I found the readings for this week to be very informative as a future teacher. I think before most prospective teachers actually get into their own classroom, they don't have a ton of experience or knowledge on leveling texts for their readers or using running records. We can learn and practice all about it in class, but I think the majority of our learning will come from actually doing it ourselves in the classroom. Before reading the article "Matching texts and readers" by Lori Jamison Rog and Wilfred Burton, I had no idea how the leveling process worked. This article really gave me insight on exactly how to go about it. It is a lot more detailed than I originally thought. In my mind, there were 3 levels - below grade, on-grade, and above. That's how I thought leveling readers to texts were done. This article showed me that there are many more things that go into matching the appropriate text with a reader. Things such as the length of the book, appearence of print on a page, amount of support offered by illustrations, complexity of subject matter, and the portion of unique words. These are all things that you don't really think of right off the bat. I really enjoyed this article, and it gave me a headstart on being smart about leveling texts with my future students.
The running records book was also very informative, and is something that can definitely be used as a resource during my teaching career. I have heard of running records used by teachers before, but honestly had no clue what it was. I like how it broke it down for you and showed you exactly what to do in each situation (repetition, omission, self correction). This is a great resource that I think every prospective teacher should have. I also really enjoyed the exercises we did in class with the book. It was hard to keep up while listening to the child read - but it made me realize, again, that while it's beneficial for us to be learning all of these things now, we are going to have to pracitice more as we get our own students, and it will get easier with time.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Guided Reading
I have always been curious about guided reading, and how exactly it works in the classroom. The article I chose is called "Guided reading: Who is in the driver's seat?" by Susan Kidd Villaume and Edna Greene Brabham. This title really stuck out to me, and made me curious to know the current trends on guided reading.
The article opened with numerous questions that teachers at every grade leve ask. "Should basals, children's literature, or decodable texts be used? Should grouping be homogeneous or hetergoeneous? Should instruction be systematic o responsive? Should students reawd orrally or silently?" (Villaume/Brabham 260). The article explains that the answer to all of these questions is "Yes!" The main idea of the article is that teachers are starting to lose sight of the purposes of guided reading, by trying to do it "right" all of the time. There really is no right way to do guided reading. It is all based on your students various levels and needs. The article gives many useful techniques and strategies to use in the classroom to ensure that our students are the ones in the driver's seat during guided reading.
One example given was in a second grade classroom. Before reading a book, the teacher encouraged the children to look through the pictures and discuss their knowledge and ideas related to the text. For older students, the teacher asked them to flip through the text and talk about what they noticed. They were able to partake in discussions based on the title, illustrations, names of the chapters, and bold print to make connections.
One second grade example really stuck out to me, because it is something I would never think to do. First, the teacher began by having the students look at the pictures and describe what they thought the text was about. The children were quick to talk about what they noticed (two different types of dinosaurs - a plant eater, and a meat eater). The teacher wanted to dig a little deeper, so she pulled out a Venn diagram. The students remained in the driver's seat, as they discussed what was similar and different about the two dinosaurs. To remind students they need to also think about similarities, the teacher simply pointed to the middle of the Venn diagram without saying a word. The students thought for a moment, and one quickly blurted out a similarity. I thought this example was really cool, because you can clearly see that along with some scaffolding, the students are in the driver's seat the entire time. They are doing all of the thinking, questioning, and discussions without any input from the teacher. "From observations like this, we learned that graphic organizers are powerful conversational scaffolds even when we do not write on them. We discovered that just pointing (often silently) to different parts of familiar graphic organizers such as Venn diagrams, K-W-L charts, and word maps provides subtle but sufficient prompts to keep students in the driver's seat as they probe what they know about text-related topics" (Villaume/Brabham 261).
The article goes on to talk about different techniques we can use to keep students in the driver's seat during word study, and comprehsnion too. The article concludes by saying "Because of students' different instructional needs and the complexity of the reading process, we find ourselves exploring the value of all options for guided reading" (Villaume/Brabham 262).
I found this article to be very interesting. I have always been curious about guided reading, and how we are "supposed' to do it. After reading this, I have a new understanding on it, and am reassured that there is no right way to go about it, and the most effective thing you can do during guided reading is to let your students take the wheel and be in the driver's seat. Along with appropriate assitance and scaffolding, guided reading can be effective any way you go about it.
I encourage everybody to read this article as it is very interesting and informative!!
The article opened with numerous questions that teachers at every grade leve ask. "Should basals, children's literature, or decodable texts be used? Should grouping be homogeneous or hetergoeneous? Should instruction be systematic o responsive? Should students reawd orrally or silently?" (Villaume/Brabham 260). The article explains that the answer to all of these questions is "Yes!" The main idea of the article is that teachers are starting to lose sight of the purposes of guided reading, by trying to do it "right" all of the time. There really is no right way to do guided reading. It is all based on your students various levels and needs. The article gives many useful techniques and strategies to use in the classroom to ensure that our students are the ones in the driver's seat during guided reading.
One example given was in a second grade classroom. Before reading a book, the teacher encouraged the children to look through the pictures and discuss their knowledge and ideas related to the text. For older students, the teacher asked them to flip through the text and talk about what they noticed. They were able to partake in discussions based on the title, illustrations, names of the chapters, and bold print to make connections.
