QAR for the Primary Grades

We all know that the easiest way to increase student achievement is to improve instruction and questioning is the most powerful tool in our teaching repertoire.  The CCSS rely heavily on text-based evidence and higher-level thinking.  Questioning really builds the bridge between literal and inferential understanding and content knowledge.  

Recently, I read something about questioning that is based on Costa' work:

Well-structured questions include three parts: an invitation to think, a cognitive process and a specific topic.  “The order of the three parts may vary, but all three are necessary to formulate an effective question to promote thinking.”  This strategy is based on the work of Costa and the “Three Story Intellect.”  It is a very simple yet profound strategy for questioning.  How simple is that!

1. an invitation to think       "Penny, 

2. a cognitive process         can you explain in your own words

3. a specific topic               how you solved this problem?"

Here's a photo of a product I just posted on Teachers Pay Teachers on QAR for the Primary Grades.  

Right There Questions are in your hand questions - Students look closely with a magnifying glass for Think and Search Questions - Author and Me require thinking and On My Own come from the heart 

I've Got a Deal for You!

Are you as busy as I am working on curriculum 

or aligning your lessons with the CCSS?

I have a deal for you!

Become a follower by email

and I will send you one grade level checklist

of Common Core State Standards

for both English Language Arts and Mathematics.

This checklist is editable.  

Pass the Word,

Penny

Jump Start Thinking in Your Classroom

I've been reading two books simultaneously!   The first is Teaching Students to Read Like Detectives, by Fisher, Frey and Lapp and the second is Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Dependence for All Learners by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison.  They are my new favorites because they embody the essence of Common Core Standards and what our students can achieve. 

I love the idea of giving kids and teachers the tools/structures to meet the expectations of the CCSS.  I have attached a free foldable I adapted from a Thinking Visible routine called, Compass Points.  It's a popular routine that helps students explore various facets of a proposition or idea.  Ask students these questions and record their responses in the directions of a compass to provide a visual anchor.  More information can be found at www.pz.harvard.edu.

Compass Points (Free Foldable)

I envision strategically choosing a few of these thinking routines at a time to model in classrooms and share with teachers before the end of the year.  

Getting to the Core: Argument Writing

Argument writing is a key area of focus in the CCSS.  The CCSS routinely expects students to draw evidence from texts to produce clear and coherent writing that informs, explains, or makes an argument in various written forms (notes, summaries, short responses or formal essays).  I have created a foldable on TPT that is a great tool for instruction in the writing of a CEI paragraph: Claim, Evidence, Interpretation.  It's also a great follow-up tool for student's to practice the skill of argumentation.  When you make copies of the foldable, copy the foldable pattern on the front and lined paper on the back.  I have the students cut one “door” at a time.  After students complete their response under each door, they just need to open all the doors to see a completed Claim, Evidence, Interpretation paragraph.  

The 7Cs of Argumentation

Getting to the Core: Annotating Text

On Thursday and Friday, I presented at the Superintendent’s Conference in Tinley Park, IL on Getting Your Daily Dose of the CCSS.  It was very exciting but I'm glad it's over.  I need to learn how to cut down on the prep time!  Over the next six posts, I will share the key resources from my presentation on the CCSS key shifts for ELA/Literacy instruction. 

The CCSS call for close reading and “reading with a pencil.”  Annotating, or marking up, text will help students develop confidence analyzing text.  This strategy can be applied in all content areas. Model the method with a short passage or article while students are acquiring the skill of annotation. Have students work in groups and gradually increase the text complexity of the texts you present while applying the gradual release of responsibility.  Eventually, students should be able to transfer the process to appropriate, self-selected texts.  To make this a formative assessment, score the annotated text.  

There is no right or wrong way to annotate a book.  Pick up a pencil, a pen or a post-it.  Write directly on the text (if it’s your property or a copy of a selection) or use post-its to mark your pages and thoughts.  Read everything at least twice.  The first time read quickly to get a sense of what the text is about.  Subsequent re-readings should  include close reading and annotating text.   

