June 2019 – Continually Learning Academy | Professional Learning for Schools

When you teach elementary, you may notice that you are given a lot of time to teach English Language Arts. In particular, I have about two hours to teach ELA. While at the beginning this may seem like a lot of time, when you actually start teaching, it may seem like not enough time to fit everything in. Planning and scheduling is essential when teaching reading to any grade level. You need to plan out and schedule times during your ELA block to make the most of it. In this post, I will talk about how I teach English Language Arts and how I schedule my English Language Arts block. How to teach it all? When teaching reading, there are many different aspects to teach. In the standards, there are sections for reading literature, reading informational text, foundational reading skills, writing, speaking and listening, and language. In each of those sections, there are multiple standards to teach. It is very overwhelming when you think about teaching ALL of this in only one year. At the beginning of the year, or over the summer, I sit down with all my standards and make a curriculum map for the year. I plan which standards I want to teach each week. I make sure I have all the standards taught before the end of the year testing time. How I Teach Reading Curriculum Map When I curriculum map, I always start with reading standards. I plan out how I will teach the literature and informational text standards. In the common core standards, the literature and informational text standards parallel each other. So many times, I would teach the skill in literature one week and then the skill in informational text the next week. You can also follow the curriculum your school has purchased to do this curriculum mapping also. Just make sure you just hit on your actual standards. A lot of times, the curriculum will have way more than you actually need to teach. If you want to read more about curriculum problems and how to fix them click here. This is an example of a curriculum map for 4th grade reading standards. I usually try to divide the standards into standards I can test and standards that can be projects. I also divide which standards I want to work on each nine weeks. One Standard a Week In fourth grade, there are 19 reading standards to teach (half are literature and half are informational text). It may all seem quite overwhelming if you just read through the standards. At the beginning of the year, I like to map out my standards using a curriculum map to make sure I am teaching all my standards before the end of the year testing. When mapping, I like to teach about one standard a week. One standard may take a week, 2 weeks, or even a month to teach depending how long it is, but for each week I stick with one standard or part of a standard. This allows me to be super focused on what I need to teach my students, and allows my students to be focused on one skill they need to learn. Each week I will write a Learning Target that each student needs to learn by the end of the week. (Click here to read more about Learning Targets). This Learning Target is my goal and my students’ goal throughout the week. It keeps everyone focused on the goal and more students can achieve this goal. I test at the end of every week. I test on everything we have learned during ELA that week. The test includes the reading skills, language skills, and foundational skills that we learned that week. We also take a spelling test every Friday. This is the Learning Targets board I use to keep my students focused on what they need to be learning throughout the week for each subject I teach. Click here to learn more. How I Teach Foundational Skills In fourth grade, I do not have that many foundational skills to teach as in the primary grade levels. I do set aside some time during the week of teaching reading to teach phonics and word analysis skills. I look through the reading literature and informational text standards and I add in some of these foundational skills based on stories we are reading or skills we are discussing. In primary grades, you definitely need to set aside some time to teach these skills along with the rest of the reading skills. Generally, I spend maybe ten minutes of my reading lesson to talk about one of these skills every day or a couple times a week, whatever is needed. How I Teach Speaking and Listening This is a hard group of standards to set aside specific time to teach. When I am curriculum mapping, I usually look through my reading standards and see how many speaking and listening standards I can tie in each week. I also like to teach these skills at the beginning of the year. I will teach my students how to work as a group, how to have set roles in a discussion, and formal and informal English all at the beginning of the year. I find I have more time to hit these standards at this time and the students are set to use these skills throughout the school year. This doesn’t mean I don’t hit them again; I do have to review these standards from time to time. In fourth grade, I like to plan big projects and presentations at the end of the year, so I will plan to hit some of these standards at the end. This is a way I organize my speaking and listening standards with ideas that I want to use when I teach these standards. How I Teach Language The Language standards can be pretty overwhelming. There are a lot of pieces to those standards. I like to spend about ten minutes