Week 11

Assessment

This week I read an article by Rog and Burton discussing the importance of matching children to their correct reading levels and finding books for them on those levels. The article stated many important things, one of which was that a book cited as a level three book, or a book for third grade cannot possibly meet the needs of every student on a third grade reading level. A child just entering third grade is not as advanced a reader as a child halfway through third grade. Children should be able to read 90-95% of the words on a page easily for that book to be considered on their level. Leveling books is a difficult task, but there are a few key things that one needs to pay attention to when doing so. These details include:

1. the length of the book

2. the appearance and placement of text on a page

3. support offered by the illustrators

4. familiarity of subject matter

5. predictability

6. proportion of familiar words to those that are unfamiliar

This is a picture of the Treasures leveled readers that I have seen used this semester in an elementary school I spent time in. 

• Do you remember reading leveled readers in elementary school?

• If you used them, was it during small group instruction? Do you remember if your teacher kept track of your progress or guided you to which level you were to read?

Week 10

Guided Reading 

In an article titled, Modified Guided Reading: Gateway to English as a Second Language and Literacy Learning the authors Avalos, Plasencia, Chavez, and Rascon discuss the importance and benefits of using guided reading programs with ELLs. One of the most important things the authors said to consider was the reading level of the child when reading in their first language. It is important to know at what stage the child performs, so that the teacher can determine the child's understanding of what literacy is. If the child is a fluent reader in their first language, they are at an advantage when facing the English language because they understand the steps to becoming literate. Guided reading is so beneficial to ELLs because it provides individualized instruction and further exposure to language. For teachers, guided reading is structured and provides a great way to track progress. Below are some charts that provide a visual outline of the difference in traditional guided reading and modified guided reading for ELLs. 

• Other than working with ELLs, what do you think is another huge problem that teachers face when trying to use guided reading in classrooms?
• Do you think pairing students with learners of their same reading level is beneficial or harmful for their progress to become better readers?

Week 9

Gaining a Sophisticated Vocabulary 

 The Vocabulary Rich Classroom, an article written by Holly B. Lane and Stephanie Arriasza Allen discusses ways to introduce sophisticated language in the classroom. Students can learn mature vocabulary words incidentally when the teacher models their use on a daily basis. One part of the article I liked was the section on, "The Weather Watcher". A kindergarten teacher exposed her students to new vocabulary during circle time each day. She assigned students to classroom jobs. At the beginning of the year, one of the jobs was "zookeeper" and soon the title of that job changed to "animal nutritionist". To new kindergarteners, it was "cold outside". Seasoned kindergartens described the cooler weather as, "brisk". I think modeling sophisticated vocabulary is a great way to teach new words because it shows the student when and where a word is appropriate to be used. Repetitive use of sophisticated words will help students remember them and encourage them to use the words themselves. It is important to start off with the easy words and gradually move to words they might not have heard so that they can make the connection and build that bridge to a more educated word. Increased vocabulary will only benefit students in the long run with any form of reading comprehension. Vocabulary is also an important element of guided reading.

This is a screenshot of words that can be introduced in the classroom to build vocabulary knowledge.

In the sixth grade, my teacher used to use words ALL the time that were unfamiliar to me. One word that will always stick with me is behoove. She used that and other words frequently and they just stuck. 

• Does anyone remember a teacher who used sophisticated language purposefully and tactfully? 

Week 8

Comprehension and Think-Aloud

The article Kindergarteners Can Do it, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers was inspiring and so creative. Mrs. Hope taught heavy comprehension strategies to such young children. She taught them how to be smart readers by breaking down the text. They learned what schema are, how to continually ask questions while reading, and also how to visualize and then express the mental images they have while reading. Mrs. Hope explained these concepts explicitly and on a level that the little ones understood and embraced. The kids were taught how to raise their hands to represent what they wanted to share. I think that idea is awesome and can be applied to all instances when a child raises their hand in class. They could use a "B" in sign language to ask to go to the bathroom and not interrupt class. I really took away a lot from this article. I had a "wondering":

• Does anyone remember clever ideas like this that their teachers used to introduce BIG concepts to you when you were very small?

