Volume 1 / Issue 4: Tips, Tools and Resources
Counting Isn’t Just for Primary Grade Students
By Lynsey Gibbons and Kendra Lomax
Learning about counting and number is foundational for young children. In our three previous blog posts (Counting: Why is it Important and How Do We Support Children? Part 1; Counting with Muna; and Counting Activities to Try with Primary Students), we explored the complexity of counting, and we shared activities for supporting young children in learning to count. In this final post, we propose that older children also benefit from opportunities to count and develop ideas about number and quantity. To better understand why we think counting in the intermediate grades is important, let’s first look at how Hamza, a fourth-grade student, worked through a division problem.
Ahmed has 146 pieces of candy. He wants to put 10 candies in each box. How many boxes will he need? How many candies will be left?
Conferring in Reader's / Writer's Workshop and CGI
- Make one binder that has all your conferring for Reader's, Writer's and CGI.
- Use numbered dividers to organize your students.
- Use leveled conferring notes to help you easily take notes (see below for resource)
- Plan out your month for conferring. Meet with about 4 students a day.
- Reader's Workshop: Leveled Conferring Notes
- Writer's Workshop: Use the Writing Checklists under Writing Pathways on your online resources at www.heinemann.com
What to do during conferring? (from Conferring with Readers Authors: Jennifer Serravallo & Gravity Goldberg)
- research a student's use of skills through questions and observations
- compliment to support and build upon successes
- follow up on prior instruction for accountability and depth of understanding
- explain a reading strategy by providing an explicit purpose and context
- model the strategy to make the invisible brainwork of reading more visible
- guide a reader in practicing the strategy
- link the strategy to independent reading.
Check out past JOTs: