The Student Book of Knowledge

Students build their own book of Tier 1 and Tier 2 words

What is it?   The Student Book of Knowledge is a 58-page workbook that the students build throughout the year.  The great thing about this workbook is that the students actually do ALL the work, not just fill in a few blanks per page like other workbooks. To build their book:

Student Book of Knowledge	The New Book of Knowledge
Student Work Book	This book gives you the pictures, lists, and suggestions to help your students build their workbook. Sneak-a-peek inside

• They complete a Table of Contents throughout the year as they build their book;
  
  
• They sketch or trace up to 44 common objects and label their parts;
  
  
• They write hundreds of semantic associations for the objects they drew;
  
  
• They record wise sayings and common expressions and what they mean.
  

Why have each child build their own book?

• It gives them pride of ownership for a book that took them months or even a whole year to complete
  
  
• They experience the drawing and labeling themselves (better for retaining the information)
  
  
• It is evidence of their learning;
  
  
• It is bound, so later you can go back and add more labels to support other lessons. (Ex: spelling lesson about plurals;  hoof –– go back to the horse page and add hooves);
  
  
• It gives them a huge bank of specific nouns to help them comprehend what they read and to make their writing more interesting and descriptive.

To View and Save Your Free Workbook - Click on Button (Close workbook window to return to this site)

To get started:

1. Print and bind a book for each student and one for you, or put in  3-prong folders with clear covers.  Binding it makes it seem more like a real book.
   
   
2. Explain that they will be building their very own Book of Knowledge.  Show them some pictures in The New Book of Knowledge or Family Learning Time so they’ll see how important it looks.
   
   
3. Model filling out the cover with your name (explain the apostrophe s).
   
   
4. Students fill out the cover with their names.
   
   
5. Model filling out the Title Page with your name as author, illustrator, and don’t forget the year and your name as copyright holder.
   
   
6. Students fill out their Title Page.
   
   
7. Explain the following:
   
   
   1. They must be precise when adding entries to their Student Book of Knowledge
      
      
      1. Write labels on the horizontal
         
         
      2. Spell all words correctly
         
         
      3. Draw lines carefully, barely touching the part being labeled (they like doing that)
         
   2. They must keep their book in class until you send it home at the end of the year.  (Keep them accessible to the students, but not in their desks.)

How to build their books: (Most teachers teach one object per week)

1. After reading a story in your reading series or as a read aloud that features a certain object (Ex. horse), you will explicitly teach that object and its parts. You can do this in a variety of ways: by showing the picture of the object on the ELMO and labeling its parts (see Appendix A in The New Book of Knowledge); drawing and labeling the object on the board; or showing and discussing the object and its parts in guided reading groups. (See suggestions below)
   
   
2. The students can either draw in their books and label while you are teaching it, or draw and label in a vocabulary center. (See The Book of Knowledge Vocabulary Center book at www.makereadingfirst.com for center ideas and ready to use materials.)
   
   
3. Also discuss semantic associations for the object (Ex:  where a horse stays – barn, stall, corral, ranch, etc;  what a horse eats; how it moves- walks, trots, gallops, bucks…; what sounds it makes, etc). You write the semantic associations and the students copy it on the back of their previous entry. So the semantic associations and the object with labels are on facing pages. By adding semantic associations, you will be building background knowledge of the object and giving the students the words they need to think, talk, and write about the object. Also, they will understand more when they read about it. (Hundreds of semantic associations are included in The New Book of Knowledge teacher resource book.)
   
   
4. A couple of times a week, put a common expression on the board and discuss its meaning and when it might be used.  Model adding the expression and meaning to the back of your copy of the Student Book of Knowledge.  Students copy into their books. (The New Book of Knowledge includes over 100 common expressions listed so you don’t have to think of them.  Of course you will think of others to add)

To make this concept effective, you must:

• revisit the entries often (for ideas see The Book of Knowledge Vocabulary Center at http:/www.makereadingfirst.com
  
  
• manipulate the information in different ways (for ideas see The Book of Knowledge Vocabulary Center);
  
  
• have students use the object and labels in their writing (see The New Book of Knowledge for mini-lessons and suggested activities for using Book of Knowledge entries to improve writing)

Suggestions and more information:

Sometimes before teaching an object I activate my students prior knowledge. We make a semantic web using one color marker.  Then at the end of the week, we add our new knowledge to the web using a different color marker.  It’s amazing to see how much they’ve learned!

Looking for everything you’ll need to help your students build their own book all in one place?  The New Book of Knowledge is a wonderful resource for you.  It has over 50 objects with parts labeled, over 100 common expressions, mini-lessson ideas for using your students’ Book of Knowledge entries to improve writing, over 100 additional entry ideas, a list of books for each object, a list of semantic associations for each object, and ELMO friendly pictures - without labels.

You could actually have students use a 1-subject spiral notebook or the black and white composition book as their Student Book of Knowledge, but they seem to like drawing or tracing on plain paper instead.  That is understandable.  That’s why I created this official Student Book of Knowledge.

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