Real-Life Reading Inquiry

This past Wednesday, I spent time in a kindergarten classroom of an elementary school located in downtown Knoxville. For my inquiry, I chose to focus on a reading lesson that covered rhyming. The lesson itself was actually taught using the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", which was great because it was something that we've read about previously. Using nursery rhymes are great to use for small children because they rhyme (obviously), are familiar, and they are funny. I know that the teacher of this class introduces a new poem at the beginning of the week, they place a copy of the poem in their "poetry journals", and each day they reread the poem together (rereading has also been encouraged in multiple places in our past readings). One day they go through and find their letters of the week, the next day they look for the rhyming endings, and so on and so forth until the poem has been dissected completely by the end of the week. Typically, the kids have it memorized by this point too. 

This activity kept them engaged and they were happily singing the rhyme together. Seeing it implemented in person was very helpful for me, and if I end up teaching little ones like that in the future, I will most certainly use this activity. The rhyme was written in large, clear letters on a huge notepad that was visible to all of the students. As the poem was read, a pointer tool was used to point to each word as it was read to help the kids follow along. The teacher made her return sweep exaggerated as well. All of these techniques that were used to read the poem were necessary because these children could not read and would just be looking at the text blindly if the teacher had not modeled how to read the poem. To further the kids' understanding of the nursery rhyme, the teacher opened up the interactive website called Starfall online, and played the video version of the rhyme. I though this aspect essential because kindergartens have no idea what things like "sixpence" or "rye" are, and adding a visual helps them put it all together. In addition, the video was funny and had the children laughing, which I think should be something that happens all the time...making learning fun. 

Week 7

Fluency 

Before this week's readings, I knew that I was a fluent reader, but I did not know the exact characteristics that defined a fluent reader, nor did I know specific activities to create fluent readers. Fluency, according to Classrooms that Work is fast, expressive reading. In the article, "Creating Fluent Reading", fluency is comprised of four elements:

1. expression and volume

2. phrasing

3. smoothness

4. pace

To be a fluent reader, one must possess all of these skills PLUS comprehension of whatever was just read. From the readings I chose three activities that I plan to use in my classroom to improve fluency in my students... 

1. I will use poems, dialogues, jokes, and riddles as fun pieces of work to have my students read aloud to their classmates. 

2. Coral reading is something I remember from school. You divide up characters in a book and assign their parts to students in the class. This encourages the children to read creatively using different voices for different characters.

3. Echo reading is a great idea to use with younger-aged children.

 This is an example our text gave as a good book to be used for echo reading.

What I would like to know is...What memories do you have of becoming a fluent reader growing up? Did your teachers have you read poems or be the narrator of the story you were reading as a class?

Week 6

10 Important Words

This article explaining the activity called 10 important words made some great points. There are many words that we can identify and ones that we know in context, but there are much less words that we use daily and the types of words that we use change depending on the environment that we're in (with friends v in the classroom). The more experiences with written language, the better because that type of exposure develops vocabulary more than conversation can. Ten Important Words is an activity that can be used in the classroom to help students permanently acquire new vocabulary. This activity is so successful because it requires students to be interactive with the ten words they select from any text they read. The class as a whole creates a graph of all the words each student selects from the text. The class talks about the words using questions like, "What do these words have to do with the topic of the text?" "Why do you think these words were selected?" I really liked the extension of the strategy that requires the students to break off into groups based on colored cards. The activities the students have to do based on what color card they receive, help solidify the word to memory and its meaning, and also how that words works in the context of the story. The students have been actively engaged in each of the words selected, so they will most likely remember them.

taken from Google

Week 5

Coaching Word Recognition

I really like the Using Words You Know lesson in Chapter 5. You start out with four words that the students are familiar with and you place them on a chart. From there, you explain that words that rhyme usually have the same spelling pattern. Each student comes up to the chart and adds a new word under a preexisting word that rhymes. After a long list of 10 or 12 words has been added under each original word, you explain to students that rhyming is a great tool to help them spell since words that rhyme are often spelled alike. This I thought, was a good activity to get all students involved and to show them that they know more words than they think, and also that those words are related in some way. This section of the chapter helped me to brush up on my rhyming skills. 


 

some of the best books to teach rhyming and language in a fun way

I also liked the Nifty-Thrify-Fifty Words. The English language is "morphologically complex" meaning that for every one word you know, you can figure out how to spell, decode, or build meanings for at least six or seven more words. Words in the English language can be chunked and from those chunks, one can interpret meaning. For example, the word discover...dis usually changes the meaning of the word to the opposite, cover means to hide, so when you dis-cover, you un-hide. That makes sense right?

