Marie Lewis noticing blog week 14

Tonight our fourth grade team of teachers held a student parent workshop for our students. The goal of the workshop was to give the parents and scholars the tools needed in order to be successful with homework.  We had four stations that were made up of two math stations and two literacy stations.  The groups of students and parents rotated in fifteen-minute intervals to each station, meeting with each fourth grade teacher for a mini tutorial about the different subject areas. 

            I ran a literacy station, which focused on independent reading and reading conferences with students.  I showed the parents the difference conference sheets we used during literacy workstations to assess the student’s progress and performance in reading.  During reading conferences we assess their fluency based on their intonation, stress, pronunciation, and expression.  We also observe the different strategies they use when figuring out the meaning and pronunciation of words.  Next, we talk about the book they are reading and either summarize, visualize, predict, or go back and reread.  These strategies help the students recall and make inferences about what happened or what will happen. 

            I talked to the parents and students about talking about the story as well when reading.  I provided the parents with readers response questions, which serve as great writing or discussion prompts.  I also gave them the rubric in which we grade the students on their writing responses, helping them to assess their own child’s work.  We talked about their different lexile scores as well and ways to find just right books for each student.  These tools were helpful to parents because they could help monitor their own student’s progress and performance in reading and comprehension.

            Although the turnout was low, the parents who did come to the workshop were very receptive and open to learning different strategies to help their children.  They valued the tools we gave them and looked forward to better helping their scholar at home. Raising a child really does take a village, and it is important as a teacher to stand united with the parents, having the same goal of success for the student in mind.