Hey Everyone! I am so mad that I let myself get soooooo bad about posting! How do you fellow bloggers do it?! Do you put it on your To-Do list or on the calendar?
Anyways.... Today I am enjoying a nice UNEXPECTED day off! A SNOW DAY! We had a record blizzard here in Chicagoland, almost 20 inches of snow some places! I wouldn't really know, because I have hardly left my house! I enjoy these days because I didn't have plans to stay home. I was able to relax a little and work on some TPT products and even blog! Woo hoo!
Today I finished and posted my Context Clue QR Task Cards.
My students are still learning English. Especially those tier 2 and 3 words they hardly use or see. I find that they do poorly on tests such as Discovery Education and Fountas and Pinnell, partly because they don't know what words mean, and don't have enough background knowledge and strategies to figure out the definition. I feel so badly for them. Even if they know what the academic question is asking, such as "Find the simile" or "Locate the main idea", they end up getting lost in the answer choices! Many students get frustrated because they can't say what they want to say due to a lack of vocabulary. Any one else have problems with this?
I am hoping to teach them more strategies to try to figure out a decent idea of what a word might mean. It's ok if they don't know exactly what the definition might be, but I want them to try to select a word that is close to the definition and makes sense. This is an area I need to improve in. I need more help and ideas. I don't want them to go on without learning skills that they can use. Middle school and high school textbooks will only get increasingly harder!
I have used foldables and flash cards to help teach vocabulary. I've taken sentences in and out of context and tried to help students discover meanings. But, I find when they go to read independently, they struggle to apply those strategies.
What are some strategies you guys use? I would love some ideas!
Hope you are staying warm and remembering that you are LOVED during the month of February! We do our job for the kids. Whether they say it or not, they love you, appreciate you, and care about you. The same way we feel about them! You're never "just" a teacher!
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