newsletter 04

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Banyan Newsletter

October 22, 2009 Issue 4

Partner Reading

We have been closely examining the guidelines to a successful reading partnership. Each day, the students practice these partnership skills and share what is working well for them. Partner Reading Guidelines: Partners...

read. Our first tool is using picture clues to figure out unfamiliar words.

•Sit shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip

Writing Workshop Banyan writers thought about how writers gather their ideas. Writers think about memories, things they like to do and things they observe. Each student recorded one memory, one thing they like to do and one observation. Then, writers picked one idea and added to it. They used a red pen and added two new sentences to what they had already written. Next, they began detailed drawings to match their words.

•Find a spot and stick to it •Don’t interrupt other partnerships •Share the reading •Take turns making decisions (There is no boss in a partnership.) •Make a plan for their reading time

Word Work

We continued to meet in small groups to work on specific reading strategies and skills. We wrapped up our discussions on warming up to read and previewing books. We began talking about our reading tool box and how we build stories as we

The students learned a new word tile game in which you change one letter each time to change one word into another. These fun and challenging games are called word chains. 1


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