Help with Comparing Fractions

Gotta run to pick up my son, so pardon the brief explanation!  The document (linked below) may help with tonight’s’s math homework.

Methods for Comparing Fractions

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Conference Updates

The parent-teacher conferences originally scheduled for this afternoon and this evening have been rescheduled for this coming MONDAY.  All times will remain as scheduled (and as listed on the conference page – under parent resources).  School will be dismissed at 11:50, according to normal early release routines.

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UPDATED – Conferences to be rescheduled

Good morning!  First, some good news – we are DONE with CMT testing!  Hooray!  The kids worked SO very hard over the past THREE weeks to do their finest work during mastery testing.  Bravo to them!

The weather forecasters are expecting bad weather tomorrow morning.  If there were to be a 90 minute delay for the whole district on a day when our school has a scheduled early release (such as tomorrow), the students at PGS would not come to school, and it would essentially count as a snow day, necessitating we make the day up later on.  As a result, district administrators have determined that tomorrow’s parent teacher conferences will be RESCHEDULED (new date to be determined shortly).  Tomorrow will be a FULL DAY of school for students, unless, of course, we have a 90 minute delay (in which case, students will report at 10:20am).  But there will be NO EARLY DISMISSAL TOMORROW, regardless as to whether there is a 90 minute delay or not.  I am looking into whether this also means that evening conference times will be rescheduled, and I’ll update this message as soon as I have that information. (Update:  Yes, evening conferences will be rescheduled as well.  I’m waiting to find out when the new date is.) I will also look into what this means for tomorrow’s Piney’s Performance Pieces, in case you were planning on attending. (Update: Tomorrow’s Piney’s Performance Pieces has been postponed.)  My guess is that they will be rescheduled as well.

More information to come!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Reminder: This Friday is a half-day!

The title says it all!  Please remember that this Friday, March 18th, is an early release day so teachers can have professional development workshops.

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Tips for Editing and Revising

Today in class, we brainstormed a great list of tips to help students with editing and revising tasks.  (Tomorrow’s CMT is the editing and revising section.)  This may be helpful with tonight’s homework.  (Sorry about the temperamental formatting!)

How to Succeed at Editing and Revising (by really trying!)

• Read the passage first.
  • Focus on the meaning.
  • Focus on errors.
    • Look for underlined parts that grab your attention.
      • Not every underlined part is an error.
    • Look for parts that are unclear or awkward.
      • Force your brain to NOT auto-correct the errors as you read.  Notice the errors!
• Before answering a question, look at the sentences before and after the passage in question in addition to reading that passage.
• Consider all the options before choosing the correct answer.
• Trust your instinct.  If it looks wrong, it probably is wrong.  If one option sounds correct, it probably is correct.
• Eliminate answers that are obviously wrong.
• Read the question very, very carefully.  Know what you’re being asked to focus on.
• When revising, look for what the weakness is with the passage in question.  Choose the option that best fixes the weakness.

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Class Basket – Final Plea!

We have 4 more days to collect goods for our class basket, which is due to the PTO on Tuesday.  My thanks go to all the families who have already sent in donations.  Here is a list of what we have so we can avoid duplicates:

• bug zapper
• screw driver set
• movies
• snacks
• BBQ tools

We’d love to collect some more donations!  Ideal items could be sports memorabilia, technology, gift cards, etc.  Anything and everything is appreciated!  Thank you for your consideration!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Parent Conference Reminders

It’s that time of the year again!  Report cards will be distributed to students on Tuesday, March 22nd.  Conferences will be held on Thursday, March 24th and Friday, March 25th.  Please be sure to visit the conference schedule webpage to confirm your conference time.  (Please email me if you need the password.)  If you need to reschedule your conference, please email me as soon as possible.

From the school memo:

Conferences will be in the regular classroom unless otherwise noted.  If you would like to meet separately with any special area teachers (i.e., art, physical education, music, math and language arts resource teachers) please send him/her a note and he/she will contact you.

• Students in grades 1-4 will be dismissed at 11:50 a.m. on Thursday and Friday —
  LUNCH WILL NOT BE SERVED.

• Kindergarten will not be in session on conference days.

No supervision for children is available at school during parent conferences, and children may not remain in the library or on the playground unsupervised.  Please arrange supervision so that you can conduct the conference without distraction or interruption.

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Three Causes of Difficulty

Let me start by asking you in the most plain way possible:  PLEASE read this.  I know it’s long, but this is important information for you to have about your child’s learning.

