Literacy Block

“When the teachers understand both the reading process and the strengths of the
children, they are able to build on what the children already know and match the
instruction to what they need to learn next.”

- Hundley and Powell, Voices on Word Matters

Our literacy block engages children in a variety of reading and writing opportunities. Our literacy block curriculum includes:

Interactive Read Aloud and Shared Reading
Children are actively involved in the reading of a book, and are learning about how books work.

Guided Reading Groups
Our belief is that each child becomes an effective reader. Each child’s root to an effective reading process is unique. Therefore we design groups based on needs, with the expectation that these groups will change as the readers’ needs change. During Guided Reading, teachers are informed minute by minute about what the child needs to know next about books. It wouldn’t be unusual for a child to move to a different Guided Reading group depending on the changing needs of students.

Strategies taught during Guided reading group include: What do you do when you see an unfamiliar word? What do you do if the word you tried doesn’t “sound right or look right”? What are some clues you would use to figure out how to read a word? etc.

During the Guided Reading process, the teacher will be prompting students to use these
strategies. In Guided Reading groups the teacher demonstrates and reinforces effective
reading behaviors.

The strategies taught during Guided Reading groups eventually become internalized,
and children become independent, fluent readers. When they become independent,
fluent readers, children are able to access all sources of information including visual
clues (Does it look right?), syntax clues (Does it sound right?) , meaning clues (Does it
make sense?). As fluent readers they realize that reading is a “message getting” process. Reading is understanding the author’s message.

As teachers, we collect behavioral evidence that helps us hypothesize what strategies a
child is using when they are reading independently.

Guided Reading is a time for the teacher to guide the child in understanding “book
language” Book language refers to something students may encounter in a book that
they would not be familiar with. (eg. metaphors, dialect, a foreign language, italics, bold
print, punctuation)

Reading Workshop
Children choose “just right” books with the guidance of their teacher. After reading, children respond in a variety of ways (retelling, journal response, projects, etc.) Assignments and responses change over time according to their needs and abilities.

Writing Workshop
The goals of Writer’s Workshop are:

• To provide opportunities for children to learn and practice writing through different
  genres and become proficient writers.
• Interactive Writing takes place when teacher and student “share the pen” and
  collectively write a message or record information.
• Writing for different purposes (personal narrative, letter writing, list writing, etc.)
• Writing Workshop time includes a focused mini-lesson, teacher conferences, the
  editing and publishing process.
• During Writing Workshop we are guiding children to write with the reader in mind.
• Writing informs the teacher of spelling patterns, the class or individual words to work on. It gives the teacher a window for word choices for word study.

the word study program for second and third grade grade

Good spellers develop strategies that allow them to learn how to spell a large number of words, even those they have not attended to in informal instruction. They can do so because they have internalized a network of word-solving strategies, important principles, and many basic spelling patterns. Then they know how to apply the knowledge to an ever-increasing number of words.

Word Study teaches children to “word solve” in the service of meaningful reading and writing. When we talk about word solving, we are describing a dynamic process in which the learner actively investigates how words work. Word solving is not just word learning. Its purpose lies in the discovery of the principles underlying the construction of the words that make up written language.

The following is an outline of the daily Word Study activities:

Wednesday: Choosing Words & Building Words
The teacher will provide a clear, short, focused lesson on words or spelling patterns. The words are chosen by misspelled words in the childrens’ writing samples from Writing Workshop. These lessons generally are provided to the whole class. In the lesson a variety of words are shared and students contribute examples to the list.

Thursday: If I Can Spell
Making Connections provides for an open ended task that engages students in thinking about how words are related. The students write their words at the top of the page, highlight parts to remember, and then make lists of words they can link to each word by focusing on how words sound, look and/or mean. For example, first graders might focus on words that sound the same (rhyme or start alike), while third-grade students might be able to work with words that sound alike, look alike, and mean the same.

Friday: Making Connections
It’s important that children understand that if they read and spell one word, then they can read and spell others. They select four words that contain four familiar, but different spelling patterns and write them in the boxes provided on the sheet. They may contain a dependable spelling pattern (e.g; the “ame” in “name”). Then the children write four additional words they know that have the same spelling pattern.

