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Introduction
Open Court Resources.com features literally hundreds of powerpoints for every unit and nearly every story of the Open Court Reading Program. These are all available free for download though they may not redistributed on the internet without permission.
What innovative ways can teachers use these powerpoints with OCR?
Teachers can use powerpoints to assist in unit openers. Students are often more engaged when provided with multimedia than when staring at a teacher talking. Placing focus questions for the unit in the powerpoint and providing pictures of unit concepts and ideas can help facilitate class discussion about a new unit, activating and creating prior knowledge.
Vocabulary instruction can also be greatly enhanced by giving students visuals to illustrate new words, appealing to visual learners and English Language Learners.
When and how do you show your class powerpoints?
I am frequently asked if I have a digital projector in my classroom. I do not. Projectors
In addition to showing powerpoints to the whole class when starting a new unit or teaching new vocabulary, I also allow students to revisit the powerpoints on the web site during Independent Work Time. This is an instant center which changes weekly with little to no prep. Even young students can be taught to navigate the web site to find their unit and story to view powerpoints. Reviewing the powerpoints independently in collaborative groups allows students to practice reading fluency and reinforce concepts you’ve taught at their own pace.
© 2007 by Mathew Needleman, Open Court Resources
Thanks for the information. we have 3 computers and we use them to show the vocabulary and powerpoints. We choose 3 students each week to click to change the slides. They love this. The rest of the students sit around the computers and watch. We don’t have an Apple labtop but that is great that it can be watched on TV.
Rose Lille
Smithfield Elementary, Charlotte NC
As always, outstanding information. Plus, it operates teacher friendly.
Highest regards,
Pat
If a person has a large monitor to mount where kids can see it (and
maybe an ordinary TV…I don’t know), there are cheap Ys available that
can take the signal from the computer and split it so it still goes to
your desktop and also to the mounted monitor. I use that when I want to
instruct the class from a computer.
Jerry
Teacher of English as a Second Language
Dry Hollow Elementary School