The following posts are notes from the August 3, 2010 CESA 7 conference.  http://www.thedailycafe.com/

Monday Handouts:  http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/410.cfm 
Tuesday Handouts:  http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/398.cfm

What is CAFE?

 Where did the menu come from: Michael Pressleysays: a Mechanism to help students learn to elicit reading processes and strategies during each reading experience is vital. 
Research based strategies divided into the 4 main areas. 
Strategies: State of Washington standards and Grade Level expectations, current research and basal research.

Comprehension (I understand what I read)
Accuracy (I can read the words)
Fluency (I can read accurately with expression and understand what I read)
Expanded Vocabulary (I know, find and use interesting words)

Build the wall! If it goes home, it doesn’t come back, it doesn’t get learned.  Keep it at school.  Build it throughout the year.

DO NOT POST IT COMPLETED.  IT MUST BE CREATED BY THE KIDS. The person who does the most work, does the most learning.  

 We learn:
10 percent of what we read;
20 percent of what we hear;
30 percent of what we both see and hear;
50 percent of what we discussed with others;
80 percent of what we experience personally;
95 percent of what we teach to someone else.

 Ready Reference Forms (found in Appendix of  The Cafe Book) lists the strategies.
Transitional Cafe Menu

—William Glasser

 Parent Pipeline is a great document to send home when you introduce the strategy from the MENU.

How does DAILY 5 fit with CAFE?

Your CAFE strategy would be the focus lesson at the start of a round of Daily 5. 

Overview of CAFE

Mary Howard RTI From All Sides Kids who are most at risk, need the least amount of teachers. 

How to utilize a Book Room: The books are leveled, and passed out to their level.  The books go in their boxes.  The upper level books need to be picked carefully so they don’t look like kindergarten books. 

Richard Alington Get through the books much quicker.

Margaret Mooney, New Zealand researcher, talks about a better way to do guided reading. It isn’t something to do to kids.  It isn’t a good use of time to have kids round robin reading in groups.  You need to use the system correctly, even a basal can work if used effectively.

How to Assess

Assessment Informs Instruction
Keep track of whole group, small group and one-on-one meetings to gain assessment for needed strategies to teach.

Get a system for storing information on kids.  Use a giant three ring binder or an assessment box, but have a system to store the data.  The data will be transferred to the pensieve.  (www.zazzle.avery.comuse the code thedailycafe thru Sept)

Any diagnostic assessment will work.  They must be reading to check CAFE steps.  K-2.5 level get DRA 1 test.  WHen they are higher levels, IRI test.  <STAR Reading> Jan Hasbrouck has a fluency chart to assess progress.

You have to think about what the child is good at and what are their needs as you assess. 

Classroom teachers must assess their own students.  Having others come in does not meet the needs. We are teaching the kids, so we need to have the knowledge of the assessment in our minds as we plan for instruction. 

Reading Strategies: Assessment to Instruction

Most important strategies:
The top 4 Comprehension
The top 4 Accuracy 
The top 3 Fluency
The top 3 Expanded Vocabulary

1. Assess students individually

<See above>

2. Discuss findings with student

From Assessments to Conferring sheet helps you know what to do for kids when you see they need help.  If you assess, Reggie Routman says let them know what you found out.

3. Set goal and identify strategy with student     4. Student declares goal

Once the assessment is done, pull out the CAFE Menu and let them know what skill they’ll work on.  Highlight it Once it is highlighted, students declare their goals by adding name under the goal heading.

5. Fill out individual conference forms (reading conference forms)

These are found in the pensieve. 

6. Strategy Groups are assigned

The form has goal, strategy, and names.

7. Ready for instruction

 Do not duplicate services but miss the goal.  Communicate with each other. Send the CAFE MENU to the support teacher.  Curriculum coherence from Richrd Allington in 1985.
Reading Response Journal can be started at the start of the year

When you get started, do not assume the kids know the strategies.  Spread out the Reading Goals, literacy is a full day project, so don’t have a “reading” only time in your schedule.

*IPick chart for self selecting books: http://www.thedailycafe.com/i_pick.pdf

Goal Setting: A Successful Conference or Strategy Group

 Use reading conference forms or strategy guide to keep track of students or group conference. Touch point is a score for how they are doing. 

