Reviving Four Blocks: Where Does Grammar Fit?

I recently received this question from a reader who was reading my posts about the Four Blocks Framework (which I LOVE). I must admit that grammar was always one of those things that was sort of up in the air as to where it fit...Word work? (nouns, adjectives, etc...) Writing? (conventions...) I just wasn't really sure, so I started questioning and researching it, especially during the years that I taught writing. After lots of research here's what I came up with. I certainly don't have all the answers yet, but here's what makes sense to me at this point in my teaching journey (Year 13).

• Should it be taught every day?
• Yes. I equate grammar and conventions in language arts to facts practice in mathematics. It may not be an actual part of the basal, but you just about have to practice daily to keep it fresh, make connections, and remind children of what they know. 
• If so, in isolation or integrated in writing or reading? Which block?
• I prefer to teach grammar and conventions within the writing block, although it is important during reading and speaking as well (more on that later). I always try to connect what they're learning to the other areas of Language Arts.
• What is the purpose of knowing sentence parts, labels, etc?
• Knowing the labels gives us all a common vocabulary for which to speak and learn about our language. The names are tools that allow students and teachers to converse about making improvements to writing, or noticing things in reading/speaking.
• Why do kids "learn" grammar but not speak it or write it correctly?
• Students will do what they are held accountable for doing. I have learned over the years to hold them accountable for what they know. My students know that if they speak incorrectly, I will correct them and expect them to repeat the correct version. I also hold them accountable in their writing. If they know to put capital letters and periods at the ends of sentences and chose not to do so, they will not receive full credit for work. This may seem harsh, but we talk about how they should be using what they learn, and my students understand that I expect them to do this.  

So...Where does grammar fit? As long as you connect it, anywhere that makes sense to you and works for your students. I teach it during my writing block because it is easy for me as a former writing teacher to help children see the connections between grammar and writing. Connections are the key. Without them, grammar and mechanics are just a bunch of isolated facts that may or may not be useful to kids. I'll post more specifically this week about how I integrate my grammar and writing instruction, but here are a few phrases I often use:

"Remember that good writers use a variety of sentences types. Be sure and use at least one declarative and one interrogative sentence in your writing today."
"Look back at the web you made about sentences. What does a sentence have to have? Remember to include those things in your writing today."
"Check back over your writing. Did you include...?"
"Today you learned that pronouns take the place of nouns. Be careful in your writing to use pronouns sparingly so your reader doesn't get confused."
"Can you find some proper nouns in a story you've written?"
"Circle some adjectives in your story. Can you think of some sparkle words that you could use to replace them?"

How about you? This is one of those topics that I can never seem to learn enough about! What experience can you share? When/how do you teach grammar and conventions? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Doing Word Walls and a Freebie

Many of us HAVE word walls in the classroom, but do we DO word walls? Are they just pretty decorations on the wall that the students ignore glance at ocassionally, or a real resource that students use on a daily basis? In this post, I'll show you how to take your word wall from static to fantastic, plus give you some super-cute word wall cards I made!

There's basically only two rules for making your word wall a living, breathing resource in the classroom:

Use the word wall in a whole-class activity every day. 

Hold students accountable for spelling word wall words correctly.

This is a daily reminder for the kiddos to use the word wall, and it sends the message "Here is an important resource for you." But you may be thinking, "What am I supposed to do with it? WHEN am I supposed to fit this in?!" This post is for you. Here are some things I've done that worked for me:

How Much? 10 minutes or less

When? I schedule my literacy block using the Four Blocks framework, so I have 20-30 minutes each day for word work. When I scheduled using the Daily 5 framework, the word wall activities were one of my mini-lessons.

Which? You may use frequently misspelled words (there, their, they're), vocabulary, or pre-made sets of words. I plan on using some of my choice, and some of the words from Month by Month Phonics because my school purchased them for each teacher.

What? Every Monday when you add new words (4-6), chant them. Show the word and discuss its meaning. Next spell it, then have students say it and spell it aloud and write the word down in their journals or personal word walls. I like to have them chant the spelling three or four times and here's where it can get really fun. There are literally TONS of ways they can do this. Here's a great list of word wall chants. Each day choose 3 or 4 words (or more if there's time) to discuss, chant, and/or write, then do a short activity with the words.

