To ensure students are focused on growing as writers, we frequently reflect on what they are doing well and what skills students need to improve upon.
At ISNS we assess students writing based on the 6 writing traits- content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence structure and conventions. To ensure students understand how they are being assessed as writers, I always have the success criteria clearly communicated to them and they are sometimes involved in self-assessing their work, and I always share feedback with students to help them set goals to fuel their progress.
Passionate Readers
Each day students read to self for 20-30 minutes. In an effort to create passionate readers, I encourage students to understand the different purposes of reading. It is important for students for students to understand the purpose of their reading. I believe in reader being balanced by ensuring students know when they are reading to practice a new strategy that has been taught, reading to learn, or simply reading for pleasure.
To the right you will see a grade 3 student, reading a book about animal adaptations in the tundra as part of her research project. This student had to find the right book to meet her learning needs by utilizing the table of contents and index.