Marilyn

**Class Project September 28, 2009**


 * T2S in first grade**

What worked... We used interactive writing to write news, thank you notes etc. on large chart paper. The teacher typed this information on word documents and added to a group student folder labeled "1st Grade News" After setting up the speech key code for each student, they were then able to access their news on the computer. Students use computers for one of their Reading Group jobs several times a week - now they choose 2 pieces of news to listen to before moving on to other projects.







We also used the Retelling Flow Map. The kids were totally excited to hear their words.



What was difficult.... Our school started the year with a completely new tech set up - equipment had been moved, personnel had changed, tech. help was no longer available during school hours. I spent too (way too much!) time trying to get the handwriting recognition to work on our new Starboard. I finally gave up and typed the news we had been writing all along. At first I did not have access to the student account section of our system - I couldn't add documents to a folder that they could access. The 'after hours' tech help was able to give me that access. I had to log into each student's account to set up up the key code for speech.

What I am hoping to change... That we get the handwriting recognition up and running on the Starboard - then we can write our news there and change to text immediately.

**Breaking News!!!!** (Sept. 25, 2009) I was sending home a note today to let parents know there were new photos on our blog (some parents like to be notified when their child's photo is used) and one of the 1st graders asked, "Can we get our news on our computers at home?" At first I thought he meant the general blog as that is classroom news that we post for families - but then I realized he meant the news he had been accessing through T2S!! I said, "Not yet, but it's a good idea! I'll work on it." ...I have an idea of how to do it.....

I just put a link to Windham County BookBloggers on my class webpage - T2S works on the entries there! - My kids will be able to listen to book reviews! The picture book section will be most appropriate for them, so thank you to the creators of the site for including the tags for sorting. May WE add a review from time to time? **Plus..... This has started to happen also!!!! ↓ **
 * MORE Breaking News!!!! ** (Sept. 27, 2009)

**I am here to help my 1st grade students more easily access information on the internet.** 

July 13, 2009

**"Technology – The Great Equalizer" **

This article stressed assisting students with disabilities. Maybe it is the classroom teacher in me, but I would like to stress our current jargon – DI. We all learn best in our own ways. All of these technologies, and yes, it would be hard if not impossible to keep up with them all, can help all of us.

I am interested in trying to combine our new Smartboards with this technology, which was mentioned a bit in this article.

I am also interested in looking at the ReadPlease which was mentioned - a free online text to speech site.

I found it easy to take notes while listening. I started on paper, then switched to taking notes here, while I was listening.

P.S. As I was using GhostReader to listen to my piece I found a correction I needed to make!! I may use this for any document I need to share with others!!!



July 14, 2009 Response

=Reading Fluency= By: N. Mather and Sam Goldstein (2001)

1st grade is huge - both in decoding AND trying to move into using sight words. Constantly decoding is painful - for the reader, for the audience, for comprehension. But along with decoding and sight words, let's not forget contextual clues - even in first grade students begin to use context - they can have a pretty darn good idea of a word from the sentence structure and what the word looks like.

Basically this article was a GREAT summer time review for me!! All the familiar strategies, but realizing now maybe I forgot to implement some of them from time to time. This is a good time, while I am fresh and relaxed, to think again about coral reading, repeated reading, Reader's Theater, drills, etc. - Did I use this strategy this year? Did I use it enough? When might I have implemented a specific technique with a student, but failed to see it's benefit at the time - now in hindsight.....

I do feel I should have explicitly taught my students more about changing rates for different types of reading...something I take for granted but also a strategy that should be explicitly taught. And so easy to demonstrate!--We do it everyday, all day long--I just need to remember to make it obvious to the students.

Technically speaking:
 * I did find it difficult to move around through the article. If I wanted to repeat a few sentences or start over in the middle somewhere I still had a lot of difficulty. I still need more help/practice there.
 * I couldn't find a spell check for this page????
 * I did make it a point to go back to the original piece to see what I had 'missed' with the text only reading - not much as I had noted the graph earlier - but I never did find the "additional resources" that they kept referring to........

Thank you to Andy for the great notes for using the copiers as scanners on the page for Day 2!

Reflections from Day 3

Talk about non-fluent!!! Yikes! First it took me quite a while (and some help from Jane) to get the vocab words, the article and text edit showing all at once. THEN, I was trying to use the new way of highlighting AND keep track of the vocab words - which was difficult even with them right in front of me because there were so many - AND listen AND take notes, also trying to use some new-found skills in the GhostReader text box. During my last several sessions of using GhostReader I had begun to crank the speed up quite a bit. But today after just several minutes I found I had to slow it down to 50 again - it was just too much for my brain to keep up with the fast speed and do all the other things at the same time. I did find myself using Mary's 'find' of yesterday - the use of the space bar to stop and start the speech, rather than the mouse. For me the learning was not the reading fluency piece, the learning was putting all the tech pieces together.

I also would like to add that I am totally psyched about the SmartBoard possibilities for my 1st grade classroom. I have to 'share' a portable board with 2 other 'non-techie' teachers - yeah lucky me!

Here is the link to David Merrill and his Siftables if anyone is interested....

[|David Merrill's Siftables]