Week 4

Emergent Literacy 

Phonemic Awareness & Phonics

The articles that we read for this week made some great points and suggestions regarding literacy in children and how to go about getting them excited about reading and writing. The first article that I read titled, Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices made a great point about today's definition of proficiency literacy. It stated that before, much communication was over the phone or in person. Now, everything seems to be electronic thus, communication through writing is an essential skill for children to develop. 

The second article, Letting Go of the Letter of the Week made yet another great point. Children enter school with all different levels of exposure to literacy. To give kids the confidence to start reading in class, the article suggested taking pictures of each child and placing that picture below the letter that matches the first letter in their name. This makes these letters more familiar to the children and they can refer back to their friend's names and the sounds the letters in their names make as references to sounding out other words. Michael starts with "M" and so does monkey. Also, sometimes children are hesitant to write because they feel that what they produce is "chicken scratch"; they believe don't know how to write because their handwriting does not resemble their parents or other adults around them. One idea to build their confidence is showing examples of different handwriting, some messy and some neat. Explain that everyone has their own way of writing and communicating.

The last article that I read, Supporting Phonemic Awareness, emphasized bringing fun and play into the classroom. Story telling, words games, rhymes, and riddles are all ways of incorporating phonological awareness into the classroom in stimulating. Games that were suggested include Down by the Bay and Going on a Word Hunt. Classic nursery rhymes are also great tools to use with children in Kindergarten and 1st grade.

CHECK OUT THE LINK:

 nursery rhymes to promote phonological awareness

all images were taken off Google

Week 3

Definition of Reading

The article we read about the Jones' focused on the role that literacy played within their community and their family. A metaphor was created between their literacy history and what is contained in Kiki's "backpack" as she headed to school each day. I thought it interesting that "literacy" included reading the newspaper, verses from the Bible, and even things like creating budgets and applying for loans and also how that all connects to Kiki's exposure to literature through the environment that surrounds her. I think the main idea to take from this article is to understand that each child in my future classes is going to come from a different background with different experiences and exposures to literature. It is important as teachers, to get an idea of the environment in which their students were raised and live currently so as to better teach them and relate to them. Making learning relate to each student is a great tool to get them interested and invested in their education. As a teacher, I am not going to have a group of homogeneous kids that are all the same; some families will love to read and share that love with their children and other families might not read at all. That is why it is important to determine what individual children carry in their "backpack" to school. This will help guide the way I introduce literature in my classroom. 

Chapter 3 from Classrooms that Work pointed out a universal aspect of children's literacy history: labels. Cereal boxes, fast food restaurants, clothing, and toys all have labels or ads that children are most likely exposed to before entering school. An activity can be made out of these labels; the children may feel that they do not have much experience with reading, but I could use these everyday labels as example of collections of words that they can recognize and can identify easily. These labels and ads are part of what each child carries in their "backpack" when they enter school.

Images were taken off Google.

Week 1 & 2

 Creating Classrooms That Work & Enthusiastic, Independent Readers

 I would have to say that so far this semester, all of the readings that I have been assigned for class have been excited. Especially the first two chapters of Classrooms That Work, written by Cunningham and Allington. The first chapter focuses on what separates the most effective teachers' classrooms from the less affective teachers' classroom. Some of the major characteristics I thought were important included:

• creating classrooms that have caring and positive environments, where discipline issues are taken care of quickly and quietly
• making sure there is a high level of student engagement
• teachers should have high, but realistic expectations of their kids and monitor their progress regularly
• skills are taught explicitly and related to reading and writing
• self regulation is modeled and expected 
• reading was a constant throughout the day and books are everywhere 

 

“Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.”

― Maya Angelo

The second chapter talked about getting children motivated to start reading and to continue reading more than just in the classroom. Reading aloud is highly encouraged. After finishing this chapter I will make it a point to share interesting things I have read with my kids weekly and also make sure to have such an enthusiastic attitude about reading. Scheduling individual meetings with a few kids during quiet reading time each day is such a great idea. I see one-on-one individual attention as a way to not only make sure every child is growing and progressing in their reading, but also a way to just connect with each child on an individual level. Being "real" and having strong relationships with students is so beneficial and essential.