Bitsy Parks
Bitsy Parks is a first-grade teacher in Beaverton, Oregon and an adjunct instructor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
Latest Content
Crafting the Basics: First-Grade Writing Conference
Bitsy Parks confers with Aubrey early in the year, using books from whole-class lessons as a scaffold for understanding key text elements like title, author, and illustrations.
Clapping Syllables Routine in First Grade
Bitsy Parks works with her first graders early in the year to teach them the basics of how words are constructed, by clapping through syllable counts.
Moving Beyond Pokemon: Conferring with Clover
Bitsy Parks works with a first grader stuck on writing about Pokemon characters. She uses other writing from Clover to nudge her to try something new.
Building Routines
Bitsy Parks teaches the foundations of first-grade classroom life through minilessons early in the year.
What Does It Mean to Read?
“I read 35 pages!” An elated student deflates Bitsy Parks in her first-grade classroom. By mid-fall she is alarmed at the responses of students to their reading in the whole-group share — they are all about quantity, with no thinking or reflection. She uses modeling and careful questioning to foster more thoughtful reader response.
Levels and What’s Appropriate
“How do you know what level they have selected?” a visitor asks Bitsy Parks as she observes during a first-grade independent reading period. “I don’t,” Bitsy responds, and explains why it is a beautiful thing.
Read Alouds to Start the Year in First Grade
Bitsy Parks selects read alouds for the first weeks of school for many different purposes, from building community to helping her first graders navigate the classroom library.
First-Grade Reading Share: Focus on Conferring and Strategies
Bitsy Parks uses reading share time early in the year to describe and summarize the work in two conferences to help students learn how conferring, independent reading time, and strategy practice work. One of the books used in a conference is from a recent read aloud.
Fall Fluster
Bitsy Parks is stressed from trying to "cover" all the lessons in the first required reading unit of the year with her first graders. She takes a deep breath, and decides to integrate more of her own lessons into her instruction.
Enticing Young Readers: First-Grade Group
Bitsy Parks helps first graders early in the year engage with the library by introducing a series with companion stuffed animals to a small group.
Summer Reading
Bitsy Parks reflects upon her own not-so-successful experiences as a parent in getting her four children to read during the summer months. She uses these parenting lessons to help students take the initiative for summer reading by writing down commitments and goals in her first-grade classroom.
Weeding a First-Grade Library
Bitsy Parks has a simple seven-step process for a hard day’s work of weeding out her first-grade classroom library.
How to Write a Sentence
Bitsy Parks realizes charts will help her first graders craft sentences. She shares how her sentence writing charts have changed over time.
End-of-Year Read Alouds
Bitsy Parks explains how the ending weeks of read alouds in her first-grade classroom are designed to celebrate learning and shared experiences from the entire year.
Goals to Habits in First Grade
Bitsy Parks finds goals aren't enough for her first-grade students — real growth requires that the goals eventually become habits. She develops a process mid-year to help children refine their goals step-by-step.
First-Grade Reflections: Looking Back to Move Forward
Bitsy Parks discovers the best way to relaunch literacy workshops in January after holiday break is to have her first graders reflect upon and celebrate what they learned in the fall with personal anchor charts.
First-Grade Minilesson: Repeated Phrases
Bitsy Parks uses mentor texts and her own writing in a minilesson on how her first graders might use repeated phrases in their writing for more impact.
First-Grade Reading Share: Connections
Bitsy Parks helps her first-grade students complete “thumb reflections” on making connections in reading early in the year by modeling connections from three conferences in a whole-class share session.
First-Grade Minilesson: Tricky Words
Bitsy Parks presents a minilesson on figuring out tricky words by recounting a student's strategy from a recent reading conference, using it to begin an anchor chart.
Connecting Reading and Thinking Minilesson
Bitsy Parks uses read alouds from earlier in September to teach the key building block of comprehension — connections
Connecting to Text: First-Grade Conference
Bitsy Parks confers with first grader Leo early in the school year, reinforcing the basic principle of making connections to text while reading.
Celebrating and Nudging: First-Grade Writing Conference
Bitsy Parks takes time to celebrate first grader Colson’s finished writing, even as she nudges him to try a technique shared in the day’s minilesson.
First-Grade Minilesson: Reading Like Writers
Bitsy Parks teaches her first graders early in the year how to read like writers, highlighting examples from favorite mentor texts.
Building Excitement for Book Awards
Bitsy Parks finds building excitement for book awards works in tandem with generating enthusiasm for reading in her first-grade classroom.
First-Grade Conferring: A Two-Word Picture Book
Bitsy Parks shows how even the simplest picture book can lead to powerful conferring. In this example, a first-grade English language learner is reading a picture book that uses only two words in the text.
Starting the Day with Literacy
Bitsy Parks shares how she starts the day with literacy in her first-grade classroom.
Reminder Notes
Bitsy Parks teaches her first graders to write sticky note reminders throughout the day, and is delighted by the learning and community building that ensues.
Increasing Read-Alouds in the Primary Grades
Bitsy Parks describes her process over the years in increasing both the quality and quantity of read-alouds in her first-grade classroom.
Quick Reading Reflection in First Grade
Bitsy Parks has her first graders complete a quick reading reflection before a share session early in the school year.
Gradual Release of the Library
Bitsy Parks explains how she designs her first-grade classroom library for “gradual release” throughout the school year in a way that allows students to build book-browsing skills.
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