Notes from Focus Group Meeting:

 

 

READING

 

** Web site - Doucette Index K - 12 Literature - Based Teaching Ideas: An Index to Books and Websites www.educ.ucalgary.ca/litindex/default.html

 

** Web site - SPARKS – literature quizzes, essay questions www.sparks.com

 

** Saddleback High Interest Curriculum reading materials and book collections. Book sets are of uneven quality, so it’s best to go for Newberry Award and Caldecott Winner sets and ALA Best Books. “Contemporary Issues” and “Relationships” have some good books for today’s teens who are turned off by “literature”, as well.

 

Steck Vaughn has a good series for inference, main idea, etc.

 

SPELLING

 

Spelling activities -

 

** “Spelling doodle” (drawing a picture very lightly in pencil and then writing spelling words three times each on the outlines of the picture. Picture can be random or related to the spelling words.

 

** Word searches

 

 

WRITING/LANG.

 

** Writer’s Choice – composition and grammar text from Glencoe

 

** Holt Literature and Language – response to literature excerpts and grammar skills

 

** American Book Company – CAHSEE – “CA Language Arts Review”

 

AGS Basic English Compositioon

 

ELEMENTARY MATH

 

** Manipulatives from Lakeshore, Report Card, Summit Math

 

** “Touch Math”

 

** Drills and flash cards

 

** “Mathblaster” CDs

 

ALGEBRA

 

** “Video Text Interactive”

 

** Aleks online tutorial (through Glencoe)

 

** Interractive Chalkboard (correlates with Glencoe Algebra 1

 

ALGEBRA BASICS

 

KEYS to Algebra (vendor?)

 

Pacemaker

 

Globe Fearon

 

(All three of the above were thought to be superior to AGS in explaining concepts, etc.)

 

TEST PREP

 

American Book Company – “CAHSEE Math Test Prep”

 

Meeting the CA Challenge (vendor?)