PJ read pp. 322-323 in his LA textbook and answered the comprehension questions, and we discussed using the title as a clue to the main idea of the passage. He completed an activity on analogies. He read a passage called "Mars Rovers" and completed comprehension questions.
I worked with Kaniyah and Tyjai together for one hour. My goal is to practice reading, reading comprehension strategies, and paragraph writing. I chose Bessie Smith, iconic jazz and blues singer, as a topic for exploration. We watched a brief YouTube video on Bessie Smith, followed by co-reading a passage about her from a book entitled "100 African Americans Who Shaped American History." As we read, I modeled taking notes as well as reading comprehension strategies (pausing to summarize, ask questions, and make predictions). Finally, we worked together to write a paragraph to summarize the life of Bessie Smith. Both girls were polite, engaged and worked hard.
I worked with Kaniyah and Tyjai together for one hour. My goal is to practice reading, reading comprehension strategies, and paragraph writing. I chose Bessie Smith, iconic jazz and blues singer, as a topic for exploration. We watched a brief YouTube video on Bessie Smith, followed by co-reading a passage about her from a book entitled "100 African Americans Who Shaped American History." As we read, I modeled taking notes as well as reading comprehension strategies (pausing to summarize, ask questions, and make predictions). Finally, we worked together to write a paragraph to summarize the life of Bessie Smith. Both girls were polite, engaged and worked hard.
During the first segment of the session,I provided instruction on how to draft a conclusion to an essay.We looked at the essay Colson started last week, and discussed how to use the essay topic or thesis as a foundation for a conclusion. Colson then worked on drafting a few final sentences which we then studied and edited . During the second segment, I discussed how to write or draft a summary of an essay or article. We first looked at a non fiction essay we had read last week but Colson still had some difficulty working with the material. We discussed what type of articles he feels comfortable reading and he indicated sports articles. He will bring in a sports article tomorrow and we will proceed with how to compose a summary using the article he chooses.
As we have completed studying two stories with similar themes, today in enrichment we began to address how to draft an essay comparing two works. I provided sentence portions for Colson to complete to assist him in organizing his ideas and then let him draft the remainder of the paragraph on his own to enable me to better assess his writing skills. We discussed the overlapping themes of the two stories and where in the essay to incorporate thematic interpretation. I further provided prompts and suggestions to encourage Colson to include some specifics from the story in each paragraph.Tomorrow, we will work on revisions and editing as Colson tends to write in a continuous chain of ideas without sentence breaks or connecting phrases and ideas.
During today's enrichment session, we completed a writing exercise, the personal narrative, that Colson had started in his prior school. As the directions required that the narrative include point of view, sensory details, and dialogue, I explained what these terms meant and how they are used in a personal narrative. Colson then worked on writing a personal narrative that included these elements. As he had difficulty incorporating all the elements, I demonstrated where and how to add sensory details and dialogue which he did. I used the session also to point out punctuation and spelling issues. Last, to enable me to better gauge his reading skills, I had Colson read aloud a personal narrative story provided by his prior school .
We discussed figurative language and took turns drawing different idioms and guessing what the picture represented and its meaning. Jason found "it's raining cat and dogs" to be the funniest. It was a fun exercise to introduce him to a type of literary devices.
We first continued our Language Arts lesson by discussing the literary terms symbolism and foreshadowing . I provided examples of symbolism in books Colson read last year and noted how foreshadowing can create suspense as we are going to study a suspense story,Poe's "Tell Tale Hear" over the next days. We then took turns reading Poe's story from the Lit book so that I could gauge Colson's reading and comprehension level . In language enrichment ,I will be providing instruction on how to read and comprehend non-fiction as well as fiction.
Working off a Summer Bingo Challenge activity sheet, Sasha chose to 'Read a Book Featuring a Dog.' Coincidentally, her book selection not only checked off the dog category/square, but also contained poems, so we were able to check off two squares on the Bingo Board. Sasha read well, and made an effort to sound out unfamiliar words using decoding skills. I suggested strategies to break up compound words and Sasha was receptive to intervention. Sasha also identified several rhyming words after I pointed out that the last words in alternating sentences rhymed. We also worked figurative language into the lesson as Sasha correctly noted several alliterative words. We reviewed similes and metaphors and created some of our own to end our session. It was a productive and fun session, interspersed with us singing some of the poems featured, such as "On top of Spaghetti." Sasha is a delightfully engaging and active learner whose enthusiasm is both invigorating and infectious.
Sasha arrived today with her summer reading assignment, "Reading Bingo," which is comprised of 25 reading challenges to be completed over the summer. We glued the card to the front of a pocket folder, and put a reading log inside so that Sasha can easily keep track of what she reads. We then read one non-fiction book and started a fantasy graphic novel, effectively checking off two squares! Great work, Sasha. I hope that you have a great summer!
