Holy Cow-What a nice surprise! September 28, 2008

 

Thanks Mary Lee and Franki from A Year of Reading!
I’ve been tagged from their blog after they receiving a nod from Charlotte’s Library blog.

Here are the rules for I heart your blog:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog.
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!  

 

Seven Other Blogs that I think have not been mentioned so far are:

Jen Robinson’s Book Page-She sends out a great free newsletter. Her reviews are very detailed and she also provides information about other “going-ons” in the  world.

Two Writing Teachers-great lessons, great photos and documents, great advice-very inspiring! While very different, I enjoy posts by both members of the team-Stacey and Ruth

The Reading Zone-I like reading what is going on in her classroom, and like that you can be passionate about literacy and science!

A Patchwork of Books-a wonderful blog-read her reviews and click on the links to purchase them through Amazon.

My Breakfast Platter-a sixth grade teacher’s perspective

A Wrung Sponge- I like her combination of poetry, haiku, and children book reviews. I think it’s a great example of how a mentor text (in this case the Haiku form) can be used to craft your language.

The Miss Rumphius Effect- literature, teaching, poetry-it’s got it all

 

Now this one isn’t a blog, but if you haven’t checked it out, you are missing out on some great teaching resources! Beth Newingham’s website

Spelling Strategies and Patterns September 28, 2008

I picked up this book at the Lakota Literacy VIEW conference this summer, but have just recently had the opportunity to read through it. I have to say this is one spelling book that I really like and does not overwhelm me. I think it would be a nice complement to the Lucy Calkins’ writing Units of Study our intermediate teachers are using. 

Two years ago our district had a year-long Literacy Committee that teachers from each building were able to apply to be a part. We started with research reading, developed district literacy belief statements and went through to materials review and adoption. Our kindergarten through third grades are using the Reading Streets series, including the spelling component. Fourth and Fifth grade received components including Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study for writing and Comprehension Toolkit for grades 3-6. Last year was the first year of use of the new materials.

Spelling was an area that we decided to evaluate separately and now I guess it is time to take a look. Kindergarten through third have put enough work into using Reading Streets that they are not willing to look at a different program and I don’t blame them. Middle and High School are trucking along, since it is a smaller issue for them.  It is the fourth through sixth grade where we need to take a look at options and find something the building can agree on. A teacher from each grade went to the new Rebecca Sitton’s spelling training last year, and while there are really good parts, all felt it was too overwhelming and that they would rather put the energy and time into developing a solid writing program.

If anyone uses a program for spelling that the LOVE, please leave a comment. Actual teacher thoughts on materials are so much more helpful than what the publisher wil tell you!

I think I’ll enlist a few teachers to see what they think about working this new spelling program into what we already do at the intermediate level.  While spelling is important for this age group, it can’t be at the expense of precious reading and writing minutes!