1. Check the calendar
2. Prepare .5 minute
3. Observe 1 minute
   Listen as the kids are reading out loud.
4. Reinforce and teach 1 minute
   Point out what they are doing correctly.
5. Practice 1 minute
   Have one student practice the strategy.
6. Plan .5 minute
7. Encourage .25 minute
   Tell me again what you are going to practice, now go do it!

Strategy Groups

All the kids are reading something different.  Have them “come to the table” and start reading as you are checking what is to be taught. 
Tell the group the strategy you will be learning about.
Model with one story that everyone looks at.
Have the kids individually practice with the own books.  Encourage as you are listening.

Do not have too large of groups.  If you have 4, you won’t be able to listen to all of the kids.

T0uch P01nts: Monitor our teaching, document student progress.

Wholistic Scores for kids.  Ratings of 1-4. 
1 Below Standard
2 Approaching Standard
3 Meeting Standard
4 Exceeding Standard

 Could go to grades from D, C, B, A.

Progress Monitoring

After 3 teaching attempts, did they get a 1 or 2 on all assessments, they aren’t making gains.  A new appraoch to instruction must be made or else the the child isn’t getting the strategy.  (add more modeling, more response journals, better books).

When to move onto another strategy?  When you have 3-4 touch point scores.   Layer a new genre, new author, or tougher book but stay with same strategy. 

How to get magazines in the class (discussion thanks to Lynessa Reis):  Obtain back copies from library, ask students to bring in old copies from home.

 Data Cards/Walls

Very important at the start of the process.  Needed to see where the kids were, but now the assessment binders are taking their place.  The 2 sisters are not using the walls any longer.  They have the data in the assessment binder.

Whole School Application

• Do not have the most at risk kids working with least trained professionals.  Remember, we are the quarterbacks of the team.
• Communicate openly with the staff who are working with these kids.
• Have less people working with the low kids.

Conferring Notebooks: The Pensieve

1. Calendar (on card stock) Used to keep appointments <calms chihuahua kids, brings up wall flowers>
2. Keeping track form (on card stock) Used to make sure no one slips through the cracks <faces the calendar>
   Time for conferences: Are they reading to self, if yes, meet with them.
3. Whole Group instruction and curriculum calendar
4. Small Groups: Strategy groups and instruction, stratefy groups
5. Reading Level Data (independent, instrucitional, frustration levels STAR data)
6. Reading Writing Conference sheets and CAFE MENU for each child

Once the Reading Writing Conference sheets are filled, they go into the assessment box. 

Today we chatted with new Skypals from Canada.  We spent the day north of the border first talking with Mr. Timothy Pugh (Band, French and computer teaching expert of Skype) at lunch time, then another school after that.   The kids actually volunteered to come in 10 minutes early from recces to get the Skype chat underway.  He gave me a lot of great ideas to skype about, and a lot of great contacts in his school.  It was a chat well spent!

After lunch we talked with another school in Canada, they were so nice! WE have another Skype chat set for the near future.  The kids want to do one a day!

We used our discovery fair topics to quiz our Skypals from Iowa. They listened as we read three sentences about our topics, and they had to guess what the topic was. They a re a pretty smart byunch, since we only stupmed them three times. Maybe that means, we are the smart ones for doing such great research so they were able to guess our topics without struggle.

What a wonderful website the teachers of Plattsburg, NY have!  I have only looked at the interactive story link: http://plattsburgh.neric.org/oak/smartboard/stories.htm

but the rest looks outstanding as well.  The teachers there must be doing wonderful work for sure!  I’m going to  check out the smartboard link later today. http://plattsburgh.neric.org/oak/smartboard/Smartboard.htm

This afternoon with chatted with Silvia Tolisano and some fifth graders in Jacksonville, FL. It was great to see her setup for Skype, since she is a much better expert than I am.  Her kids were so friendly, asking questions of our kids to find information for a math project. 

My students were really motivated, did a great job talking with the other class and were reminded about the nice weather in the southern states.

On Friday we are visiting Friday to discuss what isgoing on in their school. We wil be looking to find out generic information. After this second skype tour, I am going to be ready to have my kids share information with another class, aside from size of school and team mascot. I look forward to expanding this technology.

21st Century skills call for children to be able to Communicate Clearly and Collaborate with Others (www.p21.org).  Skype is a tool many educators are infusing into their classrooms to communicate easily over great distances. Skype is free (the cost of a webcam is inexpensive if you don’t have one), it is quick to set up, and it is powerful.  Bringing another classroom into your classroom is a great motivator for students.  Here are 5 activities that can help you integrate the skill of communication into your curriculum with lessons you may already be doing.

