Thursday

Building off our conversation about author's purpose yesterday, today we talked more about the purpose "to inform." We looked at different types of about nonfiction text structure. We discussed keywords that help us identify the structure and we made up visuals to help remember the pattern. Finally, we looked at different pieces of nonfiction to determine what type of nonfiction text structure for each article.

Friday

On our last day we talked about words! We practiced finding patterns in words and talked about different ways to learn word meanings rather than just memorize the definitions. The students received a list of different ways to study vocabulary. 

This afternoon we will practice and perform our reader's theater!

Wednesday

Today we talked about Author's Purpose. The students made a flipbook to learn about the different purposes for writing: To Persuade, Inform, and Entertain. Tomorrow we will look at nonfiction text structures and determine author's purpose using nonfiction!

Tuesday

Today we discussed the parts of plot. We read two chapters from Sideways Stories from Wayside School and determined where each part of the story would go on a plot diagram/story mountain. Then we discussed how to turn these parts into a 5 finger summary (Someone, Wanted, But, So, Then). We read another chapter and filled out a graphic organizer to determine the 5 parts of the story. Using these plot diagrams and 5 finger graphic organizers, we talked about how to form a summary out of these elements.

This afternoon we will practice filling in our own plot diagrams and writing our own summaries. We will continue to practice our reader's theater for Friday's performance!

Monday

Today we discussed making predictions. Together we read several chapters out of Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Before reading, we made predictions on what we thought the story would be about based on the book cover. We talked about providing evidence to support our predictions and checking to see if our predictions were confirmed. 

In the afternoon we read a chapter entitled "Joe" and a reader's theater script based on the chapter. We looked at what was the same and different between the two texts. We also discussed the elements a story has to have in order to be a fictional story. We looked for those elements within the chapters read.

Welcome!

Welcome to Loving Literacy! Throughout this week we will cover different strategies and skills that help us understand both non-fiction and fictional text. We'll look at how text structure can help us identify important information and we will discuss strategies for managing content-based vocabulary in Social Studies, Science, and Math, as well as ways to connect and interact with the vocabulary to improve understanding. We will also work on strategies for comprehending fictional text and improve our reading and writing about literature!

Don't forget to bring an independent reading book! I'll publish daily updates here on what we've discussed in class and any pictures!