every reading lesson to teach some language skills. I will also sometimes add these language skills to my writing block since students need to use these skills in their writing. The language skills are also really important to map out, or you may not teach them all. I map out about one to two language skills I want to teach each week, so I know I have taught everything by the end of the year. This is how I organize my Language standards so I can fill in my lesson ideas or curriculum to teach each standard. How I Teach Writing I believe writing is equally as important as reading. I have a set writing workshop time every single day. I spend 30 minutes every morning in writing workshop. I think writing first thing in the morning is beneficial for my students. They are not tired from the day yet and it is a great way to start the day. I find most students are more focused during the morning and writing is usually not a favorite subject of the students. I will explain more of my writing workshop time below. ELA Block Schedule Writing Workshop (30 minutes) I do writing workshop first thing in the morning. I have 30 minutes every single day for writing workshop. During this time, I would teach mini lesson and the students would write. I set up my year based on 9 week intervals for the writing standards. The first nine weeks I focused on teaching the Writing Process and the 6 Traits of Writing. (I will have a future article in more detail of how I teach writing). The next three 9 week periods, I taught opinion writing for 3 weeks, informational writing for 3 weeks, and narrative writing for three weeks, in that order. I found that repeating the types of writing every nine weeks was beneficial so my students didn’t forget what each type of writing was. I also decided each nine weeks, I would teach a little bit more for each type of writing so they progressively got better at writing throughout the year. You could also decide to teach just opinion writing one 9 weeks, informational writing the next 9 weeks, and finish with a 9 weeks of narrative writing. Whatever works best for your students and your grade level is best. For my fourth graders, I would introduce a certain writing topic for the week and they would be expected to finish the writing through the entire writing process and turn in a final completed copy every Friday. Usually this writing consisted of a five paragraph essay. This was easier for me to keep track of and my students could stay focused on one task throughout the week. I also noticed that students work better when given a timeline. Sometimes, teachers let the students move through writing topics on their own time and move on when they are ready. Also, some teachers decided to assign one writing assignment for a two week period instead of a one week. This may be better for the lower grade levels. Ultimately, whatever is best for your students is key. This is one nine weeks of my writing curriculum map. This can be easily followed each week and makes lesson planning easier. Steps of the Writing Workshop Mini-lesson (10 minutes) I wouldn’t do a mini lesson every day, but when I did teach a mini lesson I tried to keep it around 10 minutes so I could keep the students focused and they would still have time to write. Some mini-lessons would be on writing topics from the standards and some mini-lessons would be from the language standards. Status of the Class (move the magnet throughout the Writing Workshop time) I had magnets with the student’s numbers on them for each step of the writing process. When they finished a step, they would move their magnet to the next step. This easily let me see where each student was every single day and I could see which students I may needed to help. These magnets have the students' numbers on them and can be moved to whatever step of the writing process they are on. Writing Time (20 minutes) I tried to give the students about 20 minutes of writing time every day after the mini-lesson. This was time for them to focus on their writing and move through the writing process. While the students were writing, I might pull a student to have a one on one discussion about their writing. I might pull a small group to work on a skill they need help with. I might edit a students’ writing right beside them so they could see what they did wrong and right. I also may just be available for any help that a student may need. Sharing (5 minutes) I did not do this everyday. I usually tried to do this on Thursday or Friday only. I had a specific part of my white board where a student could tell me if they wanted to share their writing with the class. This was not mandatory, but some students really enjoy it. The student that was sharing would sit in front of the class and read their completed writing. Reading Lesson (40 minutes) This is the main lesson that I am teaching. Depending on your grade, this lesson may be anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes long. I try not to make the main lesson too long. I want students to be engaged and get to the point quickly, so they don’t loose interest. Sometimes, I will follow my curriculum provided by the county and sometimes I will add in activities I find on the internet. But whatever I do, it is completely focused on the standard and skill I am teaching that week. Each reading lesson I teach throughout the week will be focused on the standard I am teaching. On the first and second day (Monday and Tuesday), I will teach and model the skill