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Writing Portfolios
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Rubrics
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Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
The language experience approach (LEA) is a whole language approach that promotes reading and writing through the use of personal experiences and oral language. It effectively helps develop learners' print awareness, since learners see the direct connection between images and words. In the traditional Language Experience Approach (LEA) teachers use a shared experience - often involving photographs/images of that experience - as a prompt to collectively write a text with the learners. This text - often a series of photographs/images with captions - becomes a text that the group reads, re-reads, revises and extends. In the process, the teacher can draw learners' attention to phonetic and semantic patterns in the co-constructed text.
Before and During the Experience
After the Experience
Extending the Experience
Before and During the Experience
- What is the experience? Is this an actual or virtual experience?
- How is joint attention achieved and how is language being scaffold?
- How is vocabulary emphasized/reinforced/introduced/recorded during the experience
- How is the experience being documented (digital cameras, information scaffolds, graphic organizers, scaffold questions, etc)?
- How do the instructional conversations that take place throughout the experience build a common discourse and assist learning?
After the Experience
- Are word walls / glossaries / semantic maps / flow charts / storyboards developed from the experience? Are they prominent, accessible and rigorous?
- How is the documentation used to help the class jointly and/or individually re-construct the experience? Is the sentence cycle used to generate rich, juicy sentences?
- How is the joint construction phase used to refresh people’s memory and knowledge of events?
- Can the newly constructed text(s) be used as “familiar text(s)” that can be re-read as fluency practice?
- Has the teacher selected a portion of words to use for further word study?
Extending the Experience
- Can you link new readings to the shared experience? For instance, now that we have explored the world of the garden, can we explore:
- poetry about gardens or which use gardens as a motif;
- procedural/information texts about gardening;
- stories and/or picture books which takes place in a garden; and
- news articles about community gardens?
- Can the writing be extended to the inclusion of the writing of recognized genres related to the experience? (procedural texts, brochures, etc)
- How have non-verbal knowledge, expertise and attitudes been fostered through the activity?
Real vocabulary building is never about lists or drills or quiz scores. And it’s not about just saying new words aloud , either.
It’s about building an awareness of and words with focused language input and exploring meaning through planned instructional activities that give the learners increasing clarity as to what the new words means and how they can use them. It’s about repeated opportunities to retrieve and use new words while answering questions, talking with others, and writing. It’s about adults giving clear explanations of the new words when they use them, providing synonyms, and showing multiple examples and illustrations. It’s about continuing to use those words over time so that the learner doesn’t forget.
Ways to foster word consciousness:
It’s about building an awareness of and words with focused language input and exploring meaning through planned instructional activities that give the learners increasing clarity as to what the new words means and how they can use them. It’s about repeated opportunities to retrieve and use new words while answering questions, talking with others, and writing. It’s about adults giving clear explanations of the new words when they use them, providing synonyms, and showing multiple examples and illustrations. It’s about continuing to use those words over time so that the learner doesn’t forget.
Ways to foster word consciousness:
- As you talk, call attention to new words and relate them to known words.
- Tell stories that feature the new words. When appropriate, connect the word with a strong feeling or emotion to promote interest and retention.
- Make associations. Point out similarities and differences between words.
- Instruct the learner to listen for examples of the new word and catch you (and others) saying it.
- Give both positive and negative examples of how the word is used.
- When you encounter a new word, have learners reflect on their prior experiences with it. “Where have you heard this word before?” Helping them to make that connection promotes a fuller understanding of the word meaning.
- Connect the new words to the learner’s life experience.
- Provide a variety of tools for word exploration and play. (We’ll be blogging about that as the month progresses.)
- Observe carefully and notice when the augmented communicator uses new words. Celebrate those efforts, even if they are not perfect. Progress, not perfection, is the goal at this point.
Explicit Vocabulary Instruction
Pre-teaching Vocabulary Words
Teacher (either alone or with the students) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. Then these words should be defined and discussed. It is important to not only tell the students what the word means, but also to discuss its meaning. This allows the students to develop an understanding of the word’s connotations as well as its denotation.
Repeated Exposure to Words
The more times we are exposed to a word, the stronger our understanding becomes. Students must hear and use a word several times before it truly becomes a part of their vocabulary. Providing multiple opportunities to use a new word in its written and spoken form helps students solidify their understanding of it.
Keyword Method
The keyword method occurs before a students reads a particular text. In this method, unfamiliar words are introduced prior to reading. However, rather than encouraging the child to remember a definition for a new word, the adult teaches them a “word clue” to help him understand it. This “word clue” or keyword might be a part of the definition, an illustrative example or an image that the reader connects to the word to make it easier to remember the meaning when reading it in context. The idea behind the keyword method is to create an easy cognitive link to the word’s meaning that the reader can access efficiently during a reading experience.
Word Maps
The word map is an excellent method for scaffolding a student’s vocabulary learning. The teacher (either alone or with the students) should preview reading materials to determine which words are unfamiliar. For each of these new vocabulary words the student (with the support of the teacher) creates a graphic organizer for the word. At the top or center of the organizer is the vocabulary word. Branching off of the word are three categories: classification (what class or group does the word belong to), qualities (what is the word like) and examples. Using prior knowledge the child fills in each of these three categories. Word maps help readers develop complete understandings of words.
