New Writing Teacher

For the last few days and over the next few weeks we will have a new writing teacher. Her name is Cynthia Rylant. She is the amazing author of some fabulous children's books. Here are a few of my favorite:

The class is going to study Mrs. Rylant and notice what she does as an author. They have already noticed that in the book The Relatives Came she used a circular ending (the first page was the same as the last) and she used a lot of ands in sentences like this one: 

They had an old station wagon that smelled like a real car, and in it they put an ice chest full of soda pop and some boxes of crackers and some bologna sandwiches, and up they came from Virginia.

I love this sentence. It breaks the rules but sounds amazing. It has been great to see the class recreate sentences just like this one.

Our students have also noticed that Mrs. Rlyant will thread a line through her story like in the book When I Was Young In The Mountains. When we read the book Long Night Moon, they noticed that she wrote about each month and started each page with In December or In November. 

I love these two books and I have loved seeing the class try out these Rylant-ish moves. We have had stories with the thread When I Was Young In Lebanon or When I Was Young On The Football Field. We have also had stories that mirrored the idea of Long Night Moon. Instead of talking about the moon, though, students are walking me through the holidays of the year or a vacation they took to New York.

The students are getting better and better and better at the idea of taking techniques from an author and making it their own. It is so much fun to watch them stand on the shoulders of other authors (a phrase a colleague once shared with me). I cannot wait to see their next writing project where they get to use all of these ideas that they are borrowing from Cynthia Rylant. 

I hope you are having a great week.

A New Book

Today we started our new read aloud book Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff.

I love getting into a new read aloud. We get to meet new characters. We get to meet a new author. We get to get excited about another book. I also love this book because I have only read the first chapter. This book is a new book. It just came out this year and it has a chance to win the Newbery Medal. I love sharing new books with the class. Something they have not seen or heard about from their friends. It allows the students to make up their own mind about the book. Plus it gives us a chance to read aloud the Newbery Medal award winning book before the medal is given. The last two years I have been lucky enough to have read the book aloud before the medal was awarded. 

When these books were announced, my classes felt so cool that they already knew about the book that won this important award. It was like we had found the coolest thing before it became cool. Hopefully this year we will get to experience that feeling once again.

Today we also used a new reading strategy with our article of the week. I think this strategy is called a graffiti wall. The whole idea is that students share their thinking about an article they read with their group. Here are some pictures of the graffiti walls that some of the groups created. It is amazing to see this thinking going on about text. Each student used a different color highlighter to mark section of the articles where they wanted to share their thinking. Then others in the group would add their thinking to that part. I loved all the colors and the discussions that were happening on the paper.

Hope your week is off to a great start!

Book Talking

Today was a great day. The room was loud, but in the best way possible. Students were talking about books. I love book talk day. It is a chance for students to not only share what they have read but to find out what others are reading. Hopefully the day helps students find the next book that they will love.

I was amazed by the creativity that filled the room. We had tickets inviting you to a book, we had posters announcing a lost dog, we had sections of a book read in the character's voice, and it just kept getting better. The room was filled with a gorilla and a young Jedi and a famous author as students gave their book talk as a character from their book.

Not only were the book talks amazing the books that we were talking about were great books. Today we heard about:

• How to Steal a Dog
• Hatchet
• Flora and Ulysses
• Marvin Redpost Series
• The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
• The Jedi Academy Series
• The One and Only Ivan
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid
• Big Nate
• How to Be a Perfect Person in just Three Days

On and on and on the great books went and this was just day number one. I cannot wait to hear the rest of our book talks tomorrow. 

Hope you are having a great week.

Reverse Visualizing

Another day another wordless picture book. Today the title was Good Dog Carl.

This book is a classic. I love the idea of a dog babysitter. In the book Carl takes over to watch the baby as his owner goes out for the day (I did warn the class this was a bad idea). The baby and Carl have adventures throughout the house sliding down the laundry chute, dancing to the record collection, swimming in the aquarium, and having a little snack. Luckily Carl is able to pick up the mess and get the baby back into the crib seconds before his owner returns. 

When the students were reading this book we wanted them to work on reverse visualizing. All week long we have been working on having students turn the text into a movie in their head. Today that was impossible because their were no words. The idea today was to have the students create the words that would go with the pictures in the book. We talked about how the amazing authors that we have looked at this week have created pictures with their words. They described the dog and the checkerboard floor and the outside of the house and anything else.

