# data[].attributes.body
Starting camp we went in knowing minimal about the campers levels.  Using what I have learned from Kilpatrick and through the texts throughout my time at Drexel, I proposed different stations to encompass all the pieces of strong literacy instruction: phonics, comprehension, fluency, sight words and writing.  We worked as a team to create a schedule and determine roles for each of us.

# data[].attributes.body
After deciding on a theme of Folk Tales and Fairy Tales, with a lead into the Olympics for the last week, I searched the internet for the best resources and books for all different levels to get students engaged. Not knowing what level the students were at, and just having their grade level, I tried to select a range of books and supplies that would cover the range of abilities possible. Further detail of the materials and their use is available in the supply review paper.

# data[].attributes.body
From the very start of camp we wanted to really get to know our students so that we could play into their interests and better tailor our time together.  Starting out day one I worked to start forming those bonds with students that are crucial to create trusting relationships.  I started off camp by leading an ice breaker game two truths and a lie which the campers loved.  Although we didn't get to everyone that first day I was able to learn more in my small group sessions while other reading specialist were completing assessments.  I was able to create this quick fun activity to learn more about students from their favorite food, to movie.  We also started off the first few days of camp with questions which I created, ex: what is your favorite summer activity?  These small check in questions are a great way to start the morning and find out more about our students.

# data[].attributes.body
Throughout the literacy camp experience, I took the lead on creating the daily schedule plans, laid out in a grid, and was responsible for assigning the zoom groups for each session.  As camp went on and we were able to use the undergrads more effectively I would create the plan assigning each undergrad a time slot to lead activities and they would log in and put the game for the day in the google doc.  This platform is a great way for communication and sharing ideas easily between many people.  I also found it helpful to organize the daily schedule and be able to make adaptations like the schedule above for our author visit where we had to modify from four stations down to three.  Each day after camp I would create the next days schedule and share it out for others to edit.

# data[].attributes.body
Using the scholastic 3-minute assessment and trying to use my judgement on students grade levels and loss of learning this past year and a half, I selected grade level passages for each student to read. Looking through students reading rate, errors, pace/ expression and comprehension I worked to create groups based on similar skills students needed to work on.

# data[].attributes.body
I put the lowest students who had the most struggles with phonics and reading lower level words together, as they would need the most support. The students in group 2 had similar grade level reading and comprehension needs to work on. The third group of students was the group who were in or around 4th grade level reading and had the best fluency and comprehension. These were students that needed the highest level work and would need to be challenged. The final group originally only had Shiloh as she was much older than the other students and needed a lot of comprehension help. Dimi was originally in group 3, but I decided they could be a good match to work on comprehension together. As we learned more about the students during camp we decided to change up some of our groups to better meet the needs of the students.

# data[].attributes.body
In the middle of camp I decided to conduct another 3 minute reading assessment with the students to gage their progress and help regroup students. I used the same grade level tests as I did week one and gave them a different form of the test to be able to best compare progress. This also let me take some more data on what they could continue working on for the last week of camp.

# data[].attributes.body
As I continued to work with students and do a mid camp progress check in, I noticed that some of the groups might benefit from slight switches. We had a few campers join camp week 2 and as a group we decided to move around the students. I took the mid-camp check in fluency assessment I did and the observations I had from the first two weeks to regroup students. The first group stayed the same as these students were the lowest in grade level it and had similar needs it made sense to keep them together. Although Hasib was higher than Mason, they worked well as a pair and Hasib was a model to Mason. In the next group I decided to move Shiloh and Jon together as they were both readers who had poor retelling ability and struggled to keep good pacing and expression while reading. The last two groups were the "higher" level readers compared to the other students. I put Amber and Madison together as they were both around the same grade level reading and could work on similar phonics skills and they both had similar fluency abilities. The final group were our rockstar readers. These students had great comprehension, word reading and fluency and were the ones who needed an extra challenge. It is crucial to use data to inform instruction and this is one example where I really used that idea. I determined the students could be grouped better and then used the assessment and informal notes I had to create new ability groups.

# data[].attributes.body
Another activity we did for the first day of camp as a get to know you/ literacy game was a name acrostic. Working on this before getting to do assessments on students helped me to get a little insight on students needs off the bat. Seeing what they were able to encode and spell correctly on their own, as well as an insight to their vocabulary knowledge and knowledge of parts of speech. Overall this was a great first day activity that gave me some informal data on the students.