Monday: Buddy Check
Buddies work together, dictating their words to each other, and checking each other’s Buddy Check sheets. Children will know which words they may still need to study for the the test the following day.

Tuesday: Buddy Test
Buddies test each other on the weeks list. The buddy dictates each word and uses it in a sentence as the other child writes the word on the Buddy Test worksheet. The previous material was adapted from the text, Word Matters: Teaching Phonics and Spelling in the Reading/Writing Classroom, by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas.

Science

Our science curriculum is based on the system wide goals for content, attitude, and skills. It is a citywide expectation that students become proficient in the scientific process. Students are given the opportunity to work on hands-on experiences so that they can build their knowledge of science through direct experiences with the natural and human-made world. We foster an inquiry based approach where students are encouraged to formulate honest questions and are provided resources to answer their own questions.

The Science units for the third grade school year are: HABITATS, ROCKS & MINERALS and PLANT GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT using the kits provided by the school system.

Social Studies

The basis of our social studies curriculum is the building of a peaceable classroom community where children live together in a respectful and empowering way. It involves infusing mutual respect, responsibility, safety, trust, and cooperation into all aspects of the classroom. Open Circle Social Competency Curriculum.

The social studies units are CAMBRIDGE HISTORY, EARLY HISTORY OF BOSTON LEADING UP TO THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, GEOGRAPHY, MAP SKILLS CARDINAL DIRECTIONS, SCALES, LEGENDS AND TITLES. The curriculum framework will be project based in which students will generate understanding and competency in each of the social studies content areas.

Mathematics

Trading Stickers, Combining Coins:  Addition, Subtraction, and the Number System (1)

Students solve addition problems with two and three-digit numbers, solve subtraction problems involving two-digit numbers, find combinations of numbers that add to 100, and work with coins and coin values.  Their understanding of place value develops as they add and subtract 10s to and from three-digit numbers, break three-digit numbers into hundreds, tens, and ones in different ways, and solve story problems involving hundreds, tens, and ones.

Surveys and Line Plots:  Data Analysis

Students collect, represent, describe, categorize, and interpret both categorical and numerical data.  They begin the important work of seeing a data set as a whole as they design and carry out their own data investigations, create representations of the data collected, and compare and discuss these representations.  Students draw conclusions about the data by identifying characteristics in their representations (Where is most of the data clumped?  Where is the mode?)  Students' collection of numerical data includes measuring length in inches and feet.  Students review the basic units of inches, feet, and yards and their relationships (e.g., one foot is equivalent to 12 inches, one yard is equivalent to 3 feet or 36 inches) by measuring lengths longer than one foot.

Collections and Travel Stories:  Addition, Subtraction, and the Number System (2)

Students practice and refine their strategies for solving addition problems with three-digit numbers and two- and three-digit numbers.  In addition to solving removal problems, they expand their understanding of subtraction as they solve comparison problems and problems in which they find the missing part of a whole.  They increate their understanding of place-value as they extend their work into three-digit numbers up to 1,000 and study the structure of 1,000.

How Many Hundreds?  How Many Miles?  Addition, Subtraction and the Number System (3)

Students further refine their addition strategies with problems involving any three-digit numbers as they identify and name these strategies.  They continue to solve a variety of subtraction problems and examine their strategies for subtracting any two- and three-digit number in greater depth.  Students extend their work with place value by estimating the sum of three-digit numbers (will the sum be more of less than 400?) and adding and subtracting multiples of 10 and 100 to and from three-digit numbers.  In this unit, students are assessed on fluency with subtraction facts. 

Solids and Boxes:  3-D Geometry and Measurement

Students develop ideas about the attributes of 3-D shapes and how these attributes determine classification as they sort and build common geometric solids.  Throughout the unit, they move back and forth between 2-D and 3-D as they build and describe 2-D representations of 3-D objects and create 3-D objects from their 2-D representations.  They begin to develop important ideas about the measurement of volume as they examine the structure of 2-D box patterns and the number of cubes the 3-D box will hold.

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