4th SPARK

August 2025

We started the new year off with Jacob's Ladder Reading Comprehension Social-Emotional Intelligence/Affective units of learning.   The story we kicked the year off with has proven very challenging and as a result we are still working on it as we move into September.  The Leaping Match by Hans Christian Anderson is our first selection.   We first learned how to annotate text.  Students now know to use a  question mark next to parts of the text they don't understand, an exclamation mark next to parts of the text that are surprising or very important and they know how to circle all of the unknown vocabulary.  

This story had a ton of unknown vocabulary, so we had to spend a lot of time using context clues to help determine the meaning of over 25 words.   Since this is not a modern text, we discussed how text written in different times may have different vocab and that will make it even more difficult to determine meaning.  Lo, moreover, whereupong are some examples of words the kids encountered, along with vexation, prophecy, almanac, and so much more.   We discussed that even though they may be great decoders and be able to say the words in the text, the meaning and comprehension/understanding of a story fall apart when there are so many unknown words.   Using context clues to detemine meaning of unknown words is a grade level standard in ELA, but the kids need to stop and acknowledge they don't always know the meaning even when they can sound out those words.  If you are doing at home reading, have your kids read aloud and stop them on some tougher vocab.  Ask them to tell you what they think those words might mean based on the text that surrounds it.  If they can't tell you, and that happens consistently, even if the book might be at their lexile level, you may have to advise them to select books at lower levels or miss out on the meaning.  

The kids are also working once a week on a ReadWorks passage of their choice.   I am trying to select options at their reading levels and vary the choices to have some that are informational text and some that are reading literature.  They then have to read and respond to multiple choice questions and a few short answer choices too. 

We also learned about all of the dimensions of Depth and Complexity with a deep dive on Details and Changes over Time with a study of sunflowers.