Margin Notes

If you are familiar with Jennifer Serravallo’s The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook K-2/ 3-6, you will no doubt have tried some of the many assessment tools she suggests, helping you understand deeply what students know and can do. 

One such assessment tool is called Jot Notes and is used to determine what students understand in their comprehension of text. Jennifer states “what meaning students are making in a text is one of the trickiest parts of assessing reading.” She suggests having students write about, speak about, or answer questions about their reading to make comprehension visible and to allow students’ individual needs by offering a variety of ways in which they respond.  

Jot Notes are a quick and easy way for students to respond. We may ask a student to stop and jot as they read independently or pause during a read aloud at predetermined places and ask students to jot a quick note, reaction, question, reflection, or idea on a sticky note or in their reader’s notebook. For example, if you are assessing the students’ abilities to visualize you may ask them to describe what they are picturing or to assess inference and how characters change over time, you may ask students to describe what kind of a person the character is at the beginning and at the end of the book.  

A tip that teachers have shared with us to help save time is to ask students to label stickies with their name and the date before the read aloud or independent reading, this allows teachers to collect and file them in a students’ reading profile quickly and easily.  

Try this tomorrow! 

Image is page — Literacy Teacher’s Playbook K-2 p22 Heineman 

In Richard Gentry and Gene Ouelette’s new book Brain Words- How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching we are introduced to the flip folder technique of word study for grades 2-6. As teachers it is so difficult to navigate the myriad of word study activities crowding the internet, not knowing if any of the ideas presented will be effective. This Look-Say-See-Write-Check-Rewrite multisensory procedure is research based and helps students’ study and learn words. 

 Gentry and Oulette outline the steps in using this approach as follows: 

(“Brain Words”, p.111)

1. Students place a sheet of paper under the flaps and write their word study words in the left-hand column under the Look-Say-See flap. The paper under the other two columns is left blank. 
2. Have students open the first flap and look and say the first word. The students then close the flap and try to picture it. 
3. Next the students lift the second flap and write the first word from memory. They then lift the first flap and check the word for correct spelling. 
4. Lastly, after closing the first two flaps, the students lift the third flap and rewrite the word for additional practice and then they check it again with the first flap.  

If you are interested in learning other techniques and procedures that are grounded in research to teach reading and spelling, then you are sure to love Brain Words. You will find many practical classroom activities for daily teaching that you can try tomorrow!  

I have just received my copy of Cultivating Writers by Anne Elliott and Mary Lynch and was so excited to find a whole chapter on making the why of writing visible, knowing that author’s purpose is so important in engaging young writers in the writing process. As Elliott and Lynch state “the why needs to be made clearly visible.” With my copy of the book tucked under my arm I headed into a grade 3 classroom to try out the following lesson. 

Giving the Gift of Writing is a highly engaging lesson to help students think about and articulate the various and valuable reasons we write.  

1. Place many tools for writing into a gift bag stuffed with brightly coloured tissue paper. Include items such as pencils, markers, loose-leaf, a notebook, a greeting card, a calendar, sticky notes etc…
2. Bring your students together in their writer’s huddle and display the gift bag to create excitement. 
3. Slowly remove each item and ask students to think about why these items have been collected into one bag and how they are connected. 
4. After all the items have been removed ask students to talk with a partner and think of one word that describes how the items are connected. 
5. Have pairs share their ideas with the whole group. Some possible student responses: writing, art, making things, things to write with, gifts. 
6. Once students have shared their initial thoughts ask them What is the purpose of writing tools?  Below is a chart of responses by grade 3 students:

7. Share all the reasons you chose to share these items with them. I cannot say it better than the authors: 

Extension: Over the next few days ask students to share the reasons they believe the authors of the books they are reading or listening to choose to write these books. Chart student thinking next to the title of the book. 

Get ready to hear your students’ thoughts about why writers write and start cultivating thoughts about why students themselves write. And use this information as data for assessment! 

Try this tomorrow…