Asking Questions

Our current reading focus is on Asking Questions. Students are working to recognize how questions can help us when we read. Students are using these words to stop and ask themselves questions about what they are reading. When we stop to ask questions while we read we are learning more information, adding more details and understanding how to retell what happens in the story.

Please continue to use these words for your Word Wall Homework for the week. In addition, when reading with your child this week, stop and model a question you have about the story. This will help them to use this strategy on their own when reading independently.

In class we are working on this strategy before, during and after we read. We read The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg. We had many predictions and questions about who the stranger was and what his purpose was for visiting the farm. Below are some Book Talk tweets we shared. We used the #blktlk hashtag during this activity.

We read this story and have many questions. Grade 3, can you tell me what makes the stranger father nature? #blktlk pic.twitter.com/bumlMmqFw8

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

@MrsCiampaClass we don't think he is father nature because.... we think that he's a guy from heven .God sent hem down. BY: ds & BRM

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

@MrsCiampaClass sc cc say: he is not father nature because he is God. He chage the wather. what is the Stranrger Name?

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

@MrsCiampaClass TC and JM: We know that it is Father Nature because he changed the trees colour to green and made it warm

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

@MrsCiampaClass IB says: He made nature. He also changed colour of the trees.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

@MrsCiampaClass EB says: That he blew on the leaf and it just made the tree turn red and yellow when he left.

— Mrs. Ciampa (@MrsCiampaClass) January 19, 2016

Read to Someone

We are slowly getting comfortable with each of our Literacy Centers. Students have been practising what they can do at their centers independently to practice their reading, writing and vocabulary skills. We will soon be doing our centers daily to practice many concepts that we learn on our own or with a small group. The goal of our Literacy Centers is to have students work collaboratively or independently at centers to practice key concepts in fun and engaging ways.

This week we practiced another center called Read to Someone. We made an "I-Can" checklist as a class to discuss what the rules are for the center. One of the goals that I'd like students to work on is their reading fluency. We practiced this by reading together with a partner and self-evaluating how we did. We had to rate our accuracy, rate, expression and punctuation. A goal for each student is to understand that when we pause during our reading, we need to put a punctuation mark to end our sentence. Students practiced this with their partners while reading their descriptive paragraphs. They did a wonderful job of evaluating how they did. We will keep this evaluation at our center and students can refer to it when reading with a partner at their centers. Ask your child about the new Read to Someone center!

Decoding Strategies

One of our big focuses in grade 3 so far has been on decoding strategies. Through a variety of activities over the past few weeks students have recalled decoding strategies that help them to sound out words when reading or writing. Students are being encouraged to use these strategies when reading unfamiliar words as well when writing independently. 

When students use decoding strategies, they are working to become more independent. The goal is to have students decode words without assistance. There are many strategies that we've learned in class that can help students decode words they are unfamiliar with. These strategies help us to make sense of what we read, while giving us confidence in our own abilities. These strategies also help us in our writing by guiding us to rely on learned strategies first before seeking assistance. Students are very familiar with these strategies and continue to use them each day. Ask your child how they use the strategies when reading our writing in class!

Our Raz Kids accounts are almost ready to go. This week some students had the opportunity to sign in and recall how to use the program to read books at their just-right level. Raz Kids is great as it provides students with an online library of books at the students just-right reading level.  Password information and parent-access will be sent home soon!

Reading Strategies

This week one of our learning goals was to recall some previous reading strategies that we could remember from Grade 2. We remembered a few different strategies to help us decode unfamiliar words. We have great memories! These strategies are very helpful to us as we work to sound out, stretch out or decode unfamiliar words when we read. Students are encouraged to use these strategies to help them sound out words when reading and writing. Ask your child about the strategies that they can recall and how to use them!

We are practicing these strategies when we read a book together as a class. We are also using the strategies when we read to ourselves each morning when we start school. Additionally, students played a making words game. Our reading strategies really came in handy when playing this game. Students had to determine what words they could make from a list of letters (a e e c l r s). Students used the reading strategies to help them decode the letter sounds and create a number of words. Have a look at our list. I wonder if there are any other words you can come up with that we may have missed?