Grade 3 EAL Support

All my Grade 3 ELLs had to focus on practicing writing their persuasive argument piece. In all three classrooms the homeroom teachers and I prepared a lot of prewriting activities for our students. With the help of videos and songs we introduced the structure of the persuasive argument:

·       Both sides of the argument

·       Clearly stated opinions

·       Reasons for holding that opinion

·       Examples to support the reasons

·       Alternative view

·       Conclusions that are restated with enthusiasm

Our students had to practice oral debates, give various reasons for their opinion and share their thinking with the rest of the class. To scaffold the debates and persuasive writing I used opinion words and phrases  as sentence starters and introduced easy - to - read opinion pieces.

In Miss Lisa's  and Miss Michelle's classrooms we practiced giving reasons for opinions and again used our decision wheel while playing this game.

Final sharing of challenges the students had to face and decisions they had to make.

In my EFL class I supported my students in constructing their understanding of the persuasive argument and gave them time to practice providing reasons for their opinions. 

Samir shared his reasons for liking pizza.

It has also complemented the development of reading comprehension skills. We had practiced always supporting stated opinions with evidence from the texts of the stories.

After discussing with their partners the pros and cons of whether wild animals should be performing in the circus, my class took sides. With students divided into two groups, they took part in a spirited  Visible Thinking  debate called Tug of War .

Grade 1 In Class Support

Our students had a great week cooperatively developing their reading and comprehension skills in Grade 1. 

We read a book about moods and feelings with Miss Corey's class. After reading the story the students shared how they felt that day and continued creating  mini-books about their feelings.

In Miss Kelly's room we had a very productive home reading session. The students were supposed to reread to me the book that they had read at home and then choose a new one. It was exciting to listen to young readers and have brief conversations about the the characters, favourite parts, illustrations, etc.

After the books were read the children had to practice the word and spelling tasks related to their readings.

One of the tasks was to read "in their minds".

In Miss Rachelle's room we continued reading in groups. We used our mind maps that we created last week to scaffold the retelling of the story from last week. After that we reread the story and talked about the main character and other characters. I asked the children to choose their favourite character and explain their choice to me.

Miss Rachelle's boys felt very enthusiastic about our reading session.