The writing was amazing. Hopefully now students understand that they not only have to visualize when they read but also allow their reader to visualize by using descriptive details.

Hope you are all having a great week.

A Quiet Goodbye

Today we finished the book Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord.

I had not read this book before I shared it with the class. I had only read five chapters before I decided I wanted to read it with the class. I like to read aloud a new book to the class. It allows me to show the class the real thinking that goes on in my head as I read. They get to see me make predictions that might not come true. They get to see how my thinking changes as I progress through the book. They also get to see my excitement build as we read. 

The last few days my enjoyment for this book grew. I wanted to know how it would end. Today I found out it would end quietly. A quiet vacation town empty. A lake empty of the loons that had filled it with their calls all summer. The quietest goodbye came from Grandma Lilah. I do not have the book with me tonight, but Grandma Lilah had an amazing quote today about goodbyes. I will paraphrase it the best I can, "Goodbyes do not have to be bad. Sometimes it is just time to go."

I know that is not exact but I loved the message. I hope our next book can match this book. If you get a chance, you could ask at home what the students thought about the ending or what they thought about the book as a whole.

Comments in the Middle

I got to school today and realized I had not posted anything last night. I am sorry. Here is what I wanted to write about yesterday but just plain forgot.

Over the last week I have been looking at the first drafts we turned in last week. These first drafts were amazing. I read I am From poems with lines that stopped me cold. These poems were filled with amazing little nuggets of writing that I could not believe. Some of the lines made me jealous. There were stories about fairies and birds and dogs and so much more. There were claims about the best ride at Kings Island or the best holiday or the best current Cincinnati Reds or the best cars on the road. Each project was filled with such amazing writing. Reading this writing was worth every second.

On Monday I passed back these first drafts. In the folder that held the first draft was a piece of paper filled with my comments. I love this idea of giving students comments in the middle of the writing process. I remember when I was in school the only time that I got comments on my writing was after the project was complete and graded. The comments that my teacher gave me were lost because I had already moved on to my next piece. I also remember writing a second draft and never knowing what I needed to work on in my piece.

I started to write comments after the first draft two years ago. My hope was that students would get these comments back with an opportunity to use the comments. Hopefully students will use my comments to help them make their writing on their final draft better. Working to make your writing better is hard. There is a quote that I love from X.J. Kennedy about revising writing, "The world is full of poets with languid wrenches who don't bother to take the last six turns on their bolt."

The work that our students are doing right now on their writing pieces is those last six turns. Our class has done all this amazing work on their first drafts, but now they get a chance to make them even better. Hopefully through my comments and through practice the rest of the year students will get better at these "last six turns." Hopefully they will start to see the value in working hard to make their writing as good as it can possibly be when they share it with the world.

I hope you are all having a great start to your week. Second post of the night will be coming soon.

Simulated Research

This week we have been researching an idea in class. The idea was whether or not fourth graders should have a smartphone. To start the week we read an article from Time For Kids where two students talked about whether or not children should have cellphones. One student supported the idea and one was opposed. Students used stick Post-its to mark the students claim and reasons. We had talked about this idea of claims already this year but I was still impressed how easily the students were able to find the claims and the students reasons. After we had looked at the articles, students made their own claims on a notecard.

On Tuesday we started our research. We read two articles that talked about the pros and cons of giving children a smartphone. While students read these articles, they used strategies to search for information. The strategies that the students used were strategies that we had already used this year when we read our Article of the Week. Tables worked on mining the articles looking for evidence to support their claim. It was great to see the tables working together to find information.

On Wednesday we had to spend a little more time looking through the articles but not a lot. When the class had finished we had the students create a pro/con list. No matter which side of the debate the students were on they had to find three reasons and three reasons not to get a fourth grader a cell phone. We had created pro/con list earlier this year when we made our back to school claims.

Today in class we looked at a group of articles that I like to call "List Claims." List Claims are just a claim in the form of a list. They have become quite popular in magazines and websites lately. The first List Claim that we shared was 8 Reasons that Frozen is Unstoppable. Then we looked at the article 7 Reasons Not To Buy Your Child an iPad. Students made a list of all things that they noticed about the list claims. We have done this idea of looking at types of writing and seeing what we notice a lot this year.

