Inquiry Learning: Reading and Math Successes

Wow what awesome learning we've been engaging in lately!


Reading:
The Book Whisperer is teaching me about how important it is that our kids love reading.  That we build that enthusiasm for reading and that a huge part of building that enthusiasm has to do with NOT... KILLING... THE ..... PASSION.  We do that by NOT going overboard on the written work kids have to complete after they've read a great story.  This lead me to an article on:
5 Ways to enhance reading by Reading Rockets and one of them was about recording what kids are reading on documents and adding their page number.

Trying some strategies - reading log record
This was amazing!  We read and I set the kids the challenge of reading 100,000 pages before the end of the year.  And when our silent reading started, it was so quiet!  So quiet!  The kids were focused and the time passed so quickly!  At the end, we shared page numbers and I told the kids a bit about the book I was reading and we started talking about what a gift that we give others when we 'sell' a book to them.  I wished in hindsight that I'd recorded the conversation because it was so powerful.  We talked about how brave we are when we read and how sometimes when we don't, we are scared.  We're scared of not being able to read.  We're scared of not understanding. We're scared we'll find another book we don't love.  We're scared of how we'll look.
And the kids who shared....?  They were all kids who have either been reading texts far beneath them or they have been kids who didn't love reading.  And they were all so excited about finding a text they loved.  And they shared how they don't really like reading but now much they were surprised by the enjoyment of what they were reading!  And so we coloured their names gold..... because it was gold that they'd shared, and gold that they'd persevered and been brave enough to be vulnerable and share back that they have been someone who doesn't love reading.

Success Starters is something else I've been learning about.
On page 49 of the book "Learning in the Fast Lane" it says:
"Success starters vary lesson by lesson.  As compelling and riveting as possible, these activities spark authentic involvement rather than compliance."

I love this idea.  This is where we go wrong.  School has often been about compliance.  I know one of the keys to encouraging reading in our classrooms is taking the compliance out of it and increasing the relevance and authenticity of it.

Going back to the text, there are a number of Success Starters including role playing, surveys, predictions, questioning, question cards, brainstorm (splash-sort-label),



Math:
Games - Fractions, Decimals, Percentages Relay
Individual attention - morning tea times with MathsGirl

Innovative Learning Environments: