Friday, February 27, 2015
Skype with NFL's Ricardo Mathews Today
Howard- Winneshiek third graders had a great treat today! It is not everyday that you get to visit with an actual professional football player. Third grader Mallory Gosch's uncle, Ricardo Mathews, participated in a Skype call with all three classes. Ricardo currently plays NFL football for the San Diego Chargers. He shared about his life and the importance of working hard in school and having good character. He talked about the importance of showing respect to everyone as that makes everyone respect you. The students loved asking him questions about football. Thank you, Ricardo, for taking the time to talk with our third graders and being such a positive role model!
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Skype with a Real-Life Computer Programmer
Last Tuesday third graders participated in a skype session with Derek Lakin , a computer programmer, from the Silicon Valley in California. He is originally from the United Kingdom. Derek works for Skype and shared some great information about his career and the field of computer coding with the third graders. A big thank you to Mrs. Edna Vandervort for setting this up as part of third grade's technology class and to Derek Lakin for taking time out of his busy schedule to talk to us!
Friday, February 13, 2015
Rev Up Your Engines!
Third graders celebrated the end of their science unit on simple machines by building their own vehicle. We then ran them down a ramp (incline plane) to measure distance traveled. Students also presented their vehicles to our class by sharing how they built them and what simple machines were used in the construction and model of their car. They fielded questions from their classmates and reflected on their own model and what they might change on it if they built it again. It was great to hear their thinking and suggestions. We also enjoyed a visit from our kindergarten neighbors as they viewed the students' projects. Great job third graders!
Hallway Trials:
Student Classroom Presentations:
Kindergarten Viewing of Vehicles:
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Reading Aloud to Our Kids- It is That Important!
Cue the hand-wringing about digital distraction: Fewer children are reading books frequently for fun, according to a new report released Thursday by Scholastic, the children’s book publisher.
In
a 2014 survey of just over 1,000 children ages 6 to 17, only 31 percent
said they read a book for fun almost daily, down from 37 percent four
years ago.
There
were some consistent patterns among the heavier readers: For the
younger children — ages 6 to 11 — being read aloud to regularly and
having restricted online time were correlated with frequent reading; for
the older children — ages 12 to 17 — one of the largest predictors was
whether they had time to read on their own during the school day.
The
finding about reading aloud to children long after toddlerhood may come
as a surprise to some parents who read books to children at bedtime
when they were very young but then tapered off. Last summer, the
American Academy of Pediatrics announced a new policy recommending that all parents read to their children from birth.
“A
lot of parents assume that once kids begin to read independently, that
now that is the best thing for them to do,” said Maggie McGuire, the
vice president for a website for parents operated by Scholastic.
But
reading aloud through elementary school seemed to be connected to a
love of reading generally. According to the report, 41 percent of
frequent readers ages 6 to 10 were read aloud to at home, while only 13
percent of infrequent readers were being read to.
Scholastic, which operates book fairs in schools and publishes popular children’s books including the Harry Potter
and Captain Underpants series, has been commissioning the “Kids and
Family Reading Report” since 2006. For the first time this year, the
report, conducted by YouGov, a market research firm, looked at
predictors that children of different ages would be frequent readers,
defined as children who read books for fun five or more days a week.
Kristen
Harmeling, a partner at YouGov who worked on the report, said that
children in the survey frequently cited reading aloud as a special
bonding time with their parents. As children age, “I don’t think that
parents know how important that time and the role that it plays in
children’s lives,” she said.
Of
course, children who love to read are generally immersed in households
with lots of books and parents who like to read. So while parents who
read to their children later in elementary school may encourage those
children to become frequent readers on their own, such behavior can also
result from “a whole constellation of other things that goes on in
those families,” said Timothy Shanahan, professor emeritus of urban
education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a past president
of the International Reading Association.
There
is not yet strong research that connects reading aloud at older ages to
improved reading comprehension. But some literacy experts said that
when parents or teachers read aloud to children even after they can read
themselves, the children can hear more complex words or stories than
they might tackle themselves.
“It’s this idea of marinating children in higher-level vocabulary,” said Pam Allyn, founder of LitWorld.Org, a nonprofit group that works to increase literacy among young people. “The read-aloud can really lift the child.”
Other
literacy experts say the real value of reading to children is helping
to develop background knowledge in all kinds of topics as well as
exposure to sophisticated language.
“It wouldn’t have to be reading” to accomplish that, said Catherine Snow, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
“A two-minute conversation about something on television or something
in a magazine or something that you’re reading yourself can also have
some of the same positive effects as reading aloud.”
Although
the Scholastic report found that teenagers were more likely to read
frequently for fun if they had dedicated independent reading time in
school, only 17 percent of all children surveyed reported having time to
read a book of their choice at school daily. Just 10 percent of 12- to
14-year-olds and 4 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds reported having that
time in class. Such reading time at school may be particularly important
for low-income children, who reported that they were more likely to
read for fun at school than at home.
While previous studies have shown little connection
between independent reading time at school and better reading habits or
comprehension, some large school districts, including Boston and
Chicago, encourage teachers to include time in the day for students to
pick books and read.
Parents
also see a connection. Emily Skelding, a mother of four in New Orleans
and a former middle school teacher, said that her eldest son, Sumner,
15, used to devour books as a child. But now that he has no time at
school to read on his own — or perhaps more significant, to choose the
books he wants to read — “he stopped reading for pleasure,” Ms. Skelding
said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)