Almost There...

The past several Tuesdays I have been just a little worried about how all of this would come together and how I would one day use all the skills we have learned to create a classroom that would flow smoothly and permit learning for all of my students.  Chapter 12 of Classrooms that Work really helped with this!  Laying out a day in the classroom allowed me to see how all the skills that I have learned will one day culminate to create a learning environment for children.  Some important concepts that chapter 12 emphasized included explaining to students why we read and write, using and activating background knowledge, phonemic awareness, some concrete words, letter names and sounds, and most importantly a desire to read and write. I think that all the subjects utilize reading, even math and so it is so important that our students are learning and perfecting their reading skills to the best of their ability. The Pinnell article also emphasizes putting teacher theory into action--to do this teachers must read aloud daily, engage in student workshops, make sure students write every day, teach vocabulary daily, and surround instruction with oral language (and think alouds).  I really enjoyed these articles and they really made me feel more comfortable about having my own classroom one day--and really we are all almost there!

How do you feel about these articles and basing your future class room around the techniques and ideas mentioned? 

How do you feel, in general, about organizing your classroom one day?  

Real Life Inquiry

For my real life inquiry I visited an elementary school during interventions (or small groups) for a fifth grade class.  The teacher took a group of five students into a small room while an assistant worked with the rest of the class.  When the five students came in the first thing they did was a timed reading activity.  One at a time the students read a passage based on previous reading skills tests and they were graded on accuracy.  I am not so sure I really liked the students working on this activity in the room together because while one student was reading, the other students were talking about who had the best score and other things that were not related to reading at all.  After the students were finished with their timed readings they were all given a book and they took turns reading aloud, on words they didn't know the teacher would help them.  The teacher also worked on some think aloud activities so the students could talk about what they thought about the book as they were reading, but they did not do any predictions or picture walking.

I really enjoyed the interventions that the students participated in, and I think it is something that I would like to use in my class room one day if the resources were available.  

I really liked the read aloud and think aloud sections of the activity, and I think it greatly benefited the students.  Things I would have improved about the interventions would be some way to keep the students occupied while their fellow student was reading.  Another thing I would change is for the students to do a project and teach the rest of the class about the book the students read together (like we talked about in our class)--I really like this idea and think it enhances the reading experience and comprehension.  I think that my experience really epitomized a lot of what we have learned and read about in class this past week on guided reading and groups.   

Do you think that this is a useful tool in a classroom?

What would you add to make a classroom more interesting during reading interventions?   

Tips to Making a Challenge a Little Less Challenging

The article on guided reading that I found was about issues with "challenging" texts.  The article stated that students who work with books that are too challenging may be able to get through the book, but they compromise their reading process--and if reading is fragmented or uneven during guided reading it is very likely that students will transfer these inefficiencies to their independent reading time.  The article suggested that teachers should increase their sensitivity to readers who are distressed with challenging texts and  ask questions to assess reader distress.

I think that it is very important for teachers to choose texts that are appropriate for students, there is a fine line between too challenging and too easy, and as teachers we have to choose our texts wisely.  The article I read gave some really good websites to visit such as ReadWriteThink.org which has tons of resources for aspiring teachers.  

Here are some handy tips to decide if a text is too difficult:  Students are off task, nervous, or engaged in inappropriate behavior, students read haltingly, the lesson takes more than 15-20 minutes, the teacher has to support all readers and cannot shift attention to one student or has no time to make notes about the lesson, and the teacher is tired from extensive explanations. 

Some handy tips for a text that is just right include: students are focused, students sound like good readers most of the time (with occasional stops to problem solve), the lesson lasts 15-20 minutes, the teacher makes notes about guided reading session, and the teacher is quiet and listening for much of the session.

A classroom operating on a guided reading session where the text is just right for the students is most certainly a more organized and learning enhancing classroom, can you think of any other suggestions to make a guided reading session work for students?  Have you ever been in or observed a class where the text was too hard for the students?  How did the classroom work or operate?

The Extravagance and Intricacy needed to Assimilate Jargon

Vocabulary is so very important. Vocabulary Lessons: Educational leadership by Blanchowitz and Fisher gave a lot of helpful and interesting ways in which teachers can expose their students to vocabulary which will ultimately create successful readers and educated students.  One example of a way to emerge students into vocabulary words would be by letting students "play with the words" while simultaneously creating a love for words.  I believe it is very important for students to have fun at school and dare I say love school!?  Playing with words allows students to understand how words work and "when learning is fun students become interested in words and see them as objects they can use and examine."  I think that many games could be used in a classroom setting to make reading fun and interesting such as Bananagrams, Scrabble, and even creating words out of bigger words. 
All of the articles seemed to have the same opinion about the importance of vocabulary to young students, The Lane and Allen article "The Vocabulary Rich Classroom" took a similar stance claiming that having a high vocabulary is extremely important and can be a future predictor of reading comprehension, reading performance, and future school achievement.  One of my favorite ideas for expanding vocabulary that I have come across is a word wall.  I think that every teacher should have a word wall to help students with difficult vocabulary words.  Word walls could be used in any situation during any subject matter--history, math, science, English, or even just for vocabulary purposes!