Begin to annotate:

A.      Circle, underline, or stick on a post-it for important ideas.

B.      Mark repetitions or rhetorical signals.

C.      Circle confusing words or phrases. 

D.      Note passages that seem inconsistent.

E.       Write questions where you made annotations.

Use your margin to decode the text, to help remind yourself what the author is saying 

and mark your thoughts as you read.   Marking in the margins involves the reader in:

• Writing brief summaries
• Listing or numbering multiple ideas
• Sketching pictures and charts to explain difficult concepts
• Predicting
• Noting puzzling or confusing ideas that need clarification
• Defining words to help remember them

    Check out my annotation bookmark on TPT!

Increasing Instructional Rigor

Are you interested in increasing the instructional rigor of the lesson you teach and the tasks that students complete?  I just posted a Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Questioning Tool flip book on TPT.  This tool is based on Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge that aligns with the rigorous expectations of the CCSS.  DOK has four levels: level 1 recall, level 2 skill/concept, level 3 strategic thinking and level 4 extended thinking. This flip book includes the DOK Expectations for Student Performance, the DOK Descriptors or verbs and the DOK question stems.  I really like how Depth of Knowledge aligns beautifully with both the CCSS and the Understanding by Design process.  When you study UbD, you learn that lessons, tasks and assessments are always designed to build understanding.  Acquire, making meaning and transfer are the three levels of understanding in UbD.  The same is very similar in Depth of Knowledge where acquire, use, and extend understanding are the three levels.  Just click on my TPT button and look for Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Questioning Tool.  This tool will be very useful for planning rigorous lessons, tasks and assessments for your students and as a tool for asking higher-level questions in class.  When I model DOK in classrooms, I make a copy of the tool for each group in the classroom to utilize during the lesson that I teach and for future lessons.  

Everyone loves stuff that is free.  You can download my first product on TPT for free or download it by clicking here.  It's titled,  DOK (Depth of Knowledge) in the Content Areas.  For each level of DOK and for each content area of English Language Arts, Writing, Math, Social Studies and Science, a variety of performance levels are provided.  For instance, under the Social Studies tab, you would go from...

                                        Level 1 Identify specific information

Level 2 Describe interpret or explain issues or problems 

                                        Level 3 Draw conclusions and cite evidence

                                        Level 4 Analyze and synthesize information from multiple sources

I hope you enjoy this product.  Let me know what you think!

CCSS Integrated Model of Literacy

Recently I created an interactive focus wall for CCSS and reading in the content areas.  It combines the utilization of reading strategies, the text structures of informational text, and graphic organizers to organize and retain information as you read.  It is tied all together by the expectations of the CCSS for reading informational text.   I love to use bulletin boards that I can reference during instruction and students can reference during independent work time.

Putting It All Together:

1. Super Six Comprehension Strategies Posters at sanjuan.edu include: Predict, Monitor and Clarify, Evaluate, Question, Connect, Summarize.  Just as comprehension anchors reading, these posters anchor the focus wall. 
2. ·Beth Newingham at Scholastic has created beautiful text structure posters: Description, Compare and Contrast, Sequential, Cause and Effect, and Problem and Solution.  The text structures help us to comprehend informational text and these posters give structure to the focus wall. I hung a transparent pouch with every text structure poster.  These great pouches are available from Lakeshore Learning and work great for holding the graphic organizers.
3. The graphic organizers are the interactive element of the focus wall.  I strategically chose graphic organizers that met the expectations of the CCSS with the comprehension strategies and the six text structures. Go to readingquest.org for a variety of graphic organizers on Social Studies and Science.  You’ll find an amazing Story Map for Science and Social Studies.!  I also found a great set of graphic organizers that align beautifully with the CCSS especially argumentation, analyze content and evidence.       www.ride.ri.gov/omp/secondary/documents/readingliteracy/2_Graphic_Organizers_for_Reading.pdf
4. Finally, I created posters for the CCSS for reading informational text for the appropriate grade levels.  In my case, this picture focus wall is in a middle school classroom.  Just splash the standards posters and the vocabulary of the standards across the focus wall.  

This focus wall has worked successfully with students as I model lessons in a colleague's classroom.  You might be interested in another CCSS bulletin board that I created for TPT called, Daily Dose of CCSS.  

NCDPI Rocks!

Oh the places you'll go if you run and do not walk to the collaborative workspace for the North Carolina Department of Instruction. 

