The eighth graders have already read 1,000,000 words and they earned an ice cream party!  I'm very proud of the reading they are doing. They are the first group to complete a million words in just one quarter! Yeah, eighth graders!!

The weather has been stupendous and I hate to see it change, but I know that it will be back and the flowers will blossom again. I love seeing  flowers bloom. I also love seeing all my students begin to bloom on their own as their reading skills bud and blossom.  Like perenials that come back year after year, their reading skills will continue to expand and grow stronger with time. To symbolize that yes, their reading skills will grow even though they might not notice it for a while, we planted some bulbs. Everyone planted some beautiful iris bulbs that will continue to make our school and world a better place for a long time. I hope they see their flowers and remember that they had to water them, plant them in good soil and make sure they had enough sun and fertilizer to grow. Just like their bulbs need special attention, their reading skills also need attention to grow. I can't wait to see how the garden is going to look! Hey, maybe we should read to the bulbs! I think that's a bright idea!

Kids using hypertext with their writing!

I'm so excited! I just learned a new skill as you may have seen in the last parent letter, called hypertext. It's when a word or phrase is highlighted and linked to something else such as a picture, video clip or more details. The students are finishing their first informational paragraphs and they are using hypertext with appropriate links to enhance their paragraphs. It's cool. Here's an example from a 7th grade girl in class. I think this is going to make writing more enjoyable and meaningful for them and well as for the readers.

               Music In My Community

          Immigration transformed my community in Newport by bringing music to help us express ourselves.The coolest thing I see is people walking down the street listening to music from all over the world. For example, there are lots of people who watch “Dancing With The Stars” and they dance to Latino music. Also,there is someone famous named PSY from South Korea who did the song “Gangdem Style” that everybody loves. Another example is Japanese techno music that many people listen to. In conclusion, immigration is making this community a better place with more ways to share how we feel.
                                                               By D.F.

September Letter to parents

September 19, 2014

Dear Parents or Guardians,

    We are off to a GREAT start in READ 180 at Sebasticook Valley Middle School ! I wanted to share some information about the program, especially if I didn’t get to meet you at  open house. READ 180 is a 90 minute class of 8-13 students where students are broken up into smaller groups of 3 or 4 and rotate from station to station during the period. All students have taken their first SRI (Scholastic Reading Inventory), which provided a beginning lexile score. Your student’s individual score is included in this letter. It also shows the end-of-the -year proficiency target range that we are working toward.

    Our stations include whole group work, small group work, independent reading, and instructional software. In both whole group and small group we work with a text book (r book) on reading and writing skills with interesting stories and articles that incorporates social studies, science, literature and college and career readiness. We have skill tests at the end of each workshop. The writing activities are carefully scaffolded to help students successfully move from sentences to paragraphs to multi paragraph writing. In the first workshop we have been working on writing an informational paragraph on how immigration has changed our community.

    The students also read books at their independent level based on the lexile score. There are audio books they can listen to as well. They take computerized quizzes after reading. We have class goals and awards built in that add a little fun. Each class is trying to reach 1,000,000 words to earn an ice cream party. As of right now, the 8th grade is ahead with 191,315 words already!  Students can also do eReads or go to the READ180 eBook Library to read books or short stories online at home. Go to Read 180 Next Generation Student Access  and be sure to change the district by typing in our zip code (04953) to get to RSU19. They can then come to school and take the quiz for credit and help their class reach that million!

The instructional software has some awesome topics that always start out with cool

videos. Students then read short stories and work through reading, word, spelling and writing zones to get to the success zone. There are four segments(stories) in each topic  and the eReads correspond with the topics. When students log on, they come to their dashboard where they track their progress and awards they’ve earned.  

Grades for READ 180 are evenly divided into four categories worth 25% each:  tests and writing prompts, independent reading, topic software, and group work with rbook. The books students read as well as the topics they complete, can also be used for their Language Arts reading goal of 25 books.

I’m really pleased at how well all students have transitioned into the READ 180 class and I know this is going to be a great year! They’ll work hard, but have lots of fun along the way and their reading and writing skills will definitely do a 180!  I look forward to seeing you all at student led conferences, but call or email me at any time if you have questions.

Mrs.Stevens

rstevens@rsu19.org   207-368-5492 (ext. 202)

Check out this cool site with success stories from former Read 180 students!

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/read180/success-stories/

While I love the Read 180 program, it is very structured and sometimes I like to deviate a bit and I KNOW the kids like to also. I found a site I use on Fridays for The Week in Rap. It is from Flocabulary and has cool rap videos for lots of language arts, social studies, math and other academic subjects. You can sign up for a free trial and then pay $7 a month for only the months you want. I think it's worth it. To me, helping kids, and myself, stay abreast of current events is very important.
http://www.flocabulary.com

I've just explored  feedly and found a site I think I'll be able to use and others may also find useful. There is a nice blog called Free Technology for teachers by Richard Byrne and he lists most popular blogs.  Socratic Smack Down is one I especially like as the discussion strategies go along perfectly with the Read 180 program and I can easily incorporate it into some lessons and mix things up a little.  I know many teachers are using the socratic discussion activities in their classes and this looked cool.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com

 http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/print-play-games-2/socratic-smackdown

I'm looking forward to seeing more blogs like this.

I want to explain a little about how the Read 180 program works.  The class is about 90 minutes long  and the students rotate through four stations; whole group , small group, independent reading, and topic software.


This is the independent read area where students read from books in their lexile range and can also listen to audio books. They take quizzes after reading from the Reading Counts portion of the software.

This is the dashboard students first see when they log onto their Scholastic Read 180 site. It tracks their progress on the software and they earn awards all along the way. 

This shows a sample video from one of the topics in the reading zone. All reading stories begin with an interesting video and then go onto a short story with questions following.

 

This is the book (sideways) we use that incorporates science, social studies, literature and life skills topics within the workshops. Each workshop has a writing component as well as 21st century skills. Our first workshop is on the New Americans, with an informational paragraph we will be doing on how immigration has impacted our community.

I can't wait to add pics of the kids!

 This blog is a way to share information about our Read 180 program that has recently been implemented in our district. Read 180 is a reading intervention program that incorporates technology with engaging software and motivating videos as well as whole group instruction, small group differentiated instruction and independent reading.

I plan to share information on the workshops from the rbook, the topic software, and student success with their writing and reading.

This will be a perfect place to share activities we do throughout the year such as our guest speakers, gardening and fund raising.