Parent Questionnaire

As I have done this for a while, I have taken more seriously the importance of input from all stakeholders in the success of our students.  I like to hear what my parents and students think so that I can tweak things in the future. 

I have an evaluation that students complete for me each year which gives me good feedback on their experiences in our classroom.  This really helps me to know what my students really enjoyed, and where I need to make changes.

The last couple years I have gone to making parent questionnaires at the end of the year.  These questionnaires focus on a specific topic that I am considering for changes.  I then make my questionnaire, and ask parents to respond.  The information I get really helps me with my planning, and, I hope, helps the parents of future students.  A couple years ago, I asked for parent input about my website as I was preparing to revamp it.  They helped me by letting me know how often they used it, what information on it they found important, and what elements they thought were missing.  This information really helped to give me direction for my website changes.

Last year, I asked parents to evaluate the communication in our classroom.  Their input helped me to keep many of the things I had in place as well as to develop a Google Group for more instantaneous contact.

I spend a lot of time thinking about homework and its ?importance?.  I am lucky to work at a school where most students complete their homework, but I know that many of them are having a lot of parent help, and so then it makes it tough for me to gauge the student's abilities.  Besides that, I do not take grades on homework, and this is hard for parents to understand.  I could go on and on about my thoughts and questions about homework.  I can see its benefits, but I also question its effectiveness.  So, with that in mind, I made this MY QUESTIONNAIRE for the year.  I think I sent it home a week too late because I only got about a third of my parents to respond, but I still found some valuable information as I consider things for next year. 

What are your thoughts on homework?  How much do you give?  Do you give online homework?  I would love to know what you think, too! Click HERE for access to the questionnaire I used this year.

Building Reading Fluency

     We all know how important reading fluency can be to a student's ability to read.  In our classroom, we have found a way to emphasize fluency and enjoy poetry, too!

     About five times during every school year, my class  has a poetry recital.  The children choose a poem on Monday, and then have until Friday to work and prepare it to read to the class on Friday.
We invite our parents or other special people to come listen.

     This is a great opportunity for students to become more comfortable speaking in front of a group (even though we do it A LOT, this is a more formal situation), but it is also an excellent chance for students to learn to be a good audience.

     Here's how it works in my room:  I choose the poems--usually about 10 more than the number of students in my classroom.  (I do a lot of seasonal poetry or poetry that ties into things we are learning)  I distribute them around the room so that students have options in front of them.  If they look through the poems in front of them and are unable to find one they like, then they can get up and look at others that were placed around the room.  My poetry choices are usually pretty diverse from Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky to Robert Frost and Langston Hughes.

After students find the poem that they want, they bring it to me, we discuss whether it looks like a good fit, and I attach the rubric below to it.  I then go through my set of duplicate poems and find the one they chose and put their names on them.  That way, they have a copy, and I have a copy at school for the week, and to use when I score the recital.

     During the week, we often do some things with the poems:  students often practice with parent volunteers, I model good expression and volume, students answer questions about their poem, sometimes they create an illustration to accompany the poem, they practice with partners...  For my kiddos with special needs, I make extra copies of their poem for the speech pathologist and/or the LBS I.   Often times they type the poem up in Boardmaker or put other visual clues on it to help the children.

     On Friday of the recital, I "shuffle" my copies of the poems, and that determines the order.  Students tear off the little half-sheet rubric and give it to me, present their poem, and I use the copy I have to mark miscues or other things to note.  I complete the rubric as the child reads, attach it to the poem copy and Voila!, on to the next student.

Click on the image to download your copy of the rubric!

     I have learned that this assignment is often difficult for my best readers.  They practice so much that they DO memorize the poem, and then they sound like Speed Racer up there reciting the poem.  That is why I highly encourage students not to memorize, and I teach them to place marks in the text so that they remember to pause or to take a breath.  By the end of the year, students are pretty good with this.

     There are many things I have tried over the years with this, and a lot of them depend on the group I have.  Sometimes I have allowed students to choose music to play softly in the background while they read.  I have also allowed students to read their own poetry.  Another time, I recorded kids reading their poems on the Flip video and had them self-assess.  I'm sure you have a lot of great ideas of ways you could tweak this idea.

     The recital that we will do in February is one of my favorites.  Being the Land of Lincoln, we spend a lot of time learning about Honest Abe.  Our February recital is a mixture of poems written about Abe, by Abe, or speeches/quotes attributed to President Lincoln.  This offers kids the opportunity to really think about the purpose of the poem or speech and to focus on setting the correct mood or tone with their reading.  Now, for this one, I generally assign students what they are going  to read rather than letting them choose.  I split the Gettysburg Address into 4 parts, and those four present it together, but receive separate grades.  I even have a top hat kids can wear if they want!

Teacher Talk Tuesday: Advice for new teachers

My advice is simple: Do ALL that you can to make parents feel comfortable in your classroom. It is key to have their support. There are many ways you can do this.

1) Keep communication lines open. Use a website, a facebook page, a google groups, a newsletter...any or all of these will help get the ball rolling!

2) Have volunteers or events that get parents into your room. There is no better PR than having them in your room.

3) Get back to parents quickly when they contact you. Even if the call is a hard one to make, get back to them and stay as positive as possible.

4) Finally, remember, they love this child! Be sure to keep your words positive and to do all that you think you can to help their child succeed. Don't get upset with them when they seem difficult about something. It is their job to be their child's advocate. Tell them how lucky their child is to have them on his side.

Stay positive and try to look at things from their point of view. I know sometimes things get frustrating when dealing with parents, but I have to tell you that I have found as a parent that it is pretty frustrating dealing with some teachers, too!

Seven Habits of Happy Kids

At my school, we are working to teach our students the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Many of us have read The Leader in Me by Stephen R. Covey, and we will be holding a book study this year over its concepts.

Part of the use of these ideas is to make kids familiar with the terminology. It did not take my students long to pick up on the terminology last year. This year, I made a pamphlet that I am going to give to parents at our Curriculum Night. The idea behind the pamphlet is for them to be familiar with the language of the habits so that they can work to use it more at home.

The document is made using Publisher. I am having trouble generating a preview in Google Docs, but when I downloaded it opened fine. I hope it works for those of you who are interested. Of course, you must have Publisher on your computer to open it. I left the bulk of the text, and I marked the parts that you would need to change with red font or X's.  Let me know if you have a better idea for a way for me to share. 

Click on the images below to link to the doc.  Because I don't think you will be able to get a preview, you will have to download it and then see what you think.

Parent Involvement Linky

Mrs. Bee is having a parent involvement linky. I have a number of things I do that probably everybody does: Friday folder, daily assignment book, website,volunteers...

However, when I began teaching 3rd grade six years ago, I began a great activity that kids and parents love! About a month before we do our state testing, I send home a letter to my parents explaining the testing and thanking them for all of their support...At the bottom of the page, I stick a post-it note for each day of the testing. Parents are asked to write encouraging words to their child and send the notes back to me (preferably without their child knowing) before testing begins.

Each day during testing, I place a different post-it note on the child's desk. They almost always think their parents came to the classroom and put the post-it on their desk! They look forward each day to see what their parents wrote! I firmly believe it gives them an extra boost as they sit down to take the tests.

Parents are often very creative and loving in their comments to their children. Some of them nearly make me cry.

The notes can't be on the students' desks during testing, but many of them keep the notes lined up on the inside of their desks for weeks after testing. Even as our testing changes in the coming years (Hurrah!), I will find some way to keep this activity going in my room.