Jigsaw Discussions and posters

I paired my students and gave each pair an article about a certain aspect of colonial times. The students read through the article. I had the students section a paper into interesting facts, gross or weird facts, something new or different to them. The students went back and wrote down facts from their article that they thought students in their class would want to know or learn about their article. Each pair was given a poster paper, wrote their title at the top, and began writing and illustrating their article with their facts. After the posters were finished, pairs took turns sharing and discussing information from their poster/article to the class.

Summarize and Synthesize Information and Ideas

Students pick a topic and read information with questions in mind and answer in their own words. To end our human body research, students decided on one organ within the human body. Students had to research their organ and write a letter to persuade people why their organ is important to the human body. After picking their organ, students research it and answers questions about it. Before students begin to research they read through all the questions so they know what to research. After answering all their questions about their organ, students begin to put all their answers in their own words as a persuasive letter. After hand writing a first draft and typing a final draft, students then read their letter to the class.

Thinking Through a Test

During class instruction and practice, students review the questions to be answered before reading. Students use highlighters to note where in the text and answer is found and double check their answers when answering. Students eliminate answers that make no sense or do not match what they found in the text. The only struggle that they continue to have is when the answer has to be inferred. If it is not in the text to be found, it is difficult for them to draw conclusions.

Thinking through a test

I find that as I prepare for the state assessments, I am spending time using the strategies in "Thinking through a test". I display a story on the projector, as well as having a copy in front of each of the students. We review titles and any subheadings and talk about what the main idea of the story may be based on these. We review the questions before reading the story so that we have these in mind as we are reading the passage. Students are encouraged to underline words and passages as they read, so that they are able to easily come back to these important places in the text. This has been successful with most of my students, while seeming to make no difference with a few of them.

Thinking Through a Test

While taking tests in Math, either on the computer or on paper, we work on underlining key words or phrases that have importance and/or indicate what operation goes with the story problem. The students are to use the tools on the computer and highlight these words or on a paper test they are to have a highlighter on their desks to find words such as each, estimate, about, how many more, etc.

We are working on the strategy Thinking Through a Test as we prepare for the state reading assessment. Before starting we look at the text features, subtitles, pictures and captions and start making predictions about the article or passage. We then read over the questions before we begin reading. After reading I encourage students to eliminate incorrect answer choices and look back and find their evidence by hi lighting or underlining their the answer in the passage.

Thinking through a test

We are working on the strategy of test taking skills. We review the title and subheadings. Then we read through the questions first, underlining key words that we will look for in the reading passage. As we read, we pay attention to dark bold printed words as well that will mean vocabulary words. After reading, we stop and think about the genre and author's purpose in writing the passage. We look at titles and key words to identify the main idea. We go back to the questions and begin to look for the answers. We read through all the answer choices also looking for key words that could be in the passage. The students pay attention to subheadings to help them look in the correct location for answers. When they find the key words in the questions or choices, they highlight those words. We also learn how to analyze some of the answers and mark out choices that do not fit. Eliminating these answer choices helps them to narrow down the answer and or key words to look for back in the passage. Most of my students are doing well in this. I have had problems at first with students not highlighting where they found the answers. When they get an incorrect answer, I have them go back and highlight where they found the answer and correct it.

Jigsaw Reading - Colonial Life

Groups of three students read an article on colonial life together. They picked out the main idea as the title for a poster that they presented to the class with the most important details. Students drew pictures to depict the details presented and aided in visualization. All students were engaged in the article reading and poster making.

Thinking Through a Test

As I am prepare for the state assessment, I have found that I am using the strategy of "thinking through a test". Students are encouraged to follow this strategy as they begin a test. I believe this strategy is something encouraged by other teachers and it continues to be something all fifth graders need to practice. It will prove to be helpful as they get older.