comes to fiction summarizing. 

Summarizing requires kids to understand the text structure, determine what's important, and write it in a logical way. Yikes; we're asking a lot from some of our struggling readers. Without the proper scaffolding, they're really going to be playing a guessing game. 

Over the last couple years, I've put together a strategy that has been very supportive of our kids, able and struggling readers alike. This is it:

   

Ok, so maybe it doesn't look like much. But trust me, I no longer tear out my hair for lack of decent summaries! 

It all starts with identifying the important events in the plot. You can read about what we did to scaffold students' understanding of the plot's main events here, in my post about The Sweetest Fig. 

 

From there, we identified these four out of the five elements of the plot:

Main Character

Goal/Motivation

Problem/Conflict

Solution/Resolution

Outcome/Lesson Learned

All of these elements are written on colored index cards on a pocket chart. We consistently use the same colors so students will be able to use this system independently. This chart will stay up for as long as we learn about fiction, in order to help students recall the important elements to summarize.

Each team received one sentence strip to create a complete sentence to represent their assigned element. These are the sentences they came up with to summarize the plot's main events from The Sweetest Fig.

 

 

In case you can't read it, it says, "Mr. Bibot is disrespectful to Marcel the dog. Mr. Bibot wants money. Bibot received special figs, (we verbally added the following) that he wanted to use to be the richest man in the world. But then, Marcel ate the last fig! Marcel's dream came true instead of Bibot's. Lesson Learned: Treat other people the way you want to be treated.

It's far from beautiful, but it includes the important elements, in a logical order! Now it's easy to do some basic revising and include some transition words to write a great summary!

But here's the tricky part. We teach kids to create a summary based on something they've read. This is an essential and invaluable skill. But then, when we test them, we do it differently. They have to find the best summary out of four versions. 

This is very different from what we've asked them to do, and it can be hard for students who are struggling or not as sophisticated in their thinking to make the connection. So this is how I bridge it:

Do you see on the right side of the picture where there are four different paragraphs, all colored up? Those are four different summary versions for The Sweetest Fig. I wrote them myself :) One of them is the BEST, that is, it is the most complete and most accurate, compared to the other summaries - the other three are lacking something, so are NOT the best. 

 

To have students evaluate these summaries, I asked each student in each group to decide which element they were going to hunt for and grab that colored marker. Some had more than one element. They read through the summary as a group and marked their evidence for each element in the summary. If their element was missing from the summary, they made a little note on the bottom of the page. After they marked up each of the four summaries, they decided which was the BEST summary. Students were very successful with this scaffolding!

 

This 5 element strategy lines up very well with the Somebody Wanted But So Then strategy; they both represent similar elements!

Fisher-Reyna on TPT have some handy free tools to help you teach these elements of fiction as well.

And one of the folded flapbooks in my brand-new fiction lapbook is all about the elements of fiction! It's only $2.00 at TPT!

Check them out!

Happy Teaching!

  Pin It

Summarizing Informational Texts: Using Main Ideas!

For the past few weeks, my job as a literacy coach has taken me into classrooms to support kids who are in need of some extra reading intervention. In the past, the model has been to pull these students out of the classroom, but the ore we pull kids out, the less they know what's going on, and they're often missing something important in the room. 
I have been working with kids in third, fourth, and fifth grade, and have really enjoyed it. It made me miss the classroom (for the most part!). 
After speaking with the teacher about what the students needed support in, we settled on some lessons about summarizing nonfiction. This is a difficult strategy for many students to apply. It requires them to identify the topic and then use that to determine what is important in each section of the text. Then we combine those important ideas into a complete summary. Here's what we did:

 We started out with a short text that I found at Readworks.org. There are lots of great passages about all different topics, in fiction and expository format on Readworks. And it's free!

I used a blank thinking guide from Fisher Reyna Education to help us focus on the topic, main idea of the article, and the main ideas of each paragraph.

