For the past few years, I have had the privilege to partner with a dear friend for "Reading Buddies." The general idea for our pairing was for my 5th grade students to provide additional practice for the K5 students in reading.
The first year that we worked together, our students mainly read together. There was an occasional project that we worked on together. Many of these projects were things that were taught in the K5 class and then my students would help students complete the project assigned. Having each K5 student with a 5th grade mentor allowed each child to have their own teacher.
The 2nd year that we worked together, we took this one to one teaching scenario one step further. My 5th grade students worked with the K5 students to create a Power Point presentation. The K5 teacher gave her students the requirements and my 5th grade students were the technology mentors. Because my students were proficient in Power Point, they assisted the K5 students in a one to one setting in completing the Power Point. My students helped find clip art, change fonts, and helped proofread the final products.
This is our 3rd year as Reading Buddies and we have continued to grow as a reciprocal teaching team. Early this year, I met with the K5 teacher and we began to plan for technology projects throughout the year. This year we decided to start with an ABC book. Below you will see the progression of the project and how we implemented it into both of our individual classrooms.
Part 1:
In the K5 classroom, Mrs. B began teaching her students the Kindergarten Writing Process: Talk, Draw Write. Students practiced with their own writing within her classroom.
In the 5th grade classroom, I began reinforcing the writing process in 5th grade the very first week of school: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, Publishing. After a few weeks at making sure my students had our writing process down, I introduced the idea of our ABC book project with our 5K buddies. I then taught a lesson that compared our writing process with the K5 process. Students were divided into partner groups to walk through the K5 process.
Reading Buddy Day: When we met with our buddies, both teachers had already introduced the project in the individual classroom. We were creating an ABC book with the them of friendship. Reading Buddy partners met together to begin the writing process. First, groups were assigned the letter they would be working with for the project. Students then sat knee to knee and thought about words that started with their letter. 5th grade students wrote down all of the words that K5 students listed. After the list was made, students worked together to create a sentence using several of the words that were listed.
Part 2:
In the K5 classroom, Mrs. B worked with her students on the drawing portion of the writing process. She made a point to make sure that students understood that their drawing should match their sentence.
In the 5th grade classroom, I taught a lesson on classroom management. My students learned techniques that could be used to redirect attention in the chance their K5 student had trouble focusing. We also worked on questioning techniques that would help the K5 students generate ideas. In my words block for the week, we worked on writing sentences and making them more descriptive. My students created a mini-lesson to teach to their K5 buddies on writing sentences in preparation for Reading Buddy day.
Reading Buddy Day: Students worked together to create descriptive sentences using many of the words that were listed on our previous visit. Once the sentences were created, Reading Buddy pairs worked together to create a drawing that illustrated their sentences.
Part 3:
Reading Buddy Day: Reading Buddy pairs worked with various media to create their drawings.
Part 4: Adding the Technology
Reading Buddies will scan their work using the copy machines and utilize PhotoStory to create a class book to be shared through our class blogs and Wikispaces.
We haven't completed part 3 and 4 as of today, but we will soon. Because this was our first project, as a team, the K5 teacher and I wanted to get students working together before putting them in front of technology. As a result of this project, we are now ready to to have partner groups work on the technology. Our next project will center around podcasting and Voice Thread.
This is the most effective way that I have seen to teach younger students how to navigate technology. In order for it to be effective though, the older students neeed to be proficient at the technology.
