Benchmark Literacy

On Monday September 8th, Ms. Leom's students started Benchmark Literacy in fourth grade and Mrs. Hass's students started Benchmarck Literacy in third grade. I thought I would give you a peek into what it looked like this morning!

Our comprehension strategy this week is identifying the main idea and supporting details. Students are also working on asking questions as they read.

To begin, Ms. Leom shared a short story about snow days. Together we determined the main idea and details.

Our Snow Days discussion notes, which some word work around the edges

 Next, students were invited to share their favorite activity (main idea) and list three reasons (supporting details) to describe their day.

Ms. Leom and a volunteer modeled the "knee-to-knee" strategy of sharing where we sit knee-to-knee, and take turns talking and listening with eye contact and welcoming facial expressions. Then students had an opportunity to share their main ideas and supporting details!

Asking Questions

After the first two main idea and supporting details learning opportunities, we read a poster about Trace Fossils. (We are looking forward to accessing the technology link for our Smart Board at the end of the month.)

We started by developing our "asking questions" skill. Since this is the first day, Ms. Leom modeled for us.

We read the article about Trace Fossils. We learned that the main idea can often be found in the first or last sentence of a paragraph. (See the above picture, bottom portion) for our discussion work on main idea and supporting details.

We continued with our Main Idea and Supporting Details work in flex reading. Students added notes to their Reading Journals.

Then in Flex Reading, Ms. Leom modeled reading independently and using our Reading Journals. She read, "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!".

There are examples in our Reading Journals from when we set them up on Friday. We know students learn more, when they have the opportunity to DO it themselves. So we did it together the first time. Ms. Leom is preparing us for our independent learning when she is working with smaller groups. 

There is much more to Benchmark Literacy. Ms. Leom did a "think aloud", or sharing what she was thinking in her brain. She compared her learning with Benchmark Literacy to working on Math homework. When you are trying something for the first time, and you are "not sure" of exactly what to do, sometimes you just need to start. You can always go back and rework and add details later. This is a common theme in fourth grade, the idea that sometimes, the first step to solving a problem is to start and try, and work out one step at a time.