The whole week has been leading up to the students writing their list claim tomorrow in class. I love how little bits of what we have done all year long have allowed students to accomplish this work. What we asked students to do this week was not easy, but since we had practiced and played with the ideas already I think the students felt comfortable. Hopefully I will be proven correct tomorrow when we read some great List Claims.

Hope you are having a great day.

Half a Chance

Today I realized that we are almost done with Half a Chance. I have fallen in love with the book over the last few days. I am at that point in a book where you cannot wait to see what happens but at the same time you do not want to find out because then the book will come to an end. I have also seen the class latch onto the book. Rooting for characters and worrying about final decisions. It has been a special time at our rocking chair watching the students figure it all out together. I hope you are hearing about this book at home and if they are not talking about it, please ask about what is happening to Lucy, Nate and Grandma Lilah.

The problem is that now I have to pick our next read aloud. I love and hate this process. It is almost impossible to pick a book that 54 students will all love but each time I pick a book that is my goal. Today I was lucky enough to find a tweet that included a link to Anderson's Bookshops 2014 Mock Newbery List. Last year Anderson's had the eventual winner Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo on their early list.

I have read a few books off this years list. At the end of last year I read aloud A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd. My class loved the book but how could you not. The book has a bit of bluegrass and a whole bunch of ice cream. I did love the book but I want something new.

I have a copy of Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This book is beautiful. I am going to read this book aloud this year but I am not ready for it just yet. I think it is the perfect book to start when we get back from winter break.

This leaves me stuck searching for that perfect book. I cannot complain there is nothing like the search for a new book. 

I hope you are all having an amazing week and if you know of any great new books that would be perfect for a read aloud let me know with a comment or a note.

 

A Bit of Music

Today we listened to two songs. One of the songs was A Place in This World by Taylor Swift.

The other song was Yesterday by the Beatles.

It was awesome because we listened to each song three or four times. By the third and fourth time groups of students were singing along. Why did we listen to these songs? It was simple we wanted the students to think about the most important line.

The first time we listened to the song students just listened to enjoy and try to figure out what the song was saying. It was amazing how the students were able to figure out the messages of both of these songs. Then we asked the students to listen and write down the five most important lines. Students quickly wrote, pencils flying across the page, trying to keep up with the lyrics. We shared what groups thought were the most important lines. Then we listened one more time and had students try to decide which of their five lines was the most important.

After all this work the students wrote why they picked their line as the most important. Some of the thinking that the students shared was quite complex. These thinking strategies that we are learning in class are not just for reading. We are constantly trying to let the students know that they can use these thinking strategies everywhere: in science class, in math class, on the football field, when they are watching movies, or when they are listening to music.

You can try to help to reinforce these strategies by practicing them all over. What was the most important part of that television show that we just watched? What was the most important part of what coach said tonight at practice? 

The more that students use these strategies the better they will get as using them and the easier it will be when we ask them to use them when they are writing.

I must say this has been one of the most pleasant blog writing nights. I have gone through Yesterday, Hey Jude, Let it Be, and now While My Guitar Gently Weeps. 

Hope you are having a great night and if you want let me know your favorite Beatles song in the comments section.

VIP's

Today we had some VIP's in the classroom. A VIP in our classroom is not a Very Important Person. In our class a VIP is a Very Important Post-It. Students worked today to put their VIP's on very important parts of the text. I love the idea of a Very Important Post-it. I remember trying to highlight when I was younger. I usually just ended up highlighting everything. This of course did not help but my papers sure looked good.

These Very Important Post-Its fit perfectly with the new thinking strategy we introduced on Friday. The new strategy is determining importance. To introduce the idea of determining importance we had the class try to survive in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tables were given the scenario of a sinking yacht. The table had to abandon their yacht and enter the inflatable life boats. In the life boats the tables had thirteen items. The items included a case of Army C-ration food, a five gallon container of clean water, 15 feet of rope, a shaving mirror, two boxes of chocolate bars, and on and on.

We asked the class to rank the items in order of importance from 1-13. The class got to work thinking about what would be the most important and what would be the least important. After a good amount of time debating, the groups had their final lists. The class was shocked to find out that the shaving mirror was the most important item in the group. The mirror could be used to signal planes and help in your rescue. I thought it was a great way to introduce the importance of this new strategy.