First we previewed the text including the title, subtitle, and any images or nonfiction features. We made a prediction based on this evidence, and we read through the article once to confirm or adjust our predictions.

After we read through once, we discussed the topic of the article and recorded it on our sheets. We then read through one paragraph at a time to identify the main idea of each paragraph. To help students do this, I ask them to notice repeated ideas and to identify what idea is supported in all the sentences of a paragraph, or what the sentences have in common.

Once we had identified each main idea, we decided to bundle them. We read through paragraphs one and two and identified the common idea in both of them. Then we left paragraph three by itself, combined four and five into one main idea, and combined six and seven into another. We wrote a few words to identify what bundles we had made.

Students had been practicing writing open-ended summaries for weeks, so I thought I'd try a scaffolded response by providing some choices. I wrote four different versions of a summary for the article. One was complete and accurately represented all of the main ideas we identified. The others were either missing an important piece and overly represented a small detail, or misrepresented some information in the article.

On each choice, the students identified which main ideas were represented and which pieces were omitted. After they evaluated each one, they chose the summary that most accurately represented the important information in the article. 
For a whole class setting, I have provided each group with a different version of a summary and had the team evaluate it. Then they had to get up and present to the rest of the class to explain whether their summary was a great choice or a less-than-great choice.
I found that providing some answer choices for the kids to evaluate helped them make the connection to test-taking without having to do passage after passage! A simple activity like this at the end of a close reading could help kids practice this skill in an easy way.
To get the Thinking Guide and any other tools for helping students be successful through an understanding of genre, check out FisherReyna Education on TPT!
Pin It

Data...Barf...Freebie!

It's Friday night - what what - and I'm listening to The Office (original UK version, thank you), drinking some box o' wine, and thinking about data.  What? Data?  Yes. Barf. In my new job (I will continue to say 'new' for the rest of the year so no one expect too much of me), I am responsible for helping teachers track data and look at it to identify next steps. This was one thing when I was looking at my own 22 students, but now we're looking at about 20 students x 6 sections x 4 grade levels.  I used to be able to do that, but now I'm a literacy lead. I dumped all the math out of my brain, so I won't do it and you can't make me. Two words, people.  Job. Description. Anyway, data is my new middle name. So now it's Ms. Chrissy Data B. Which doesn't even flow. Especially because this is what happens when I hear the word data in a sentence directed at me, such as, "Make sure you collect data from third grade about their last reading assessment." In my brain, the following events occur: 1. Poop. Now I have to bother third grade for their data. 2. Poop. Then I have to look at the data with them and I don't want them to feel bad if it's not good. 3. Poop. After that, I have to talk to them about what to do about the data. 4. Barf. Data is a constant and ongoing conversation on our campus. We analyze data by overall average, subpopulations, specific student expectations, and the wording of the questions.  We do this every time we take an assessment. And I know it's valuable and good for us to think about and inform our instruction, but still....... barf. So we've decided that the big people in the room can't be the only ones worried about thinking about data. The little people should be thinking about it a little bit, too. To help them do this, I put together some documents. The first is a basic Reading Assessment Tracker Graph. Little people can record the date and subject of their reading assessments and then color in across to record their progress. It's also good for goal-setting. Maybe over time, our little people will be focused on making good progress in their assessments. And maybe over time, our big people will see some patterns and ways to help them do this. You can grab this one free from TPT or Teacher's Notebook.

I used Hello, Literacy Fonts and DJ Inkers clipart cause they're cute. Black and white for easy printing!

Since I made this, I have revised this document about twelve times, each time creating more and more work for myself and everyone else. I will eventually share the final drafts with you. However, because in Texas, we do not follow the common core because that's how special we are. We use the TEKS. So it's TEKS-aligned and references the TEKS for Reading. But Texas is a big state, so maybe you can use it because lots of you live here.
And then you can look at your data, too. Barf. Pin It