Don Truett

May 11, 2010 5:02 AM

Project 3 Submission & Reflections

Attached are three files that represent what we did with this project. The idea was to use elements of text to predict main idea and details. They recorded a prediction based upon this before we read the captivating story of Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, Trapped By the Ice. Afterward, they were to reflect upon the accuracy, or lack therof, of those predictions. What occurred was that students were able to hone in on the timeline and illustrations in the story for details. In the last piece, reflection, most students didn't really understand the reflection part, and again focused on details from illustrations. In the future, I would use a story that we had already read and model this, or take a story that they were not going to use for this and demonstrate a prediction for them, then do a reflection at the end of the story. I think it's a valuable exercise, but need more teacher guidance than I gave it.

Participating in iRead has been extremely valuable to my class. There has been a lot of enthusiasm for it. Although the focus shifted this year from reading fluency, I have used the iPods quite a bit for this. Students have recorded from the Selection Summary book for each of the Houghton Mifflin stories twice - once for a cold read and a second time for fluency, with an emphasis on prosody. I have seen some excellent gains in fluency from that.

In addition, students have used three word building games: Wurdle, Chicktionary, and Babel Word. All of these are similar, building words from letters, with Wurdle being the most challenging, giving them a grid from which they make words by dragging across adjacent tiles. There is some similarity with Patricia Cunningham's well-known "Making Words," but in an electronic form. I have noted that since using these, our NWEA scores on word analysis have improved more than any other goal. Not to mention that students' love of games motivates every one of them.

Unfortunately, one of the other lessons I have learned from the program is the need for hyper-vigilance about security. Early in the year, one of our iPods was stolen from the classroom. Since that date, I assign a weekly monitor and keep them locked in a cabinet other than the time they are being used. At Open House, students showed off their projects and some video of classroom activities I added. There was a crush of parents, students, and siblings. Although I was extremely conscious about keeping an eye on them, another was stolen that night and not replaced by EUSD. I am finding it difficult to work with four, as I have 5 UA groups for 5 days of the week, and 5 students in each group. Sharing works for some activities, but is an impediment for others. I'm resolved to purchase one myself, if necessary, before next year.

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May 3, 2010 2:33 PM

by Don Truett

Reflections on Project 3

The project has not been completed yet. The idea is a pre and post, using text elements to identify the main idea of a passage. For this I chose Trapped By the Ice. Students have completed the first part of the project - the pre. Due to the time constraints imposed by CST prep and testing, we have not finished reading the story, so there is no post - the point at which students will listen to their predictions and reflect upon whether they were correct or not and why or why not. I have attached a couple of zipped mp3 files from that part of the project. I think this would be appropriate from 2nd grade on up to the higher grades.

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April 28, 2010 6:49 AM

by Don Truett

Project 3 Proposal

My last project, as enunciated to Tom at our last meeting is to parallel our third grade Action Plan. We are focused on main idea & details and using such text clues as title, heading, illustrations, and other elements of text to determine main idea and detail.

In this case, the project is something of a hybrid between that and prediction.

I have selected Trapped By the Ice from Houghton Mifflin for this, as it lends itself to the above. Before we began the story, I had students take an iPod with recorder and the book. They went through the selection, noting the elements of the story listed above and made their predictions. They detailed which elements led to that prediction.

At the conclusion of the story (which we have not reached), they will revisit their predictions/main idea and reflect upon how the actual story may have differed from their first recording. These will be submitted as .zip mp3 files.

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February 25, 2010 10:50 AM

by Don Truett

Project 2 Submission

I decided to go ahead and proceed with a Keynote for Project 2, focusing on the Predict/Infer skill. I did give a lot of thought to doing something simpler, but after discussion at the last iRead meeting with other primary teachers, I was encouraged to go ahead with my original proposal. Several thought that it would be meaningful in preparation for CST and reinforcing the Predict/Infer skill.

One difficulty was finding a text of appropriate length that lent itself to a prediction based on inference. I ended up using part of a passage from the CST Released Test Questions.

I did this during UA time, giving students a portion of the text I copied and printed. I asked them to use highlighters to focus on the parts of the text that led them to their prediction. In the Keynote, that passage is on the left side of each slide, and I used red text to show what they highlighted. They then used microphones and headphones with Voice Memo. I pulled off the files and added them to my student iTunes library. Those were converted to mp3 format and dragged into the student's slide, along with their prediction.

This is a representative sample from the class, not all 26. One of the problems we encountered is that there was a lot of rain, meaning that students had to record inside the classroom, where it was a bit noisy. Recording directly onto either classroom or computer lab computers is impossible for the same reason.

