Focus Book

In the article “The Cost of Paying Attention”, Matthew Crawford, the editor for The New York Times, argues that paying attention is a very valuable resource. Crawford argues that a person only has so much of it. He states that things like advertisements can easily distract people from what they need to focus on. He stresses the importance of silence because silence is hard to come by and it’s what make it possible to think. Since it’s much harder to pay attention with all the distraction being around, it’s better to prioritize one’s brain so distraction won’t happen… (Crawford)

A long way gone, memoirs of a boy soldier, by Ishmael Beah is a story of about a boy named Ishmael and how his ordinary life was suddenly changed by a civil war in his home country (Sierra Leone). He is separated for his family when the war starts and he is determined to find them. Ishmael is resorted to moving from place to place with different groups of boys/friends along the way. He faces challenges and life threatening situations everyday and does everything he can to stay alive. He has many close calls that almost result in death, but he is saved many times, usually due to the music tape that he carries in his jacket. Eventually ishmael is recruited to the army. The army changed Ishmael is a negative way. He is like a killing machine and uses drugs and eventually gets to a point where is addicted to them...From this point on Ishmael learns many lessons and goes through

Each child was given their own copy of this book , I asked for them to turn to page 15 which is where they had got up to before. I chose the order is which we were going to read, I instructed each child to read 3 pages each......whilst each child read out loud the other children needed to follow each line as it was read.

Complete all activities listed on the following pages. To complete the activities, you must go back through the book and re-read to find answers. You must also provide text support for your responses – include quotes from the story AND PAGE NUMBERS where indicated.

Guided Practice: “As you are reading today, use a sticky note to mark your text-to-self connections. Be ready to explain your thinking to me when we meet with guided reading.”

Three days, two nights is how long we’ll be staying in Portland. First we have to get through the morning briefing, survive the excruciating safety talk on how “Portland is not Salem”, and how “Portland is a much more dangerous place”. These few minutes will probably be the longest minutes of the trip, not including the ride there, but I obtained some audiobooks the day before for this one hour ride. We start to move our bags from our classroom to the cars we’ll be riding in, six can ride in Mr. Abel’s car, our advisor, fourteen on the bus, and another six in the Mrs. Jones's car, she volunteered as chaperone. I decide to ride in the bus, but my friends who were both crushing on the same girl go in Mr. Abel’s car, that was probably the most awkward car ride of the century.

Today was super. I was given a guided reading group during the literacy block. I was nervous to do the guided reading. However, I felt that it went exceptionally well for my first time. I also learned more about the students and their reading capabilities. Some were more fluent than I expected. Others could not read as well as I thought they could. I also noticed that a lot of the students guessed. They added words and used the pictures to read the sentence. During the guided reading I was also pleased to find how well they behaved during guided reading. They were so enraptured by the story and the pictures. They understood the story and could tell me the important pieces (characters, setting, significant event, etc.).

Upon completion, I will ask Catherine whether she liked the story or not, what was her favorite part, and if she bakes at home with her family. To end my session, I will ask Catherine to draw picture of her favorite part of the story

I didn’t know these people. I had at most, only spoken to these kids occasionally before we were stuffed into a hot white van for 10 hours. My palms became sweaty and I couldn’t bring myself to speak as the familiar scenery of Brookfield rolled into miles of empty farmers fields, gas stations and tourist traps. Everyone crammed in this van seemed to know each other so well, their endless talking blurred into a lul.

2) Discuss the book’s structure and the author’s use of language and writing style. How does the author draw the reader in and keep the reader engaged? Or why didn’t it work? Does the author convey his or her story with comedy, self-pity, or something else?

Allow students to describe to their partner the front cover of the book, listen for words that describe characters and settings.

Days later, and I am loading my packed red duffel bag, my elephant pillow pet, and my black drawstring bag onto a bus labeled “Faith.” I hopped onto the bus and realized that I hadve no idea who I wouldI will sit by since the friend I was going with had been got placed on another bus. I settled into the window seat, then had the pleasure of sitting next to Brenna, a chaperone. In truth,

This week’s reading covers many areas of content reading instruction such as the inferencing, word recognition, explicit instruction in comprehension, strategies to increase comprehension and retention, strategies to partner reading and content routine, and how to love and nurture our students with God’s word. All these areas play a vital role in growing independent readers.

This is a skill that I will take with me in my career goals. I will also use what I read and seen from Arthur’s story as motivation to push onward.

When implementing the intervention the first day students were able to get through reading the passage multiple times. The 4th day of the intervention students were less motivated doing the repeated reading. They began to take longer coloring their bar graph to take a break from reading the passage. John did have difficulty staying focus on completing two of the repeated reading without stopping. In several occasions he did request a break and it was granted so he did not feel overwhelmed from all the reading. Also, he sometimes did need to work with myself to help with the words he had difficulty with and for him to remain focus. The moments John did become discourage from the reading he would skip chunks of lines from the reading and only read the words he knew. When John skipped lines, he was encouraged to go back and follow the reading with his pencil. He did listen to what he was instructed to do, but he would continue to skip portions of the reading. For John the best support to give him was to sit with him to help him how to monitor himself from