This first one is a freebie, yet it is too good to pass up.

0. Share about your school, city and state.

This is almost a skype necessity when meeting new skypals.  It is a way to say hello. The kids want to know the details and be able to establish a rapport with the other class.  But once you have the niceties done, there could be that awkward moment when the kids are just smiling at each other over a laptop webcam.  So after you break the ice with a few “How many kids are in your school?” type questions, move onto these awesome activities.

some activities require prior set up

1. Talk with another class about their unit of study.

Now that we know who you are, here is what we are learning about.  There isn’t enough time to learn about every unit in a social studies or science book.  So once you are into your unit far enough, here is a handy review.  Have your kids talk about their unit of study, then the skypals talk about their unit of study.  Then each class creates illustrations of what they learned on skype and share the drawings via voice thread.  Kids could leave comments about their illustrations.  Here is what it would look like:

Class one is learning about Westward Movement in social studies.
Class two is learning about the Great Depression.
Groups of students from class one share on skype about A) the tools needed to make a successful journey west, B)hazards on the journey C)…
Groups of students from class two share on skype about A)the causes for the depression, B)How families were effected C)…
One group of students from class one illustrates the causes of the G.D., another illustrates a family in need; all as described by the class two.
One group of students from class two illustrates the tools used by pioneers, while another illustrates the hazards faced; all as described by class one.

Now to Voice Thread to share the drawings…
Comments are made by the illustrators telling about what they did.
Comments are left by the sharing class about the drawing accuracy.

Each class gets to learn a little about the other topic, without having to crack a book.   If Voice Thread isn’t available, the picture could be shared via a follow up skype session.

2. Act out a scene from a book you are reading for another class.

Whatever fictional story you are reading, it is bound to have climactic parts that are not the official climax of the book.  (Define Climax: The climax is the high point of the story, where a culmination of events create the peak of the conflict).  For example, in the Wizard of Oz: Dorothy meets the scarecrow on her way to the Wizard.

Assign groups in your class to recreate 3-5 scenes from your story that show great examples of the main character, or a defining plot event, or the setting changes.  Act these dramas out for your skypals.  (If time is limited for Skype, act out the 5 scenes prior to the skype and pick the top two to share.)  Your skypals then can act out a few for you.  Although writing about your novels is important for the reading-writing connection, acting the stories out is a great change of pace.

3. Since we are acting: Give out math story problems.

Have groups of kids act out typical story problems for their skypals.  Once the actors are done the skypals get time to solve the problem (start with a minute time limit and move up of needed).  Groups of kids should verify the validity of answers, then present your answers for the actors.  Is the answer correct?  If so, maybe have a child hold up a “correct” poster, or “try again” poster.  Someone should explain what they did to solve the problem.

Reverse rolls and continue until your session is done.  “Jimmy gives Susan one dozen eggs, but she breaks 8 eggs.  How many eggs does she have left” will never be the same again!

4. State show and share

If the greeting get-to-know-you questions are your cup of tea, keep it going with this State Show and Share activity.  Kids from different states bring in 5-10 objects that show how their state is unique (Wisconsin fans, here come the Packers cheesehead hat).  They show the objects one by one as the skypals ask questions about the objects (bonus: only yes or no answers allowed).  As each object is shown on the webcam, choose “take a snapshot” to capture the image.  This image can be printed for future use.

Once each state gets a turn, the classes set up another time to share their discoveries.  The printed images allow your kids to research the items with a little more memory of that day.  You then write about each object both from your research (done after the skype session is ended) and the brief question and answer session (that went in during your skype session).

Return to the skype call and share what you found out about the objects.  Limit the share to three sentences to speed up the sharing.  See if you find out new information that the original state may not have known (Your class showed a cheesehead.  We remember you said it is used at football games, but upon researching, we learned that someone once used a cheesehead to save their life in an airplane crash…)  A state report will be way more meaningful if you see your skypal holding a ticket to the Statue of Liberty rather than reading about Lady Liberty in an encyclopedia.

5. Cause and Effect

Cause and effect is tricky for kids.  “The child was tired, so she crawled onto her mother’s lap” can be written backwards “The child crawled onto her mothers lap because she was tired”.  Kids have a hard time picking which is the caus if the cause isn’t always first.  Practice makes perfect, so practice long distance with your skypals!