All week long and for the rest of this year we will continue to focus on this idea. When students are reading at home, you can always help out by asking them what was important today. You could also give them one post-it note with the letters VIP, and they will know what to do. If you are talking about Determining Importance, you can use some of the thinking stems that we will be using in class:

• What's important here...
• What matters to me...
• One thing we should notice...
• It's interesting that...

Hope you all had a great start to your week.

A Shift

One shift in my teaching the last few years has been trying to read different types of text. In the past I had relied too heavily on fiction. I still love fiction and it is usually at the heart of what we do in my room, but now we read all types of texts.

One way that I have really been trying to incorporate nonfiction this year has been reading an article of the week. This idea comes from Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher says that this weekly article exposes students to 30-40 articles a year. This exposure will help students have a better understanding of the world. It will also add to their schema when they read other articles.

This year we have already read articles about buddy baseball, Dreadnoughtus, wild horses on the island of Corolla, North Carolina, orca whales at Sea World, and the buddy bench.

I love reading nonfiction in my classroom. I think it opens up more chances for students to fall in love with reading. I might be able to hook some reluctant readers by reading these high interest nonfiction articles. Once we have them hooked we can show them the nonfiction books of Seymour Simon or Steve Jenkins. From there the sky is the limit.

I also love the article of the week because it allows me to introduce a way for students to "code" their thinking as they read. This year we want students to understand that reading is thinking. When students are coding a text, they are showing their thinking. Coding a text is a simple way to show your thinking about what you are reading. This year we have used two-column notes, a 3...2..1., a strategy where we look at the title only and ask questions we could answer when we read the text, and selective highlighting. We will keep exposing different strategies to the class. As the year goes on, they will have a treasure trove of different strategies they can use when they read an article.

I hope that you are having a great week.

I Prefer

Today we worked on having students notice something about a text. We gave the class a copy of two "I Prefer" poems. The class first had to infer which poem was written by me and which one by Ms. Cavallaro. When the students were done, we read our poems aloud. As we read, we asked the class to think about what they noticed. The class as usual noticed some amazing things. They noticed that both of us used the last same three words, that we always used I prefer at the beginning of our lines, that we made each stanza about something we loved, that we did not just say that we prefer bacon we described it, and so much more.

When students can look at a text and figure out what the author did, they can then try to recreate a text that is similar. I know this might sound like cheating or plagiarism, but I really think it is what we all do when we are producing something. If I am going to fix something around the house, I look up videos of experts and then try to mimic what they do. If I am going to play basketball, I am going to watch Lebron James and try to learn from watching his moves. Authors do the same thing. They read other authors and look at how they play with words. Then they try some of the same moves when they are creating a piece.

Here are the two "I Prefer" poems that the class looked at today:

I Prefer

I prefer the sunrise over the sunset

I prefer the freshness and sunlight a new day brings

I prefer the start of a new beginning and all the excitement that comes with it

I prefer the warmth of light streaming through my windows

I prefer the thrill of an adventure

I prefer the mystery and confusion of a different language spoken

I prefer getting lost and finding an unexpected place

I prefer the awe of seeing historical places for the first time

I prefer the warmth of the outdoors over chills of the winter months

I prefer the slight chill in the breeze during the fall time

I prefer sitting on my back deck staring out into the woods

I prefer corn mazes, apple spiced Yankee candles and all Halloween candy

I prefer the suburbs

I prefer the familiarity of the back roads

I prefer a blue-dipped rainbow sprinkle icecream cone from Whippy Dip

I prefer the overwhelming nostalgia for memories made in every place in town

I prefer the reverse breakfast for dinner any day

I prefer vanilla over chocolate anything

I prefer any kind of food that I can douse in hot sauce

I prefer ice cold water over piping hot tea

I prefer our traditions

I prefer Grandma’s homemade lasagna during the holidays

I prefer Dad’s laughter even when his jokes aren’t funny

I prefer the comfort and love of family to anything else

I Prefer

I prefer greasy-spoon holes in the wall and places not found on the map
I prefer gas station coffee burnt black and cake doughnut crumbles
I prefer the company as much as the meal
I prefer the heart of the mom and pops to the machine of a giant chain

I prefer being a fly on your wall 
I prefer sitting in the back
I prefer getting lost in the crowd 
I prefer the silence to the uncomfortable words

