Jennifer Jackson, media coordinator at Central Davidson Middle School has an awesome reading incentive program called "Reading Ringo". For the full PDF document, see attached below. Fostering Literacy with Reading RINGO - by Jennifer Jackson I first incorporated RINGO in my middle school library media center as an expansion of a teacher’s classroom genre activity. Students received a RINGO card laid out in 25 blocks each labelled with a specific genre; they checked their reading progress by marking the corresponding block when they finished a book. 5-in-a-row marked horizontally, vertically or diagonally would complete RINGO. RINGO adapts easily to a school-wide program with the use of genre specific questions that students can answer online. Our faculty and I initially grounded questions in literacy elements presented by Fountas and Pinnell. This quotation from their book, GUIDING READERS AND WRITERS, became the basis of the Reading RINGO program: “Effective literacy programs foster active, responsible learning. They help students begin to use literacy as a tool that gives them the power to find the information they need, to express their opinions and to take positions.” As the Common Core Reading Anchor Standards and Literacy Shifts were adopted, we revised the RINGO card to increase interaction with informational texts including magazines and websites. Students are asked to reflect, form opinions and write about the effect author’s choices in the organization and format of the information or vocabulary usage have on the work by referring back and giving evidence from the text in their answers. The questions are available in Google Forms linked on our Library Media Website for students to complete online. Teachers and media staff can easily verify student responses and initial the corresponding genre blocks on their RINGO card. A variety of rewards motivate participation in this optional reading program. In one school of 400 students, statistics for one quarter revealed that 137 students attended a “Sundae Sweets Celebration” for earning at least 1 RINGO (5-in-a-row). That equaled 685 individual items read. Forty-seven of these students received prize bags for having multiple RINGOs raising the total items read to 1285. CDMS Reading RINGO Questions
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Last year, Churchland Elementary stepped out of the box and flipped our technology professional development by implementing the Teacher App Challenge where our teachers earned badges or icons after they learned a new technology tool and integrated it into a lesson they created. Although it was not the traditional way of doing professional development, it worked. Sue Tobin and I created this website that taught teachers how to use the app or website, showed examples of student work, and gave them ideas on how to use the technology in their classroom. The teachers seemed to like that they were able to pick and choose which apps or websites to learn and when and how they could integrate them. It created conversations between colleagues on grade levels where they asked how each other were integrating the tools. It opened doors into classrooms for collaboration between myself and the teacher. I was pleased that staff members who hadn’t necessarily been a “techie teacher” before, changed and emerged as teacher leaders in our school regarding technology. This year, we’re continuing that flipped technology PD along with stepping out with a new challenge. We’re creating a makerspace and we’ve redesigned the schedule so that the students have more time during media lessons. This framework sets up an environment that allows for quality lessons that will have great impact on their learning. The lessons will include many STEM challenges and require the use of materials in the makerspace, they will also center around what their teachers are teaching in the classrooms. Additional time slots will be filled with collaborative lessons between myself and the teachers with the hope of integrating the makerspace. We don’t have everything we need yet, and it will probably take a while to get everything, but I believe having a vision for where you want to take your media center is one of the most important things you can do. I can’t wait to see how implementing a makerspace changes the learning environment in the media center! As you start this year, challenge yourself to do something you’ve never thought you’d do. If you’ve taught the same lessons year after year, challenge yourself to throw them out and research new ways of doing things. If you’ve never used a lot of technology in your lessons where your students are the users of the technology, make that your challenge and sign up for NCTIES. I promise you will find a wealth of ideas and ways to use technology! If you’ve haven’t collaborated with teachers very much, challenge yourself to find out what they are doing in their rooms and plan some engaging lessons with them. If you’ve been thinking about a makerspace but not sure about doing one, challenge yourself to start! Here’s our list of materials we are collecting. Whatever it is, CHALLENGE YOURSELF to step out of the box and become the best librarian/media coordinator you’ve ever been! Robin Snider Churchland Media Coordinator |
About UsWelcome to the official blog just for DCS library media programs. Enjoy new posts from one of our many contributors and follow along to see the amazing things happening in Davidson County school libraries. Archives
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