Making Sturdy Cloth-Bound Books Using Heat-N-Bond Ultra

The road to competence in writing is best paved with joyful experiences, especially early experiences with writing in the elementary school. One such experience is writing a story and making a beautiful cloth-bound book. Materials needed, which are easily obtained, are:(1) a commercially produced material called Heat-N-Bond (Ultra);(2) mat board or heavy weight poster board;(3)heavy weight paper in a variety of colors;(4) cloth in bright patterns or any other choice;(5) plain white photocopy paper;(6)long arm stapler; and (7) clothes irons. After assembling the book in 10 easy steps, photos or pictures from magazines or other sources maybe put on the cover or drawings can also be used. The cost of each book is approximately 65 cents. An easily transportable file tote box can be useful for keeping materials on hand.. Children can make several books and display them during a young authors\u27 conference in the classroom

Keeping a Clozed Mind on Reading

Cloze has a rich and interesting history as a method for encouraging reading achievement as well as for use as on approach to measuring reading competence. Cloze can be used effectively in instructional programs in many ways, including ( 1) paired or small group wo;k, (222) crossword cloze type activities, and (3) multiple-choice type formats. The doze informal contains a series of graded passages which presents reading instructors with a method for matching students with appropriate instructional materials. In the cloze informal , students\u27 scores are obtained from performance on a series of cloze passages. Scores can be used to assess competence at various levels of difficulty and further can be compared at a later date with scores obtained from readmission of the set of cloze passages

Encouraging Recreational Reading through Book Talks

children who have adequate reading skills rarely do any reading that is not specifically required in school. Reading for fun, and sometimes even required reading are frequently given a low priority when time for reading competes with sports, television, free play, music and dance lessons, etc. However, recreational reading is of critical importance for reinforcement of what is learning during reading instruction. The book talk is an excellent approach for motivating students to read outside of the classroom and during opportunities for free reading provided at school. Further, development of important oral communication skills can be fostered as well

Involving Students Actively in Vocabulary Acquisition

Getting students actively involved in acquiring new vocabulary creates more interest and better learning than presenting words from external sources