How To Make Spiral Review Work In Your Classroom
Spiral ELA review is an important component in the classroom. As we all know, more exposure to standards and skills, particularly difficult ones, is helpful to students. More exposure and more practice helps them understand, remember, and apply their knowledge and new learning. You can read about how I spiral math review here.
The Power Of Review
Think about it this way: You sit down to learn a new language. You’ve never heard this language before. Ever. You learn a few words in a ten minute lesson, then you do a little bit of independent work with it that day. Then, you don’t do anything with that information for a couple weeks. Do you think you will remember those words that you learned? Probably not. If you do, you might not remember them well. So, why do we expect this of our kids? I don’t think any of us do, but I think there are many factors out there that make us teach kids this way (that’s a different soapbox that I’m sure many of us could get into, but that’s another day…).
When you offer your kids the chance to practice, they are going to get that opportunity to truly understand and master a concept. You are also giving those students who didn’t quite understand the first time the opportunity to grow through every lesson and review you offer them.
A True Form Of Spiral Review
When you plan to do true review, make sure it’s content that every student has been exposed to. With some lessons, you may need to completely reteach the content. With other concepts, you may just need to quickly review short pieces or highlights. Some students may not need another lesson while others do. You have to plan accordingly and know your students.
When Should You Use It?
I am fully aware that we just don’t have enough time for all the things throughout the day. Time is a factor when thinking of when to fit in review. I made it super easy to fit in some review with these ELA Journals. By using journals, they’re easily and readily available to the kids to use when you need them. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s effective. I loved using these journals for reviewing reading, writing, and grammar. I could review reading, writing, or grammar content this way. Students could keep their journals in their desk and pull it out when it was time to review. I used this as morning work, but sometimes pulled them out during reading if I felt students were needing a review.
The great thing about ELA Journals is that you can use them whenever you would like! Here are some different suggestions:
- Morning Work
- Reading/Writing Centers
- Early Finishers
- Daily Warm-Up
- Closing of a lesson
- Homework
See What I Use To Review ELA Content
The first grade ELA Journal has content that is covered in the common core state standards. Click the link below to take you to the ELA Journal.