 

www.ncdpi.wikispaces.net

 

The NC Department of Public Instruction is developing a wide array of instructional resources to support educators in the implementation of not only the Common Core State Standards but also the North Carolina Essential Standards.    As I have researched for CCSS resources on various state department of education sites, I have noticed that the NCDPI resources are referenced and for good reason. 

Under English Language Arts Resources you will find various documents:
1. ELA Instructional Shifts

2. Learning Progression for each strand that begin with the CCR anchor standards
3. ELA Text Exemplars

4. Webinars and Handouts
5. Posters on Text Complexity, How to Do a Close Reading and Scaffolding

6. A great presentation - From Snorkelying to Deep Sea Diving: Breaking Beyond Surface Reading 

Under Mathematics, Elementary Resources you will find various documents:

1. Standards Word document

2. Major Work of Grade Level

3. Unpacking Document

4. Lessons for Learning (Tasks)
5. Unit of Instruction

6. NCTM Navigation Alignment Document

7. Math Stars (Newsletter)

8. Problem Solving Decks

For many years, school districts across the country have utilized the math curriculum materials from North Carolina. When I was still in the classroom, I aligned my curriculum with these materials. I love to find materials that are off the shelf ready-to-use. These pre-common core materials can still be accessed and can be easily aligned with the CCSS.   Just click on instructional resources:

http://mathlearnnc.sharpschool.com/cms/One.aspx?portalId=4507283&pageId=4832644

I have been referencing the Common Core Instructional Support Tools from North Carolina ever since I started researching and facilitating workshops on the CCSS.  The NCDPI has done an amazing job of unpacking both the CCSS for English Language Arts and Mathematics.

www.ncpublicschools.org/acre/standards/support-tools/
 

CCSS Layered Flipbooks K-8

* * * SPECIAL SALE * * * 

Take a look at my TPT for my Common Core layered flipbooks for both ELA and Mathematics for all grades K-8.  See the preview of the CCSS flipbooks below. For grades K-6, CCSS for ELA are on the front and CCSS for Math are on the back for easy reference. I have packaged grades 6-8 together for each of the content areas. I have priced the CCSS flipbooks economically at $5.  All you need is access to a printer, colored cardstock, and a binder. I made over 200 copies of these flipbooks for the teachers that I work with in grades K-8!   Feel free to contact me if you want me to customize a CCSS flipbook for you. I have customized versions for both special education and speech resource teachers. This is a great tool for writing lesson plans, unit plans and curriculum guides because it's all at your fingertips in one tool. 

 

 

QAR Strategy and CCSS Literacy

As I became familiar with the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts, I immediately saw the correlation with the QAR (Question Answer Relationship) Strategy.  The versatility of the QAR strategy is that it can be incorporated with any type of textual passage and it works across all content areas.  QAR identifies categories of details from the text which are "right there on the page", inferred from passages in different locations within the text, and inferred from the text as a whole.  The best part is it requires students to examine the text as a whole, determining what types of information are explicitly found in the text, what information is learned from multiple locations within a text, versus that information is dependent on their own knowledge base and skills of making inferences.

I have been working with some junior high teachers in Social Studies and I have created edited versions of some of the exemplar texts (Common Core Text Exemplars can be found in Appendix B) to teach students the types of information used in the QAR strategy by requiring groups of students to develop questions from each type.  Hit my TPT button on the right and download my free QAR Lesson Plan and Anchor Chart packet which includes a 5E lesson plan and the patterns for a QAR anchor chart.  When asking groups of students to create questions from each QAR category, you can use index cards or the easy QAR Sticky Note page that you can download here . 

 

 

Directions:

1. Print 2 copies of the QAR Sticky Note page to start.
2. Copy 1 - Place a sticky note within the outline of each of the four boxes on the page. Place the page in the printer.  Make sure the page is oriented in the printer so the sticky part goes in first.
3. Copy 2 - Place this copy of the QAR Sticky Note on the glass of the printer.
4. If you like how it prints, repeat steps 1-3.  Make as many copies of the QAR Sticky Note page as you have students or make one sheet of sticky notes for each group

 

 

As an assessment piece, I created a 4-door foldable for QAR with the question stems.  You can download it here.