Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our first grade family to yours!



I am so blessed to have the opportunity to work with these smiling faces each day!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Questioning

Allow us to introduce you to Quincy the Questioner - a game show host that is constantly asking questions with his microphone!

First grade added a new comprehension strategy, QUESTIONING, to their repertoires before Thanksgiving break.  We now know that readers ask questions, before, during, and after reading.  We ask questions before reading to preview and predict by accessing our schema.  In first grade we know the expensive word schema as the little file in our brain where all of our prior experiences and knowledge is stored.  [Go ahead and try asking your first grader what the word schema is - I bet they surprise you!]  We continue to ask questions during our reading, to not just read, but dig deeper into our understanding.  And finally, we ask even more questions after we finish the text because we may (and almost always) still have some unanswered thoughts or wonderings. 

Take a look at our little questioners using their microphones to ask questions while reading a biography about Dr. Suess:





Ask your child who Quincy the Questioner is, and encourage them to ask questions while reading at home!  You can model this strategy by using who, what, where, when, why, and I wonder statements.