I prefer the night sky
I prefer the freedom of windows down
I prefer staying out in the storm
I prefer the cool crisp air to the choking repressive heat

I prefer music that never finds the radio
I prefer the skip of a record needle and the mistakes found
I prefer songs by George not John and Paul 
I prefer album art to the great works at the Met

I prefer the precision and sweat of a pitchers duel
I prefer the old fashion three-point play
I prefer tennis on the grass in the middle of July
I prefer the athlete who realizes his passion to the one who relies on his skill 

I prefer the city
I prefer getting lost in the maze of the streets and the masses
I prefer the sidewalks beaten down by millions
I prefer the hum and music to the dull drab of the suburbs

I prefer our barefoot nights in the backyard chasing each other
I prefer our cool morning walks
I prefer the screaming of your laughter
I prefer our chocolate blueberry flavored tea parties to anything else.

I think if you take a look at our two poems and then look at the poems in the writer's notebooks you will be amazed. You will also see that the students did not steal our work. They just used our work as a guideline to produce something that was entirely all their own.

I hope you are having a great week.

Another Wiesner

Today we read another wordless picture book by David Wiesner. I love his books. He tells an amazing stories without using a single word. In this book a young boy on a field trip is taken by a cloud to Sector 7. Sector 7 is the factory in the sky where clouds are made. The clouds have grown tired of the shapes they are forced to take each time they are sent out over the East Coast. The clouds brought the boy to Sector 7 to design clouds that are a bit more interesting. The boy starts creating "cloudprints" in the shapes of all the different sea creatures. When the could designers see the boys designs, they are not pleased. The boy is sent back to his field trip at the top of the Empire State Building. When the boy gets down from the building the sky has filled with clouds that are in the shapes of squids, fish, and many other sea creatures. I love the idea of this story.

As we read this book, the class worked on asking questions before, during, and after they read. The questions the students thought of after the book were quite interesting. Since the students had read two books by Mr. Wiesner, they started to ask questions about him as a writer. Does he always write wordless picture books? Did he grow up by the ocean? Is he interested in the ocean? We are going to keep working on asking questions the rest of the week and throughout the year.0'[

In writing we continue to work on the idea of getting our seed idea ready to draft. Today I showed the students how I was working on a letter I had written to my daughter. The class had let me know they did not like my second paragraph (the feedback was quite harsh but I will survive). I wanted to show the class how I would work to make this paragraph shine in my piece. I put my writer's notebook under the document camera so the class could see me write two different ideas for the paragraph. When I was done with the two new ideas, we talked about which paragraph would work best. Now as an author I had some different ideas of what I could do in that troublesome second paragraph.

Then the class went to work on their idea. I loved seeing students working on certain stanzas or paragraphs that they thought needed attention. One of my favorite moments of the day was when a student told me he had worked on his last stanza. He now thought this stanza that was not his favorite had become his best stanza in the piece. Working on writing is hard. Finding those spots that need help and making them better takes work. Hopefully as we continue to work on this idea all year long students will find different strategies that will work for them. I also hope they have that moment when that hard work pays off and they see that amazing sentence they reworked make their writing shine.

I hope you are all having a great week.

Questioning

Today we introduced our next strategy questioning. I love this strategy because asking questions is such an important skill. Both classes looked at quotes about asking questions and wrote down what they thought. Each quote could be summed up by saying that asking questions does not mean you are a fool it means that you are about to learn and acquire knowledge. I want our students to know that by asking questions about the world and the books they read they can learn. Hopefully this skill and desire to learn grows and grows as we work with this strategy and all our thinking strategies all year long.

After sharing their thinking about the quotes, the students came over to the rocking chair and looked at two objects that Ms. Cavallaro and I had brought in for the lesson. My object was a part of my keychain where I can keep glucose pills. A parent gave me the holder a few years ago and just like anything that ends up on my key chain it has stayed.

Ms. Cavallaro brought in a "clicker" responder that she used in large seminar classes at Miami. The remote allowed students to sign-in to class and respond to questions from the teacher. I could not help to think how much college had changed since my time at UD.

The classes made giant lists of questions they had as they looked and passed around our objects. The questions were great. They started with the questions as they looked at the objects, then added more as the object was actually in their hand, and then finally they asked more questions after Ms. Cavallaro and I told them the identity of the objects. These types of questions fit perfectly with one of our main goals of the week. We want the students to realize that when they read they can ask questions before, during and after their reading.

