Danielle+Cobb

=Danielle Cobb's Space= The skills & writing tranparencies have been working very well in direct instruction. The practice books have been well used for guided practice and occassional grades on independently done review pages.

Pacing is a mixed bag. I've been successsfully using the Daily Fix-Its to launch the class & review skills learned in grammar & spelling. Spelling has been going smoothly with a nice semi-independent routine of 1 list per week. Lists 1.1 - 1.4 we mastered all of the regular and challenge words. This week was particularily challenging, so we stuck to the "regular" words, with bonus words reviewing similar and past spelling rules that pose a lingering challenge. (ie:they're, it's, piece: "i before e" rule) We just wrapped up the 1.5 list with reasonably good results.

Grammar has also kept up with the weekly routine of skills.

I still like the audio story starters, and the addition of the concept maps to build on prior knowledge with the pre-story focusing on skill & strategy. The vocab short story also gives the readers context.

The essential question for each story is a good guiding element and emotional hook for the young readers. It's a shame these themes are not reinforced in the selection test questions, and even occasionally provide confusing "wrong" answers to some questions on the test.

I've attempted leveled-reading groups, but don't feel very confident with what was accomplished and how to assess their learning during them. Angela will demonstrate a similar lesson for me to observe.

Writing workshops have been successful. Personal Narratives were full of vivid language with fairly well constructed paragraphs, using the planning page from the writing section of the __Grammar and Writing Practice__ book. Mrs. Ellis taught and guided them through the 4 square process for them to use with well-crafted character sketches about a family member.

Mrs. Hoeflich's enrichment has been very positively and seamlessly integrated into our ELA class time. Whether supporting Arts In Ed, or complimentary backround lessons supporting a story's depth or skills, or her expertise with assessment, her efforts have been invaluable to, and well received by, the students.

Apostrophes and commas continue to challenge the kids.

Selection test results have not been good. I believe we can modify them without compromising the integrity of the test. Some questions:
 * 1) Are we not competent, highly-qualified educators with years of training on assessing?We need to fairly evaluate the students based on **their actual** prior knowledge and new learning, rather than what the publisher assumes the kids have learned with 5 prior years in this series.
 * 2) Are we testing the students learning for this week? Or is every selection test a standardized achievement test?
 * 3) Isn't the purpose of the Unit and Benchmark tests to be summative of what they have learned?

Maybe in a couple of years, they will have a sufficient amout of the publisher's vocabulary and prior content under their belts. They will then have mastered the vocabulary choices that are **not** the correct answers on the test well enough to discern the best answers and know what foreshadowing means. When I taught 8th grade ELA with Frank Visco, (who taught for over 30 years) foreshadowing was introduced in that grade level. I think it's fine that the kids learn it sooner, but it's unfair to penalize them for not being at a mastery level of a skill they have not learned in previous years.

There is much to discuss, and we need to support each other. Your job is my job.