explicitly. Then by Wednesday, I will start moving towards guided practice with the new skill and by Thursday give more independent tasks on the skill. During the lessons everyday, I will either follow curriculum given to me by the county or sub in some different hands on activities or math tasks that I find teach the standard well. This reading lesson may be cut a little short to add in some phonics or word analyzing skills or even language standards, depending how it adds to the skill or text we are reading. Reading Stations (1 hour) I allow 1 hour to reading rotations. I find that this time is well spent. Students are always engaged in their work and I get to help smaller groups of students that need more help. Whatever you do during your reading block, always have a time to work with a small group. Cutting down the student to teacher ratio will help your students achieve more. You will be surprised how much this time helps your students. During reading rotations, I will reinforce the main lesson and standard I am teaching. I loosely follow the Daily 5 routine. In Daily 5, there is a station for Read to Self,Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing (Journaling), Word Work (Spelling), and Small Group. I usually only spend one hour a day on Daily 5, so I have 3 stations of 20 minutes. Students can pick which station they want to work on, unless I want them for a small group. I have a check in board that I use and students pick what they want to do and then move around the room to get started. I also give them a check in sheet that they have to fill out throughout the week. I give them so many options, like working on read to self three times throughout the week. This way, they get choice but I can also make sure they are working on everything throughout the week. I have a freebie of this check in board on our TPT store that you can check out here. Small Group I work with anywhere from 4 to 6 students in a small group setting. I group students together on their abilities. Usually in the small group setting, I will use a smaller text to work on specific skills. This time is a great time to challenge and extend the learning of the higher students in your class. Sometimes, the higher students in your class don’t get small group instruction because they quickly learn the skill they need to for the week. But I love to use this time to enrich these students if that is appropriate for their learning. Small group time is also a great time to work on struggling skills. Sometimes, I will group students together that missed certain standards on the weekly test, so I can better teach them the standard and fix the problem as soon as I can. Small group time is critical for all the different learners you have in your classroom. Give students the differentiated instruction they need through this small group time. Read to Self This station is time for the students to independently read to themselves. I let them sit anywhere around the room that is comfortable to them, but also doesn’t distract others. In my school, students take AR quizzes to show they are reading and log how many books they have read. Read to Someone This station is time for the students to focus on their fluency skills of reading aloud to others. I set very specific procedures for this station. I want them to whisper read so they will not distract others. We spend the first few weeks practicing each station, but particularly this one. I want students to enjoy this station but stay focused, stay on task, and stay quiet. Listen to Reading This station is time for the students to listen to fluent reading. There are many programs that schools use for this. In my classroom, I like to use the app Epic! It is free for educators and you can set up a classroom so each student has an account. There are other programs that schools might purchase for listening to fluent reading as well. This is an independent station and students usually use an iPad in my classroom for this. Work on Writing I have set time for writing in the Writing Workshop in the morning. This time is for journal writing. The students can write about whatever they want in their own journal. I will read them periodically and respond to their writing. Occasionally, I will let students work on their Writing Workshop assignments if they missed Writing Workshop or are behind for whatever reason. I do like to keep this time focused on journal writing though. Word Work This station is for spelling word practice. I give them different activities they can do with their spelling words, like writing the words 3 times each, writing the words in different colors, etc. I usually teach spelling during language lessons throughout the week during the reading lesson, but this is time for them to work on the words independently. This is the interactive choice board I use for Daily 5. Students can move their name to the station they want to work on during Daily 5 for each round. This makes it easy to see what all students are working on. I hope this helps you to better schedule for your English Language Arts block. Having a schedule and keeping to it, not only helps you, but also helps your students stay focused and learn more! If you enjoyed this article, we recently wrote another article on how to schedule your math block in elementary, check it out here! Also, if you are interested in organizing all those resources you have for ELA or Math check out our article here! Thank you for Continually Learning with us! Kyle and Sarah