Root Analysis
Root analysis is taught explicitly, the ultimate goal is for readers to use this strategy independently. Many of the words in the English language are derived from Latin or Greek roots. They either contain a “core” root (the primary component of the word) or use prefixes or suffixes that hold meaning. Teachers should focus on teaching children the most commonly occurring roots, prefixes and suffixes. As each is taught examples of its use in common word should be shared and examined. The reader should see how the root helps her understand the word’s definition.Students should then be given practice analyzing words to determine their roots and definitions. When a reader is able to break down unfamiliar words into their prefixes, suffixes and roots they can begin to determine their meanings.
Restructuring Reading Materials
This strategy is particularly effective for helping struggling readers improve their vocabularies. Teachers can restructure the materials in several different ways to help readers comprehend them more easily. A portion of the difficult words can be replaced with “easier” synonyms to help the reader understand the overall text. Vocabulary footnotes (definitions provided at the bottom of the page) can be added for particularly challenging words so that the reader can easily “look up” the word while still reading the text. An accompanying vocabulary guide can be provided for the text. Words that are included in the guide should be highlighted or printed in bold text to direct the reader to check the vocabulary guide if the word or its meaning is unfamiliar.
Implicit Vocabulary Instruction
Incidental Learning
Incidental vocabulary learning occurs all of the time when we read. Based on the way a word is used in a text we are able to determine its meaning. While you may not know what a specific word means, many times you can determine its meaning based on what the rest of the sentence focuses on. teachers should model this sort of incidental vocabulary learning for students to help them develop their own skills.
Context Skills
Context skills are the strategies that a reader uses for incidental vocabulary learning. Texts are full of “clues” about the meanings of words. Other words in a sentence or paragraph, captions, illustrations and titles provide readers with information about the text that they can use to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words. These features are often referred to as “context clues” because they are contained within the context of the piece of writing rather than outside it. Young readers should be taught to find and use context clues for learning new vocabulary words. Teacher modeling and practice are key for helping students develop this important reading skill.
Writing in MATHEMATICS
Teaching students to write about Math!
Day 1- Focused Model Instruction
The first day of teaching students to write about math is all about the teacher.
Day 2 Guided Share Instruction
Day 3 Guided Practice - Coach & Assess
Day 4 Independent Practice
The first day of teaching students to write about math is all about the teacher.
- Display or write the math prompt or problem for students to see.
- Read the prompt (more than once) as you think aloud.
- Underline and circle key words and chat with yourself about what operation or steps you need to use to solve.
- Draw a picture or other visual representation of the problem.
- Write a complete paragraph to answer the prompt/problem (you can always use sentence starters.)
- Reread your answer to make sure it makes sense and that you used proper spelling and grammar.
- Finally, display the rubric, check your work using the guidelines and make adjustments to your answer to comply with the rubric requirements.
Day 2 Guided Share Instruction
- Start by allowing students to share with their partner the way you read, drew and wrote about math prompt/problem the day before.
- Provide each student the exact same prompt and also still display the prompt on the board.
- Ask guiding questions:
- What should we do first? What do you think are key words? What are we being asked to do? What operation do we need to use? What kind of drawing would help? What kind of math vocabulary can we use?
- Draw the picture and write the paragraph, but do it with their input. Guide them and strongly encourage them to write the answer just like yours. They are practicing the writing, but are not having to come up with the answer on their own.
- Remind them to refer to the anchor chart or math notebook sample as needed.
- After we write, we get the rubric out. (have students keep one in their notebook for simple reference.)
- We grade our response together and then make adjustments to meet the expectations. Don't skip this part! Students need to understand how they will be assessed. They need to understand the expectations and practice going back to revise.
- Finally, end with a quick pair share. What steps do mathematicians take when writing about their thinking?
Day 3 Guided Practice - Coach & Assess
- Start by reviewing the things they have talked about.
- Provide students with a similar prompt/problem.
- Have them work with their shoulder partner to complete the prompt/problem.
- While they are working, walk the room and give lots of reminders:
- Don't forget to draw a picture. Don't forget to write in complete sentences. Did you use any math vocabulary?
- Focus your efforts on students that might be struggling.
- When most students are done, have a few students share their responses. Carefully select students to showcase.
- As a class, we use the rubric to assess their responses.
- Finally, have students work on assessing their own writing.
Day 4 Independent Practice
- Ask students to complete a prompt/problem on their own.
- Observe and informally assess as students work independently. Offer and assist them if needed.
- When students are done, use the rubric to assess all of their writing.
- Keep a list of students who might need some intervention or are not ready for working independently. Make sure to pull these students for an extra practice session very soon. It is important to observe if they are struggling with the writing or with the math skill. These observations help you to guide future instruction.
- The final step is to have students complete a prompt/problem independently to be graded.
- Be sure to choose prompts/problems that cover skills you have already taught in great detail. If you use brand new skills, students are usually not able to dig deep enough to complete the writing prompts/problem in detail.
- You can also differentiate by giving different prompts to each of your groups.
Student Writing Samples
Kindergarten 4yrs
Kindergarten 5yrs
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1st Grade
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2nd grade
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3rd grade
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4th grade
5th grade
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6th grade
7th grade
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8th grade