In a recent update, I wrote about our intense work in class.  One major focus right now is on helping students to improve the quality of their short answer responses.  We see this sort of task more often as part of a reading comprehension exercise, discussion, or assessment.  Unlike multiple choice, true false, or fill-in-the-blank items in which there is a clear right answer, SAR tasks create situations in which students’ success hinges on the quality of their responses, not just their accuracy.  After lots of work, I’ve narrowed most difficulties down to three areas that are spelled out on a poster hanging up in class:

1. Always show the reader that you read and understood the story or article.  PROVE IT!
2. Always include some sort of textual support to explain your answer.
3. Read the WHOLE question!  Answer the WHOLE question!

Can you tell what the big trouble spots are?  The most common weakness to a student’s short answer response is a lack of supportive detail taken directly from the text.  As I often remind the students, any SAR question faced during reading has one main goal:  To determine if the student understood and can interpret what he or she has read.  If the student’s response lacks specific detail from the text, the reader has no way of measuring the student’s understanding.  Take, for example, the following question and answer:

Question: What two questions would you ask the author of this article?

Answer: I would ask her why she chose to write about insects and what kind of insect is her favorite.

At face value, this response looks like it successfully answers the question – and in all fairness, it does.  But while the question does not explicitly require students to integrate information from the article, this (fictional) student’s failure to do just that leaves us with a weak answer that does not show any understanding of the story.  Both of the questions that the student suggested in his or her response show only a cursory understanding of the text: the story is about insects.  There is no evidence of any in-depth understanding.  This alternate response shows more in-depth comprehension by including details from the (pretend) article:

There are two questions that I would ask the author.  First, I would ask her “Why are centipedes called centipedes if they can actually have between 20 and 300 legs?”  Centi means “hundred,” so I would expect a centipede to have 100 legs.  I would also ask “Are insects with exoskeletons larger than those with skeletons inside their bodies?”  I’ve never seen a large insect before.

Notice a few strengths with this response.  First, the student clearly wrote two questions – ending in question marks.  Second, the student’s suggested questions include appropriately used terminology from the text (centipedes, exoskeletons) and explanations from the text (20-300 legs, meaning of centi, exoskeletons are outside the body).  This is a strong response.

So after lots of practice using several different genres, incorporating several kind of response types on several different weeks, why do some students continue to struggle?  I see three possible causes:

1. Some students are having a hard time.  This describes the student who sees the question, thinks about what the best possible response could be, but for any number of reasons, he or she is not crafting successful responses.  The student may not be struggling with the skill, per se, but he or she may simply have yet to master the grade-level expectations that go with the skill of writing a short answer response.   I’m continuing to work with such students on an ongoing basis.
2. Sadly, some students are unsuccessful because they simply did not carefully read the question being asked of them.  Consider the two part question: “Do you agree with Bella’s decision at the end of the story?  What advice would you give her so she could solve her problem without hurting Lester’s feelings?”  A student could write an outstanding response about why they do or do not agree with Bella’s decision, citing lots of support from the text, but without addressing the second part of the question, the response falls short, and so will the score.  Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for responses to be more off-base than the example I’ve cited in this paragraph.  Sometimes kids write an answer that may be well-crafted and thorough, but it may also be entirely irrelevant to the question asked, and again, points cannot be given.
3. I’m hesitant to bring up the third area of difficulty, but I think it’s important that I’m candid with you.  The most disappointing cause of difficulty is when students simply do not appear to be working with their best effort and focus.  This is not a lack of understanding or mastery.  Rather, in this situation, students may quickly write a cursory response that lacks detail or support because they chose not to work to their potential.  The response may be focused and relevant, but it is undeveloped and does not indicate a thorough understanding of the text, even though the student may truly have a high degree of comprehension.  This is most frustrating to me, probably, because it is not frustrating to the student.  Convincing students of the need to put more thought and effort into their work is very challenging, because it’s a decision they need to make for themselves.  No amount of prodding from you or from me will make it happen.  Rather, they need to choose (hopefully with our help) that it’s time to bring their proverbial “A-game” to class.  I’m bringing this up to you en masse for two reasons:  First, I think that all students can benefit from a reminder about the importance of doing their best possible work.  All of us, every now and then, fall short of this, so some helpful encouragement is valuable.  Second, and along the same lines, is the logic that the reading CMTs are now less than one week away.  If there was one single time when I’d encourage you to have this sit-down with your son or daughter, now is the time.  CMT scores will likely be the first piece of data that Thompson Brook teachers see about their incoming students.  It’s important that these data accurately represent students’ true abilities; not the diminished effort that they may show on a given day.  In some cases, I see this as a behavioral issue – if a student is choosing not to put in their best effort, despite having been reminded of the importance of doing so, they are not following directions and are not showing responsibility.  That’s something I hope we can tackle together.