• Be a Mind Reader (my favorite activity): Choose one word that students guess through clues you give them. Each time you give a clue, they write down a word from the word wall (spelled correctly). The clues start out very general, then narrow down the choices. Here's an example for the word community:
• It's a word on the word wall. (Students write a guess on their papers).
• It is a singular, collective noun (Students rewrite their word, or revise and choose another word). 
• It has more than three syllables (Students write their word again, or revise their guess and write another word). 
• It has 9 letters (Students rewrite their word, or write a different word based on the clue). 
• The last letter is a y (By now most should have it)
• Be a Mind Reader v2: Similar to the activity above, but this time you choose five different words. Give one clue for each word. At the end, students who think they have the correct answers raise their hands and you check to see how got every word correct and spelled it correctly. I usually give them some little treat.
• Wordo: This is just like bingo, except with words! You can read more about it in this post. 

There are many, many more, but these three are a great place to start. Now, on to your freebies! I've made two sets of word wall labels to share with you:

Polka Dot Owl Word Wall Cards

Polka Dot and Chevron Owl Word Wall Cards

I'd love to hear from you! Do you do a word wall? If so, what are your favorite activities to do with it?

Assessment in the Writer's Workshop and a Freebie!

Do you have a great Writer's Workshop going (or planned) but are not sure how to go about assessing your students? One of my readers suggested I post about this very topic, so here goes! I am a firm believer in writing and writing every day. My students write every day about self-selected topics and sometimes to prompts that I give them. They spend a lot of time writing, and while I recognize how important this is, it is sometimes difficult for all of their hard work to be reflected in their Language grade...I feel like since my students are spending so much time writing, they should get credit for their hard work (or the other way around, if necessary). The problem is, how do you GRADE writing?! We've all heard horror stories about little writers' hopes being dashed to shreds due to a sea of red marks on their papers. Maybe we've even been the victims of such grading. So, here's the way I do it. I've based my system off of Aimee Buckner's Notebook Know-How. This is a fabulous book that you just have to read! She is a real teacher who's written about real lessons in her classroom. Very practical and easy to use.

I've chosen to grade the Writer's Notebook. I do this using a rubric about twice during a nine-week period. It may seem overwhelming, but if you conference with your students often, you already are very familiar with what is in their notebook, so it isn't as time-consuming as you might think at first.

I like this method because it gives me an overall evaluation of the writer and their work as a whole, rather than ONLY grading one or two pieces of writing. (I may still grade a piece or two of writing during the nine weeks, especially to get them ready for our open-ended responses to state testing).

I evaluate 5 categories: Flexibility/Fluency, Thoughtfulness, Frequency, Grammar/Usage, and Writing Behavior.

• Flexibility/Fluency: I expect students to write in a variety of genres and topics. I also expect them to at least try some of the strategies they're learning in mini-lessons and complete most of their entries. This takes lots of modeling!  Most of us may have one or two strengths as writers, but its important for our writers to be flexible and fluent, especially at this young age.  I watch out for if they are only writing about a certain topic or in one genre, or if they start a new piece every day without returning to finish it. 
• Thoughtfulness: This one can be tough, but its important for students to be thoughtful writers. Are their entries superficial, only scratching the surface of a topic? Or are they deep with well-developed topics? Is there evidence that the writer has spent time thinking and planning through their piece or did he or she simply jot something down to be finished in a hurry? This category is perhaps the most subjective, but I use it because I want my students to continually dig deeper as writers. 
• Frequency: I expect my students to write about a page per day. Some days there will be less and some more, but it will usually equal to at least a page per day. This amount helps promote their writing fluency. If a student has only written a few lines each day there is a definite red flag! Is there trouble with letter formation or spelling, slowing the student down? Does the student have trouble generating topics to write about? 
• Grammar/Usage: This is one of those sticky points among some teachers, but I believe that using correct grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling is extremely important! (Be truthful...how many times do you shake your head and mentally correct something you read on the Internet? I know I do :) I expect students to use what they have learned in their own writing. For example, if we've learned that an interrogative sentence ends with a question mark, I expect that students put question marks at the end of interrogative sentences in their writing. They must spell word wall words and spelling words correctly. If they've learned that the letter I is always capitalized, then it should be written that way. In short, I expect them to put into practice the mechanics of writing they've learned up to that particular point. 
• Writing Behavior: This is more of a daily observation by the teacher. Is the student using time wisely by getting started right away and writing/working the whole time? Does he or she follow classroom procedures so that others aren't disturbed while writing? This doesn't mean that as soon as we begin, students put pencil to paper and don't stop until I ring the bell or call "time." I tell my students that it is okay to stop and think, to go back and reread other entries, or notes from mini-lessons. They know they may get a dictionary or thesaurus or look up a word on-line if they need to. But as a teacher, I can tell when they are doing those things for real and when they're displaying avoidance behaviors.  