# data[].attributes.body
Everyday we tried to do some type of fun activity to welcome campers as they came at scattered times for the start of the morning. We split up leading mornings, and then passed off the responsibility to the undergrads the last week of camp. One opening activity I completed with students was what animal do you feel like. This is something I did with my students at the start and end of class this year and they loved it. In addition to the morning meeting we tried to do a closing story and then wrap up question to end the day. For this day I used the same meme as a check in/ end of day check out. Our campers had a fun silly side and really enjoyed this morning warm-up, and check out question.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the biggest pieces of instruction, especially with the lower students was working on sight words using the heart word methodology. Heart words philosophy is to teach students the irregular pieces of "sight words" in order to make orthographic mapping easier. Typically when teaching sight words it is about rote memorization, but Kilpatrick talked about the importance of using word study (phonics) to cement these words into memory. In most sight words/ irregular words the one thing that is irregular is the vowel. Using the heart word method students learn the phonics, sounding out the parts of the words that are phonetically regular and then learning about the vowel which makes an irregular sound. This is the piece they write twice to help it stick into memory. Overall students did a great job working through these words and reviewing them throughout camp. When selecting sight words, I tried to use word that had irregular patterns from the Dolch word test I did or words that would appear in the days reading.

# data[].attributes.body
Another big piece of the camp theme was folk tales. This was another chance for students to work on expression through a different lens. Students were able to work more on traditional story book reading and what fluency and expression should sound like here. With most groups I started off with modeling pointing out different pieces for students to notice based on observations I took. With one group I started out focusing on noticing dialogue and how to add expression based on different characters. Again I used different methods of modeling, choral reading, and repeated readings. For other groups I focused on noticing punctuation and pausing appropriate, speed of reading, and repeated readings to increase speed and expression.

# data[].attributes.body
Another large piece of my fluency station was working on readers theatre and completing scripts with my groups.  I was able to get a multitude of resources which went along with the fairytale theme of camp on a variety of levels, so each group was able to do at least one play.  I found with many of my groups, Jon and Shiloh in particular one big piece that was missing from their reading was expression.  I used a multitude of strategies from self reflection, modeling, high lighting punctuation and dialogue, and having them reread pieces to work on increasing expression.  Having these students work on reading scripts and trying to get them into character roles helped to increase their fluency over the course of camp.  I think modeling exaggerated expression for them to copy helped them to notice the difference in their reading and mine to improve their overall fluency.  Another thing that stuck out with this group was pacing.  Jon had a tendency to pause at unnatural places and Shiloh would pause before longer words.  Modeling how to go back and reread when stuck to smooth out their voices helped tremendously and by the end of camp they were going back to self correct and reread pieces on their own.  These plays also went really well with the theme as they correlated to the whole group fairytale read alouds we conducted.  It was great to show students different versions of the same story and show them other cultural representations of classic stories they may know.

# data[].attributes.body
Towards the last days of camp I completed another informal check in with students with a different type of fluency rubric to continue seeing what specific areas students needed to focus on. At the end of week two I had asked students to self reflect and give themselves a rating on their fluency performance and how they could improve to get a 4/4. Most students were harder on themselves than I expected and it was interesting to see what they thought about their own reading. This checklist helped me to see that most students had a good understanding of themselves, and from my daily feedback were able to pick up on things they could still improve.

# data[].attributes.body
For the final week of camp we had a focus on Olympics which led to more nonfiction stories were students could focus more on pace and prosody of their reading. With the highest group I was able to use pieces of a nonfiction Magic Treehouse book to give students background information on how the Olympics started. I felt this was a great challenge for them, learning some new vocabulary words and thinking about how to read like a "narrator." For the lower groups I was able to reading short nonfiction stories on Reading A-Z which we used to talk about the Olympics. Because these books were nonfiction and focused on different summer sports I was able to give students some choice to select the sections they were most interested in reading. We were able to work on phrasing and speed and learn how different types of stories require different reading voices.

# data[].attributes.body
For the last day of instruction at camp I tried to pull students again to get a final 3 minute assessment in most students, especially Shiloh made large gains compared to where they were at the start of camp. Seeing the progress they made in just three short weeks was amazing.

# data[].attributes.body
For the last day of camp we did a celebration for our students to end camp on a high note. We decided to create four stations and let students choose which activities they wanted to complete. For my station I decided to lead mad libs and 20 questions. I was able to use an app on my phone to complete a mad libs by having students fill in the type of speech. This was an activity that students really enjoyed, hearing the funny stories read aloud. If groups finished early we played a few rounds of 20 questions which was another game the students really enjoyed. I was able to poll students coming in during the morning and group students to receive at least two of the three stations they selected.

# data[].attributes.body
One of the most important pieces of teaching is family communication each week we worked together to send a newsletter to parents with up coming info and at home tips. For the end of camp we wanted to send home tips that correlated to each of our stations for parents to have activities for the remainder of the summer. We sent parents these tips as well as camper awards to show what student had worked on.