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Grade five teacher Nancy Zibell at Luis Munoz Marin School started
with Cornerstone last year when she was teaching fourth grade. Nancy
writes of her experience with Cornerstone:
Last year when the principal first approached me and wanted me to
be involved in Cornerstone, I was a bit nervous because I really didn't
know enough about Cornerstone. After reading Mosaic of Thought, Reading
With Meaning and watching crafting demonstrations and a book frenzy
with our Cornerstone coaches, I was hooked! I couldn't learn fast enough!
I held discussions with my students because many of them had been part
of Cornerstone already in previous grades. I learned so much from the
students in our lessons. I saw personally what a difference Cornerstone
had made in my students' ability and excitement for reading and writing.
I know that my enthusiasm for the many aspects of Cornerstone is
being passed to my students. They cannot wait to get into our crafting
sessions. It has been an absolute joy to overhear students discussing
different books, characters, and the connections they make with books.
They talk about these things outside of reading time. Recently, I overheard
students talking about making mental images and recalling mental images
they made during the reading of The Polar Express last year.
The students love to use their writer's notebooks to write down something
they are wondering about and might want write about later. They even
enjoy sharing from the writer's notebooks sometimes. I have seen some
very quiet students come out of their shells by sharing in this way.
They really seem to trust each other. I love to see this community
of learners growing in my classroom.
On a personal note, I have even used many of the Cornerstone strategies
with my own children at home. I have watched my son go from arguing
about reading a book to looking forward to reading and sharing with
me about the connections he made while reading. I am reading more than
ever at home, too. Sitting at the soccer game, I have a bag of children's
books with me. Cornerstone has really energized me for teaching reading. ...Submitted
by Nancy Zibell
And
Children Shall Lead Them... Janie Haddon teaches second grade at Threadgill Elementary School in Greenwood, Mississippi. She is a third year Cornerstone coach. This year I worried about how to reach all of the new teachers, either new to our school or their grade. Well, I had no need to worry about a new first grade teacher. It turns out that she has a child in our former kindergarten coach's room and a child in my room in second grade. When I approached her about coaching in her room, she enthusiastically told me that her children were already coaching each other and her every night. They have been explaining the strategies to her and practicing them with each other since school began. She was ready and eager to become a Cornerstone convert, since her children are such great strategy coaches already. Now I'm really careful about how I teach each day.
...Submitted by Janie Haddon
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