So, there you have it! If you read this entire post, kudos to you! Sorry it was so long, but I had a lot to say on this topic. Now, grab your freebie below! I made a black a white version for making copies and some color versions if you want to print those. I was thinking about printing a different color for each grading period onto sticker paper and sticking them into the notebook on the back of the last entry up to that point. That way I have a record the student and I can easily refer to when conferencing and determining what they need to work on. 

I basically rate each category with a 4, 3, 2, or 1 then add up the total points and multiply by 5. The product is the student's grade.

Update: I removed the embedded doc because every time my page loaded it went down to the doc instead of staying on the top of the page. You can access it here:  Writer's Notebook Evaluation

How about you? Do you have a great way to assess notebooks or single pieces of writing? I'd love to hear how you handle assessment in your writing block.

Reviving Four Blocks: Writing

This post is the third in a series I've begun about the Four Blocks Literacy Model. (If you've missed the other two, you can click HERE to view them). If you're not familiar with the framework, the literacy model is broken into four blocks: Self-Selected Reading, Working with Words, Guided Reading, and Writing. The basic idea is that to have a balanced literacy approach, you should include each of the four blocks every day.  So, now on to the Writing  block....

What is it?
This block is all about students spending time writing. This is basically your writing workshop or work on writing (daily 5). This block is easily multilevel and differentiated because students are often choosing what to write about. But, even if they aren't choosing, students write at their own level. And what's great about this block is that you can use students' writing to help them become better readers. Most children can read their own writing, even if they struggle with reading books. You can use this path as a bridge to help students.

Structure of the block:

• Minilesson: This is a time of teacher modeling. I literally write for and with students as they watch, thinking aloud as I go. The minilesson topic might be on generating topics to write about, editing my writing, using strong verbs, thinking of a catchy title, strategies for spelling words, or any number of things. The point is that the teacher writes as a model every single day. I can't stress to you how important it is for your kiddos to see you writing. If you haven't done this before and are a little wary, just jump right in! I promise you, if you get stuck, your kiddos have tons of ideas that they'll want you to include in your writing. At the end of each modeled writing, the teacher models rereading to edit and revise with student help. They love to catch your "mistakes." 
• Student Writing: Students write on self-selected topics. Occasionally I give students a topic to write about because I like to use a balanced approach, but generally they choose their own. Just as in self-selected reading, this is the time when the teacher can conference with individuals (over the shoulder conferences) or pull a small group to work on a specific skill.
• Sharing: This is a major part of the writing block. Take this away and you'll see students' desires to write begin to dwindle. I usually have about 5 minutes at the end of the block for sharing and let about 4 students share. I never force them to share, but each student is assigned a day of the week as their sharing day. If something crazy happens and we're running out of time, I will occasionally tell students to share their writing with a few friends. It's a smaller audience, but more children can share. I also try to give specific feedback, such as, "I like the way you used dialogue when you're characters talked to each other," or "Nice grabber at the beginning! That really wanted me to keep reading!" rather than, "Good job!" 

What I love about it:

For one thing, since I love to write, I especially enjoy the chance to write for and with my kiddos. I also really enjoy reading my students' writing and conversing with them one on one. Sometimes its really surprising to read some of the things they come up with. And of course the sharing is such a great way to build community! 

How about you? What does Writing look like in your classroom? Do you love it? Hate it? I'd love to hear from you :)

Reviving Four Blocks: Self-Selected Reading

A few days ago I posted some thoughts about changing my reading block to look more like it did when I taught the Four Blocks way. (Reviving Four Blocks). I was surprised and excited about the comments I received about how several other people are interested in this approach, so I decided to do a series dedicated to each of the blocks. I decided to tackle the Self-Selected Reading block first because it's my favorite!

