Rhyming is Out of This World!
Students will participate in stations with board games that reinforce rhyming, onset, and rimes, and blending.
2 Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment: Administering and Interpreting Results
This binder details how to score and interpret the results of the Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA). This course is Unit 4 of the Texas Adolescent Literacy Academy (TALA). These materials are available for view only; no credit or certificate is provided.
The Write Way
Students will use a graphic organizer to draft the introduction paragraph of their expository essays.
Analyzing and Using Organizational Patterns
Students used organizational patterns (compare and contrast, argumentative, cause and effect, problem and solution, chronological) to create anchor charts. Students then worked in groups to analyze text and plan a composition, using the anchor charts to complete the tasks. Ultimately, students created a plan from a self-generated topic to demonstrate an understanding of the use of organizational patterns.
Communication in Space
Students will work in cooperative groups to create an accurate arrangement of mirrors that work together to relay a laser beam from a Mars space station to Earth’s Mission Control, which will model utilizing satellites in space for communication, an accommodation necessary for manned space exploration.
Teacher In Action
Which Organizational Pattern Is It?
Students will read a text, identify its organizational pattern, highlight signal words, create a visual representation/graphic organizer, and present to the class.
Students during Task
Choose Your Words Wisely!
Students will create a collection using objects, participate in a read-aloud, create another collection using sight word cards, and present their collections to the class.
Teacher reviewing vocabulary words.
Reading Strategies: Choose, Monitor, and Comprehend with Nonfiction Texts
Students will engage in activities that allow them to take a book walk and use criteria to choose a good-fit book, use strategies to self-monitor their own comprehension while independently reading, and use partner talk criteria to reflect on their strategies collaboratively.
Write Right
This research lesson encourages students to become better illustrators and authors. Students will work in collaborative groups and independently to develop drafts.
Reading on the Farm
In learning stations, students collaboratively generate inferences and make predictions about expository text.
Stages of Ecological Succession
Students will collaborate on a electronic slideshow presentation and observe, record, and describe the role of ecological succession including both primary and secondary succession.
Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA)
Texas Education Code (TEC) §28.006(c-1) requires that students who do not meet the passing standard on the Grade 6 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading test must be administered a reading assessment at the beginning of grade 7. The Texas Middle School Fluency Assessment (TMSFA) was developed with Texas students to be a valid and reliable instrument for determining students’ areas of instructional need.
The TMSFA is based on valid and reliable scientific research, thoroughly measures each domain of development, and is user-friendly. The following three domains of development are assessed using the TMSFA.
- Text Comprehension (Reading)
- Word Analysis
- Fluency
Scientifically Magnetic!
Students will review the steps of the scientific method and conduct an investigation that involves sorting magnetic and nonmagnetic objects.
Biodiversity
Students will explore biodiversity concepts through several activities including a video, a card sort, think-pair-shares, food webs, and four corners.
Building a Watershed
Students will model the effects of human activity on watersheds.
Modeling the Path of Digestion
Students model the path of digestion using household items.
Crime Scene Inferences
In learning stations, students use textual evidence and personal schema to generate inferences, make generalizations, and draw conclusions to support understanding about expository text.
Drumming Up Some Sound Energy!
Students will explore sound energy by creating their own drums using a variety of materials. Then, students will listen for the loud and soft sounds that each of the drums creates.
Introduction of Lesson using a video of drums
Inferring: It’s a Beast!
Using a digital forum, seventh-grade students will collaboratively generate authentic inferences about character motivation. Students will utilize textual evidence and draw from personal schema in order to make logical connections across multiple genres.
The Characteristics of the Mystery Letter "H"
Students will identify and apply characteristics of an alphabetical letter (mystery letter Hh) through various hands-on activities and cooperative group work.