 I wonder if learning vocabulary is as important for older students?

Also, do you think it would be a good idea for each student to have their own personal work wall? (Maybe on the inside of a folder--that way during class activities they could make their own word wall but also have a classroom word wall). 

I don't think I ever realized just how important learning vocabulary is! I think sometimes it is easy to forget that reading is a process built out of many steps, and we must always put ourselves into the mindset of the students as future teachers in order to create students who are ready and able to go into the world and better themselves!  After all, sometimes even experienced readers come across with unfamiliar vocabulary, like in my title!   

Comprehending Comprehension

"Kindergarteners can do it too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers" was an extremely interesting article and gave future teachers an insight on how to incorporate subject material that is generally for older students into a classroom of younger students.  I thought that the methods of this article were extremely interesting.  I have read to children before and was unsure what to do about their inquisitive nature while I was trying to read.  This article suggests using a method that will get the students involved and get their cognitive gears going.   Students were instructed to make a "C" shape with their fingers if they had a connection to share, a "V" shape if they had a visualization and to wave their index finger if they had a question.  Not only does this method allow for open discussion, it gets students thinking about things in a rather sophisticated manner.  How do you think this would work in a classroom?  I believe it would be very beneficial in a classroom setting because it would keep the students from blurting out things and would also be somewhat challenging for a younger group.  

The Gill article, "The Comprehension Matrix" was also a very interesting article.  It detailed on how many resources are available for teachers to use, however, what we often see is the resources collecting dust.  It is very important to remember that new and improved ways of teaching are always out there for teachers to use and we must continually update our information.  Comprehension is one topic that Gill says is extremely difficult.  Comprehension, according to Gill's definition includes schema theory, transactional theory, and constructivist theory.  Gill gives the comprehension matrix as a way to help students with their reading, they include: prereading, during reading activities, and post reading activities.  This is a "Reading Comprehension Song" that could be used with younger students (and this website has a lot of other fun songs to make teaching more interactive).  Although teaching comprehension can be a difficult task to take on, we can certainly master the task with methods and ultimately have students who comprehend comprehension.

Discovering Words

Making words has been proven to be a powerful activity because there are endless opportunities for students to experiment and play with the newly emerging language they are learning. This method allows for slow or fast learners to be activity involved in a challenging activity.  I really liked the ideas for creating a classroom environment where all students could actively participate, and the possibilities for word making are endless.  Using this method in the classroom allows for a very interactive classroom: students interact with one another and the teacher interacts as well.  The article also gave insight on how to create a lesson using "making words."  Some of the suggestions include what letters to use when starting the activity, telling students which letter to change, adding letters to make another word, and even choosing words that rhyme or have similar meanings.  

The "Ten Important Words Plus" program is also very interesting.  This method prompts students to actively engage with the ideas and language of a text as they read.  By using context the students have multiple exposures to words such as reading them, writing them, talking about them, and even thinking about them in alternative ways. 

I thought that these articles were very interesting and they gave a lot of good suggestions that I think I would like to use in my classroom one day.  The activities seem fun and high pace in some cases, which would be good for many of the students.  Do you think the ideas given in the articles are good, do you think they could be enhanced in any way?  What other methods can you think of to make reading and writing fun for students of all learning abilities? 

Teacher as Coach

I thought that the articles for this week were very interesting.  It seems like an age old thing to tell students to "sound it out," however the articles and the book gave me a considerable amount of insight into how much work actually goes into the instruction of teaching phonics and spelling patterns.  It takes a lot of practice for teachers to be able to coach students to sound out words effectively.  The Clark article "What Can I Say Besides 'Sound it Out?'" gave some really good suggestions as to how to help students who are struggling with certain words.  One good example of this would be the word "wind."  When a student comes to this word and struggles, instead of saying "sound it out" a teacher could ask what they already know about the word, "in" says in, so from there the student could independently figure the rest of the word out and use the same clues next time they stumbled upon a word they are unfamiliar with.
Teaching phonics could be made into something very fun in the classroom.  When I was in school we learned phonics on the computer, and that was not fun and required little effort on the students part, however teaching a class phonemic awareness could be a group effort and should be something the students look forward to.  The Yopp and Yopp article gave some ideas for the classroom that made phonics into fun games.  One thing I thought a classroom of young readers might enjoy was the section about the book "Tikki Tikki Tembo" where the students clap to the syllables of the characters names.  This is a very fun book and really calls for students to sound out the words because they are words we don't see much.
I have always known that phonics are important for young readers to understand, yet I have often pondered how to help a student read other than saying "sound it out."  These articles gave a lot of insight on alternative ways to help students.  Can you think of any other ways or techniques that might work in a classroom of new readers?
As future teachers we need to always cater to our students needs, this doesn't mean we give them all the answers when they are unsure, but rather lead and coach them into the right direction.    