Have kids read causes and the skypals come up with possible effects. Switch it around often and tell which is the cause and which is the effect.

The causes could be from literature you are reading: Dorothy wore ruby slippers because _______. From content units of study: The wagon had to be unloaded so ________. Or from everyday character building events: your friend wasn’t crying anymore since ______.

BONUS* Revising a story

Skype doesn’t always have to be about one whole class visting with another whole class. Get a parent volunteer to monitor a small group skype chat with one child reading their writing to another child who will give revision ideas.  Share thoughts and move on to the next kid.  I am picturing some soft music in the background, the big screen is off.  There is just a webcam, and two learners sharing their writing from a great distance.  Great revision checklists for skypals can be found on the Internet.

A  great follow up would be sending the finished copy to the peer reviser.

I hope these skype ideas are helpful for you.  If you’d like to try any out, but don’t have a skypal yet, join the Around the World with 80 Schools ning.  New members always welcome!

Enjoy!

Our Skype session with Iowa went wonderfully! I was surprised at how well we could see them, and the SmartBoard really added to the experience. We are very lucky in Denmark to have such great equipment. If it was just a webcam, I don’t think I would do it.  The larger screen size was a double bonus.  Not only helpful for kids to see with the larger size, but it obviously allowed more kids to view the screen.  If we had to huddle around the laptop, there would be problems with those who couldn’t see the screen.  Below is a shot of the kids who were the Speakers talking with the other school.

My fifth graders learned a lot about another school. It was a good first skype experience.  The groups worked well. The kids suggested we make a SKYPE book of the places we met. The group below is looking up facts about the other school as they are giving the facts.  The girl in the background is writing down the important details of what was said.

We are looking at the jobs we have. Should they stay the same or should the rotate around?  The kids wanted to keep them the same, while others wanted to rotate them. I can see everyone needing to have a turn at the camera to speak wit the other school, which means I’ll have to round up some more schools.  Any interested parties, email me at mcpherss@denmark.k12.wi.us to get the skype rolling.  We have to figure the job situation out quickly, here comes Florida on Friday!  The kids below are watching the SmartBoard skype session and recording it for future needs.

On Wednesday, my fifth grade class will be visiting Iowa.  We are starting our tour aronud the world in the midwest. A middle school class from Sigourney, IA has agreed to talk with us.  WE have a bunch of jobs applied for.  I am thinking we are gonig to switch jobs after we are done chatting.  Should be cool.  I’ll post pictures tomorrow.

Here are the notes I lost from the WEMTA conference:

WEMTA Conference 2010: Into the Wild

9:00

I just arrived at the keynote address and look forward to hearing the speaker.  Leigh Zeitz is coming to us from the University of Nothern Iowa.  Dr. Tony Evers, our state superintendent is slated to speak first.  He spoke about the charural nging role of the Library Media Specialist and the Broadband Recovery Act and how schools will benefit.  I will check to see if Denmark has a need to obtain funds, although I think we are already at this stage.

9:15

ISTE CEO Don Knezek spoke about the benefits of joinging the society www.iste.org/.  I noticed before he took the stage Mr. Knezek set up a Flip Video to record his keynote.  We could be doing that more with our lessons, although I’d look for a way to delete the times I have to redirect misguided students   An award was given out to one of the members (Annette ???) of the ISTE.  The award was a jacket that said “Making it Happen”.  It is a neat way to give out an award, as oppossed to a plaque.  I like the idea!

9:30

Leigh Zeitz took the podium for his session “Dr. Z’s Creative Cookbook for Collaborative Communication“.

It is easy to see Life is Wonderful for Dr. Z. He is a great speaker.  He actually just apporached me and asked me to share during his talk.  I had a Judy Young flashback so I hope I’m not in trouble.

He is pushing the members in attendance to take out their cell phones, laptops, mobile devices and text to 99502 if they are on facebook (27422 is yes, frequently).  As of now, 187 responses 129 yes, 43, yes seldom, 27 no.  How to use it in the classroom?  how to get the phone in the classroom, but there are multiple uses for this.

Check out this 2 minute video about being a digital immigrant, a digital pioneer www.vimeo.com/2673447

I like using this term, it empowers people instead of isolating people.