A lot of corrected short answer response work has gone home in the past week.  I urge you to review my comments and your child’s work so you can see how he or she is performing.  Last week, I returned an elaborate writing project about a story called “The Hawk” in which kids responded to three SAR questions, examined sample responses, discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the sample responses, evaluated their own work, and finally revised their own work.  This is a great example of your student’s level of performance.  I also encourage you to log into Study Island (your son or daughter can show you) so you can review his or her responses to an article called “Achoo!”  Again, we looked at exemplars and revised together.  (Please note that the scores shown apply to the student’s first draft, even though their responses improved with revisions.)

It’s report card season and conference time is coming up, so I’m happy to discuss this more when we meet later this month.

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Health Homework

Students:  Please remember that Dr. Perrault has given you an assignment, due tomorrow, to develop a family definition for what “health” means in your home.  (I heard about this assignment through a second-hand explanation, so I may not be entirely correct about the assignment.)

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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Surviving the CMTs (For you and your child!)

It’s that time of the year!  CMTs.  Connecticut Mastery Tests.  Beloved by many, feared by many, anticipated by all.  This is a time of the year that can bring about all sorts of feelings in your kids, so in hopes of us presenting your child with a consistent message, I wanted to share with you some of things I tell the kids.

I get two questions more than any others:  Why do we need to take the CMTs?  What will happen if I do poorly?  The first question is easy.  Kids take the CMTs for several purposes:  To see how well kids are learning core skills in Connecticut, to see how well teachers are meeting the needs of students, and to see if students need some extra instruction or support to be more successful in school.  (Did you note how similar the three of these reasons sound?)  The second question (What will happen if I do poorly?) is a bit tougher, but honesty works best, I think:  Kids are not retained (held back) because of CMT scores.  In fact, we don’t get the scores until the summertime – just a few weeks before you get them.  Scores will not effect report cards, placement in classes, homework load, how mean of a teacher the kids get ( 😉 ), nor will any of the other daunting prospects come to fruition.  Their performance helps us to decide what skills we need to emphasize in the future (when we see a group of students struggling with a particular skill) and what skills we can perhaps deemphasize in favor of other priority areas.  At “worst”, a weaker performance on CMTs might help teachers to determine that a student would benefit from some extra support in school to help them shore up weak areas.  (I always point out that this helps them to understand tough stuff better so that it is no longer frustrating – so how much of a “worst case scenario” is is really?)

Some kids like the CMTs.  Some kids hate them.  Some are excited.  Others find them dull.  Some are confident.  Others are nervous.  Only you and your child know what descriptions apply in your home.  But when asked what worries or fears kids have about the CMTs, the most common answer in a discussion last week was “I’m worried that my parents will be disappointed in me if I do badly.”  So often, we (myself included) put pressure on your learners without realizing it.  Last week, I pointed out to kids how ridiculous it is to try to calm kids by saying that the CMTs are “no big deal” while we give them review packets, special practice opportunities, special testing environments, etc.  It’s obvious to them – the CMTs do matter.  So rather then telling the kids that the CMTs are “no big deal,” I try to reassure them by reminding them of my expectations:  I do not expect perfection.  Nobody will get a perfect score.  It just doesn’t happen.  But if they can leave the test being able to say that they gave their best possible effort, that they worked carefully, that they read the directions, and that they checked over their work, then I will be ABSOLUTELY proud of them.  My praise to them is not contingent on their success, and I urge you to relay the same message to them from you.

How can you help your kids to find success on the mastery tests?  Here are some ideas:

• Provide your child with a healthy breakfast the morning of the test.  A hungry kid is a less careful kid.
• Help him or her to get a good night of sleep.  I don’t have any espresso for the kids in the morning.  🙂
• Foster a low-stress morning.  Having everything ready avoids missed buses, morning chaos, and arguments.  Think zen.
• Remind your son or daughter: You’re proud of them and know they will do their best.  (Note:  “do their best” NOT “do well”)
• Help your child to pick out comfy clothes that don’t itch or pull.  Break out the sweat pants!

Remember, keeping a low-stress testing window for your child will help to accomplish the same for you.  Thanks, as always, for your support!

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss

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