All resources in PeBL ELA Team

Strategy Guide: Tracking and Supporting Student Learning With Kid Watching

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In this strategy guide, you’ll learn how to use kidwatching to track and support student learning. Teachers observe and take notes on students’ understanding of skills and concepts and then use the observations to determine effective strategies for future instruction. Yetta Goodman popularized the term kidwatching, the practice of “watching kids with a knowledgeable head” (9). In kidwatching, teachers observe students’ activities, noticing how they learn and what they do to explore their ideas. Teachers then examine anecdotal notes and other evidence to see how and when students engage in learning. After this review, teachers use their observations to differentiate activities to meet the needs of individual students. The strategy is based on “a seek-to-understand stance by attempting to look at life, literacy, and learning through the children’s eyes” (Mills 2). By discovering how students learn, teachers are able to choose the most effective strategies for each pupil.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy, Reading

Strategy Guide: Making Connections

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Strategic reading allows students to monitor their own thinking and make connections between texts and their own experiences. Students who make connections while reading are better able to understand the text they are reading. It is important for students to draw on their prior knowledge and experiences to connect with the text. Students are thinking when they are connecting, which makes them more engaged in the reading experience. Students gain a deeper understanding of a text when they make authentic connections. However, teachers need to know how to show students how a text connects to their lives, another text they have read, or the world around them. In this strategy guide, you will learn how to model text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections for your students so that they may begin to make personal connections to a text on their own.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy, Reading

Book Wizard: Teachers, Find and Level Books for Your Classroom

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Use Scholastic’s Book Wizard to level your classroom library, discover resources for the books you teach, and find books at just the right level for students with Guided Reading, Lexile® Measure, and DRA levels for children's books. You can browse titles if trying to find a particular level, or search a specific title to get a grade level and a guided reading level as well. Teach your students how to use this site to help them learn how to find books they may be interested in at their reading level.

Material Type: Primary Source

Author: Scholastic

Level it Books

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Find reading levels fast and digitally manage your library of books! A great way to organize, level, and track your books! Scan your book's ISBN to view the Lexile, Guided Reading, Grade Level Equivalent, and/or DRA levels for the book. We feature well liked books ranging from K-8 on a weekly basis here. Interested in high school level books? We have those in the app too! Educators If you are an educator and want to see your favorite book here, make sure to create a teacher account to submit book recommendations. Parents Depending on the reading level of your child, the book of the day will always be a great book for your child to read!

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Reading

Author: Ktl Mobile Apps

A companion document to the Saskatchewan English Language Arts Curriculum-Grades 1, 2, 3

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"Saskatchewan Reads is a companion document to the English Language Arts Grades 1, 2, and 3 curricula. It was created based on sound research, specifically in reading, focusing on instructional approaches, assessment and intervention. Some of the key authors referenced include; Allington, Miller, Fountas and Pinnell, Davies, Cooper, Fisher & Frey to name a few. Furthermore, it showcases the diversity of promising practises that have proven successful in school divisions and First Nations communities within Saskatchewan. Some examples include: Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), Reader’s Workshop, Balanced Literacy, Scaffolded/Guided Reading, Levelled Literacy Intervention and Running Records along with many others across the province. The intent of Saskatchewan Reads is to provide a framework for school divisions and systems to build their own reading initiative that meets the needs of their unique student population. This document provides practical supports to teachers as they ensure their students are successful. It is intended to develop increased capacity at the school and system level with respect to improving student reading. The online version of Saskatchewan Reads saskatchewanreads.wordpress.com will be evergreen with live links and video of examples to clearly illustrate the many promising practices within Saskatchewan. The intent of the online version is to bring Saskatchewan Reads alive. The motivation to create Saskatchewan Reads came from the need to improve student reading in this province as outlined in the Premier’s vision document, “Saskatchewan Plan for Growth: Vision 2020 and Beyond”. All 28 school boards in the province and the Government of Saskatchewan approved the development and deployment of Saskatchewan Reads. Several Saskatchewan publications, along with documents from other provinces, were referenced when creating Saskatchewan Reads. As a result of this work, and more importantly, the skill and talent of our teachers in this province, our students will become proficient readers."

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Primary Source, Homework/Assignment, Assessment, Reading

Author: Saskatchewan Reads

Grade 8 English Language Arts Teachers: Connecting the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program and Saskatchewan Curricula

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How can I, as a Grade 8 teacher, support my students’ reading achievement? The Ministry of Education has developed a brief support document that outlines the link between Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) and Saskatchewan English Language Arts curricula and offers some questions teachers could consider as they reflect on reading instruction and student achievement.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Primary Source

Author: Melissa Lander

Gr. 1 Phonological Awareness - Info & Weekly Videos

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Phonological awareness skills are important in order to develop good reading and spelling skills. Having good phonological awareness skills means that a child is able to manipulate sounds and words, or “play” with sounds and words. For example, you might ask your child to break the word “cat” into individual sounds: “c-a-t.” Important: These skills deal with SOUNDS not letters. For example, /t/ represents the sound and not the letter name “tee.” You will not use any written or visual letters when working with phonological activities. These activities are done with listening and speaking only. Learning the letter names and their corresponding sounds is also very important but should be taught and practiced at a different time of the day. This resource will have a weekly activity for your to work on with your child/student(s). It will include a handout with information and guidance, as well as a video to help support you and the learner. CLICK THE WORDS "INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS" TO GET STARTED (do not click on view description).

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Melissa Lander, Allison de Huber

Grades 4, 7, and 9 English Writing Exemplars

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The following resource from The SK Ministry of Education provides samples of grades 4, 7, and 9 student writing are now available. Sample student writing as well as other materials related to the ESSP outcome that “by June 30, 2020, 80 per cent of student will be at or above grade level in writing” can be found here: Grades 4, 7, and 9 Student Writing Samples.

Material Type: Primary Source

Authors: Vanessa Lewis, Melissa Lander, Shari Martin