Creating Fluent Readers through Endurance

Fluency is defined by four major components: accuracy, rate or speed, prosody, and comprehension--but one very important concept is left out in much research about fluency: endurance.  What I gathered from the One-Minute-Measures was that they seem to be very similar to standardized testing, which is a controversial topic in the education arena today, but if it is used correctly it can create huge results and can be very beneficial to a teacher.  The article emphasized, it is extremely important for us as teachers to understand WHY students are not fluent readers.  What I found most interesting about the "One Minute Measure" article was the assessment of endurance.  After all, endurance is something that we are all familiar with and I think it is also something that many elementary students could relate to, especially considering that reading is something very new to many of them, and getting the hang of it will take much patience and endurance.  Some suggestions for incorporating fluency and endurance were increasing atomicity, decreasing readability levels, reading interesting texts, increasing reading volume, increasing expectations, rereading books, and increasing involvement of parents and caregivers.

 Fluency has been proven to be a major factor in student reading success.  The second article emphasized the importance of students hearing what fluent reading sounds like.  I think that one of the most difficult things about becoming a teacher is remembering that reading fluency is something that is learned, and as teachers it is our responsibility to equip students with the proper skills to learn to read fluently and be comfortable in a reading environment.  Both articles suggest that teachers use assisted reading and repeated reading.  How do you think a class would respond to reading the same book over and over? A few weeks ago I observed a classroom where repeated reading was implemented and the students became bored of the book and they were very reluctant to pay attention and follow along.  Can you think of any way that you could make repeated reading fun while also improving students reading fluency?          

Out with the Old and in with the New

Doing away with the traditional style of learning to read by having a "letter of the week" may seem like a difficult task for many longtime teachers, however the benefits that come from this technique can create lasting advantages for students learning to read.  I have often pondered on how to approach teaching students how to read.  In the article on the first day of school the teacher asked the students if they knew how to read, no one raised their hand.  After holding up some things they have been exposed to in every day life such as restaurant logos and movies and asking the question again, the whole class raised their hands saying that they could read!  I think the idea of creating an alphabet board with the students pictures under the letters to allow for the students to relate the letters something is an awesome idea and it is definitely something that I would like to incorporate in my class room one day. Can you think of any other methods that might useful in a classroom of students who are just learning to read?

The second article details on a myriad of topics, one I found interesting is the great changes that the education system is facing today, where there is such a difference between levels of knowledge.  For example, students who have been in preschool are much more likely to be more advanced than the students who have not been exposed to other children in a classroom setting. I currently teach a class at my church and I am faced with students who are high achieving as well as low achieving, and it is a huge challenge to assure that both types of children get equal opportunities to learn and grow.How do you think a teacher could face such diversities and still give all of the students an equal opportunity to learn?

As future teachers, we must remember that we should always have a good knowledge base of reading theory and practice because it is ever changing and most of all, we must be patient with our students, after all, "reading is not dancing on top of words.  It is grasping the soul of them," and as teachers this can be a very difficult and time consuming task, however at educators of the future it is our duty to inspire our future students and this can begin with a good foundation in reading.

Creating a Legacy Through Reading

The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy  was a very interesting piece of work.  It emphasizes the importance of encouraging reading through mediums other than school, such as promotion of reading through family.  The Jones family culture and traditions on emphasizing the importance of reading are a perfect example of how a family should go about when they are trying to create a "reader."  The article shows that the Jones family uses many different outlets to enhance reading and writing, which I found very interesting.  The Jones family reads books, magazines, newspapers, and even recipes--all mediums which show that reading can be diverse, fun, and something that often times can require some sort of action.  For example, some members of the Jones family read magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, and then used some of the suggestions in the articles to decorate their house.  Newspaper articles were used to connect with members of the community in times of sorrow and celebrations as well. Writing is also encouraged in the Jones family through letters to each other. The Jones family used financial situations and spiritual outlets as an opportunity to read as well.  The article says that "encouraging children to pursue education and preparing children for the uses of literacy that they will encounter in school are understood as parents' primary responsibility," however this is not always the case and oftentimes school and help from teachers are the only times students are exposed to reading.

The Jones family seems to be the ideal family when it comes to contributing to a culture of literacy, however this is not always the case, and the article gives many tips and pointers to teachers so they can attempt to create homes with cultures of literacy.  The article suggests that teachers should "be careful listeners and take advantage of those moments when they see parents...to learn how families interact around literacies and what they value."  The article suggested many ways in which educators can find out about the literacy cultures of families such as asking questions in the form of a "Family Cultures of Literacy" questionnaire consisting of items such as "what kind of books do you have in your home?" or "what do you like to read?" This gets students thinking about how much they read and why it is important.  This article really opened my eyes and made me realize that I must communicate with my future students and get an idea of where they are coming from (literally) in order to be the best teacher that I can be! After all, it is very important to create classrooms and be teachers who encourage students to be the best that they can be while promoting further education and success--and to do this we must encourage students to create a legacy of literacy first.