What is it?

This block is all about students reading texts that they have selected themselves and are on their level. Similar to Read to Self (Daily 5), students choose their books and read to themselves while you confer with individuals. It is easy to make this block multi-level because each student can be reading on his or her own level. It lasts about 30 minutes, or maybe a little longer if you have the time.

Structure of the block:

• Read aloud: Beginning with the read aloud is perfect for me for several reasons: 1). It ensures that I won't skip the read aloud! 2). I can model reading strategies during the read aloud that I want the kiddos to use while reading independently. 3). It activates reading strategies that students will use when reading independently. After the read aloud, I send them off to read to themselves, usually with some instructions, like "Be ready to share the connections you made when we come back together." or "Mark any unfamiliar words that you find so we can discuss them." This can really be anything that you're currently working on, or even a strategy that came up during the read aloud.
• Conferences: I love conferencing with my students because I've found that they're much more open when its just you and them. It's a great way to build relationships while getting to know students as readers. I try to meet with each child once a week, but with larger class sizes, it may take two weeks to get to everyone. Here's the form I made that I plan to use for conferences next year.
• Sharing: At the end of the block, students come back together as a group to share what they've read, strategies they've used, or information they've learned. This is a great time for students to present book reviews or you to do a book blessing as well. You could do the sharing part every day, or set aside some time two or three times per week. If you're short on time, and you're lucky enough to have student response clickers, you could even have students text in something to share. 

Why I love it:

When all of my students are doing self-selected reading at the same time, the atmosphere in the room is calm and peaceful. There are very few distractions, and it is harder for students to "pretend" read. The structure provides me with a schedule to include the parts of instruction that I'd love to do every day but sometimes skip otherwise. I also love that students have a choice about what to read. 

So, how about you? How does your Self-Selected Reading/ Read to Self/ DEAR time look?

Reviving Four Blocks

With the end of the school year (and all of the book studies I'm stalking reading), I've spent a lot of time reflecting on what's worked in my classroom...and what hasn't worked. I keep coming back to the same conclusion. I've followed the basal reader, used the Guided Reading structure, the Daily 5 structure, my own blend, etc...but the BEST I've done as a reading teacher was when I structured my lessons using the Four Blocks framework. Remember Four Blocks? It's not quite as popular as it used to be, but I dusted off my books and reread some of them and even put into practice some of the ideas during the last few weeks of school. 

If you're not familiar with the framework, you can check it out here:

Basically, the premise is to create a balanced literacy approach by having instruction in each of the four blocks each day. Ideally each block would be 30 minutes in primary grades, with variations on time in the upper grades. For example, in 4th grade we might not really need 30 minutes for working with words, and may need more time for writing and guided reading.

Why this structure works for me:

• Each component has it's own scheduled time. I had this in the other formats, but I found that if I'm teaching a short minilesson on word work, then letting the kids choose an activity to work on, I'm liable to skip that lesson if time is short. 
• Kids practice what I just finished teaching! I don't really like teaching a comprehension lesson, then having children practice something totally different. Can't wrap my brain around that...
• Flexibility: Especially within the Guided Reading block. If it suits the lesson and needs of my kids to meet with me in small groups, great! If not, I can have them work with partners, independently, or any variation. I don't feel the pressure to meet with 4 small groups every day!
• There is a dedicated time for me to conference with kids during Self-Selected Reading and during Writing. I love this! It's another thing that gets pushed to the side if I don't have the time set aside. 
• Book Blessings and read alouds begin the Self-Selected Reading block. I don't have to find a time to squeeze them in anymore!

This summer marks my twelfth year teaching. I can hardly believe it! It has flown by so fast, and I've learned so much along the way. I'm still learning! I think that learning about myself as a teacher and recognizing what works for me and my kiddos is almost as important as learning strategies for teaching. 

That's why Four Blocks is the model that I think I function best under...I like the set times for each component. I'm less likely to skip postpone something this way. A place for everything, and everything in its place. 

How about you? Do you still use Four Blocks or components of it? What have you found works best for your teaching style and kiddos?