The compressed file is attached and should play through from beginning to end.

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January 30, 2010 1:11 PM

by Don Truett

Project 2 Proposal

I am following the advice to keep this project simpler than the first one. My initial idea is to use both Keynote and Voice Memo to foucus on the Predict/Infer strategy. Unless I come across a better idea, I will use a Keynote template. One side will have a somewhat ambiguous paragraph or two (yet to be selected) on one side of a slide. On the other side I'll have the student add text and audio, predicting the outcome and identifying the clues or inferences that led them to that. I'm undecided as to whether the student will read the text itself, although that would add a reading fluency factor. I have just begun working on the template, but have attached it here.

Download file "iRead Project 2 Template copy.key.zip"

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December 5, 2009 12:33 PM

by Don Truett

Keynote Project - Evaluate Strategy

In this project, our class (3rd Grade) focused on the Evaluate strategy. The steps we followed were:

We read Sideways Stories from Wayside School. There was a lot of interest and excitement around the fantasy school and its characters.
Students chose a favorite chapter and reason for selecting it.
I showed a couple of Reading Rainbow videos at the end, where 3 students always "pitch" books similar to the featured one.
We worked on a first sentence that would grab the reader’s attention
We worked on a concluding sentence that would restate the first and entice the reader to want to read the book themselves.
We wrote the body of the paragraph explaining why that particular chapter was their favorite.
We finished the rest of the writing process through proofreading, with my working individually with each student and their writing.
We went to the computer lab on two occasions and students typed their text into Word.
I corrected any spacing/typing errors.
I created a Keynote template with an image of the book cover, a "thumbs up" graphic, and a checklist of how much students enjoyed the book.
After creating a slide for each student, we took our iPods outside, along with the printed version of their text, and recorded the audio, using the Voice Memo app and a microphone (see below).
I imported the voice memos into iTunes using Doug’s iTunes Library Manager to manage multiple iTunes libraries on my laptop: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/ituneslibrarymanager.php
I added the audio to each slide and set the volume and duration for each slide.
I converted the Keynote from iWork 09 to iWork 08 and published it here.

Some problems along the way:

We could not record the audio into Keynote or the audio application in the lab or in the classroom. There was simply too much background noise.
We didn't have microphones for the iPods, so I purchased inexpensive mikes on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Price-CablesToBuy-Microphone-iPhone-classic/dp/B00277EMQ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1260038438&sr=8-1
I was able to take 5 students at a time during UA time. I demonstrated how to record within Voice Memos, how to listen to their recording, and how to delete and rerecord if they weren't satisfied. They were generally good at this skill, although a few needed extra help. We took the iPods outside and spread out to do this. I'm not sure that I would have been able to accomplish this the first time, but for the fact that I have a student teacher who could supervise the rest of UA groups. I feel that my students now have the skills to go outside and do this on their own.

Download file "Keynote Project-iWork08.key.zip"

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October 19, 2009 2:53 PM

by Don Truett

Reply to comments

Thank you both for your constructive replies.

Frank, I showed them how students on Reading Rainbow "sold" others on their positive evaluation of the book. We discussed the fact that every chapter has a different character, so they will need to focus on a chapter. Discussed introductory and concluding sentences and how the evaluation is also a summary. We did examples together orally and I have printed up a blank slide for them to start doing it on paper this week.

Tom, I'm not sure. I had been thinking of having them read into the iPods when we have mics, and timing the slide lengths to match. I'll have to think about having them do this on a desktop. There are some distractive noise considerations that wouldn't come into play if they took a Touch outside and did it there until they were satisfied.

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October 11, 2009 11:32 AM

by Don Truett

My Proposed Keynote Project

For my first iRead project I'm going to put the training wheels on the bike, as my 3rd graders have some computer skills still to master. This will improve as the year goes on.

I will use the Evaluate strategy, and some summarizing will be incorporated. I chose Sideways Stories From Wayside School, because I did it as a read-aloud to my class and they loved it. The chapters and characters are vivid to them in a way that the Houghton Mifflin stories we've read thus far aren't.

I also thought we'd have a go at doing it Reading Rainbow style. I will show them a couple of RR segments where kids "pitch" a book toward the end.

We have looked at the template and had a few students give a (guided) example orally of what they would say about the book. Many have checked it out of the RS library also and reread it. Several thought that it was the best book they have read and everyone is excited about the project.

Download file "Keynote Project Proposal Sample.key.zip"