The thinking stems that we are going to use when we are sharing our thinking about questioning include:

• I wonder...
• What if...
• I don't understand...
• It confuses me...
• How could...

I hope your week is off to a great start.

Mining the Notebook

The students have been doing so many amazing things in their writer's notebooks this year. Earlier this week we did an activity called M&M writing. It is a great idea to get students to write. You just put a pile of M&M's on their desk. Each color represents an idea for a list. For example the yellow M&M's represented things the students did well. If they had four yellow M&M's, then the students would list four things they do well. As soon as the students came up with an idea for that M&M they could eat the piece of candy. If you have a reluctant writer, it is a great way to get something on the paper. Then we asked the students to look at their lists and find something they wanted to write. They starred the idea, turned the page, and started to write.

All these great ideas are adding up in our notebook. Some students have already produced thirty plus pages of writing in their notebooks. We thought this would be the perfect time to show the students what they can do with all of these great ideas. This week we have started to read aloud a book called a Writer's Notebook by Ralph Fletcher.

In this book Fletcher talks about all the ways that students can use a writer's notebook. One of my favorite chapters is called Seed Ideas. The chapter talks about how the writer's notebook is a safe place to keep infant ideas. But eventually you may get struck by an idea and decide to grow the idea. You will go back and add to it. Work the idea in different way. Play with the idea. Then when you think you are ready you will take the idea out of your notebook and share it with the world. 

This is what the students have been working on this week. Finding the idea that they are most excited about in their writer's notebook. Working on growing that idea. Now we are going to get ready to share that idea by creating our first writing project of the year. One thing that may be helpful during this time is to help out at home with mining the writer's notebook for those little nuggets of gold. Sit down and look through the writer's notebook and talk about which ideas might make the best projects. These conversations will allow you to get to see all of this great writing and maybe help the decision of which idea would make the perfect first writing project.

Hope you are having a great week.

Wordless Picture Books

I love wordless picture books. Today Ms. Cavallaro read one of my favorite wordless picture books Flotsam by the amazing David Wiesner. As she read the book, the class worked on making inferences. The pictures or the text provided the evidence that students needed to make their inferences. In honor of this wordless picture book I thought I would share with you some of my favorite wordless picture books:

I hope you get a chane to enjoy these great books! If you are reading them at home,  you could work on making some inferences as you read.

Hope you are all having a great week.

Making Inferences

On Friday we introduced our next thinking strategy...inferring. We started with one of my favorite activities. To start the lesson Ms. Cavallaro and I each showed the class a pair of shoes that we told the class that we had picked up at a garage sale. We asked the class to make inferences about the person who wore the shoes. The class quickly started sharing their inferences. They inferred that my pair was a man's shoe that was well worn. The also inferred that the mystery man played sports in the shoes and he mowed the grass wearing the shoes. For Ms. Cavallaro's boots they inferred that the girl who had worn them wore them a lot. They inferred that the boots might have been worn to ride horses or to go dancing. They also inferred that these boots were a favorite pair.

We kept track of all these inferences on the left side of a T-chart at the front of the room. When we had collected all the inferences, we made the class explain the evidence that they had used to make these inferences. The students used lots of different pieces of evidence like the green stains on my shoes or the worn toe and heel on the boots or just the style of the shoe to explain their inferences.

Today we did another lesson to get students to understand that to make an inference they have to use evidence. We told the class that Ms. Cavallaro had a new neighbor that was quite interesting. They never came out of their house and things just did not seem right. We continued the story by letting the class know that Ms. Cavallaro had become so interested that this morning she took a bag of their trash. We opened up the bag of trash and started to look through all of the evidence. Again we made a T-chart to list all of this evidence. Tables quickly started to turn this evidence into schema.

Inferring is such an important part of reading. We will continue this week to talk about inferring. Just as with all of our other thinking strategies we have thinking stems that the students are prompted to use when sharing their thinking. Here are the thinking stems for inferring:

• My guess is...
• Perhaps...
• Maybe...
• It could be that...
• This could mean...
• I infer...

You could try and prompt our students to use these thinking stems at home when they are sharing their thinking about their at home reading.

I hope you all had a great start to your week.