One second grade example really stuck out to me, because it is something I would never think to do. First, the teacher began by having the students look at the pictures and describe what they thought the text was about. The children were quick to talk about what they noticed (two different types of dinosaurs - a plant eater, and a meat eater). The teacher wanted to dig a little deeper, so she pulled out a Venn diagram. The students remained in the driver's seat, as they discussed what was similar and different about the two dinosaurs. To remind students they need to also think about similarities, the teacher simply pointed to the middle of the Venn diagram without saying a word. The students thought for a moment, and one quickly blurted out a similarity. I thought this example was really cool, because you can clearly see that along with some scaffolding, the students are in the driver's seat the entire time. They are doing all of the thinking, questioning, and discussions without any input from the teacher. "From observations like this, we learned that graphic organizers are powerful conversational scaffolds even when we do not write on them. We discovered that just pointing (often silently) to different parts of familiar graphic organizers such as Venn diagrams, K-W-L charts, and word maps provides subtle but sufficient prompts to keep students in the driver's seat as they probe what they know about text-related topics" (Villaume/Brabham 261).
The article goes on to talk about different techniques we can use to keep students in the driver's seat during word study, and comprehsnion too. The article concludes by saying "Because of students' different instructional needs and the complexity of the reading process, we find ourselves exploring the value of all options for guided reading" (Villaume/Brabham 262).
I found this article to be very interesting. I have always been curious about guided reading, and how we are "supposed' to do it. After reading this, I have a new understanding on it, and am reassured that there is no right way to go about it, and the most effective thing you can do during guided reading is to let your students take the wheel and be in the driver's seat. Along with appropriate assitance and scaffolding, guided reading can be effective any way you go about it.
I encourage everybody to read this article as it is very interesting and informative!!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Comprehension
Chapter 7 in the textbook gives a clear understanding of what it means to really read something and comprehend it. A great example was the sentence: He blocked the piffle with a gid daft. "You can read all the 'words' correctly, and you can even read with expression, but you get no meaning" (Cunningham/Allington 118). This example really makes you think of how children feel when they read something, but don't comprehend it. The book emphasizes the importance of making sure children are thinking as they read and that they have the proper background knowledge before reading. Asking open-ended questions before, during, and after reading is also a great strategy for comprehension instruction. Actually, that's one thing that stuck out to me in all of the readings this week - the words before, during, and after. Comprehending what you read is not something that just happens as you read the words on the page. Teachers should assist the child in every step of the way.
In Gregory and Cahill's article, "Kindergarteners Can Do It, Too!", many different strategies are presented before, during, and after reading to promote comprehension. In Mrs. Hope's classroom, before reading a story, she let students ask "I wonder" questions, and wrote them on the board. During the story, she stopped frequently as the students came up with more questions. After the story, students asked even more questions. When the story was over, the class as a whole answered all of the questions. Some of the answers were written directly in the text, and some had to be thought out a little harder by the children. Whenever they needed to think more critically, they were making an inference. This is a great strategy to instill in students - especially at that young of an age.
Gill's article "The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction" was very informative. It really breaks down what comprehension is, and all of the different aspects such as the reader, the text, and the situation. Again, this article discusses the importance of background knowledge of the topic, and interest level as well. We are more likely to comprehend things that we are interested in, and that we are familiar with. Pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading are also discussed in detail in this article. Questions, drawings, and K-W-L charts are highly encouraged. Different activities and modeling techniques are given throughout the article. I really enjoyed the actual comprehension matrix shown in this article! It breaks it down into a really neat chart that helps you consider every aspect.
Laura Pardo's article "What every teacher needs to know about comprehension" illustrates the same concepts as the previous articles. The importance of prior knowledge is highlighted, and connecting information through schemas. This article also reminds us as teachers that "Readers vary in the skills, knowledge, cognitive development, culture, and purpose they bring to a text" (Pardo 273). Like any other instruction in the classroom, we have to remember that our individual students background knowledge and skill level will vary when reading texts in the classroom. I think comprehension can and should be done in whole group instruction, but I also think it is very important to spend time on comprehension in small groups and guided reading.
I really enjoyed the readings this week. Before reading the articles, I knew what comprehension meant, but didn't really know any strategies for instructing comprehension with my students. I feel like the readings were a little repetitive, but now I feel so much more prepared going into my teaching career. Now, the first thing that will probably come to my mind when my students are reading is "are they understanding this?" I will definitely be using the pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading strategies in my classroom to make sure that my students are comprehending what they read. I now know too, how important prior knowledge is before reading a text. I absolutely loved Mrs. Hope's strategy in Gregory and Cahill's article. I think I will definitely introduce and explain the schema concept by drawing a picture of a human head with many ideas swirling around it on the board, and explaining the connections a good reader makes as he or she reads. I also really liked the "Velcro Theory" and "mind movies" that were used in that classroom. Overall, the readings were very helpful, and I definitely feel a lot more prepared about comprehension as I begin my teaching journey.
In Gregory and Cahill's article, "Kindergarteners Can Do It, Too!", many different strategies are presented before, during, and after reading to promote comprehension. In Mrs. Hope's classroom, before reading a story, she let students ask "I wonder" questions, and wrote them on the board. During the story, she stopped frequently as the students came up with more questions. After the story, students asked even more questions. When the story was over, the class as a whole answered all of the questions. Some of the answers were written directly in the text, and some had to be thought out a little harder by the children. Whenever they needed to think more critically, they were making an inference. This is a great strategy to instill in students - especially at that young of an age.
Gill's article "The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction" was very informative. It really breaks down what comprehension is, and all of the different aspects such as the reader, the text, and the situation. Again, this article discusses the importance of background knowledge of the topic, and interest level as well. We are more likely to comprehend things that we are interested in, and that we are familiar with. Pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading are also discussed in detail in this article. Questions, drawings, and K-W-L charts are highly encouraged. Different activities and modeling techniques are given throughout the article. I really enjoyed the actual comprehension matrix shown in this article! It breaks it down into a really neat chart that helps you consider every aspect.
Laura Pardo's article "What every teacher needs to know about comprehension" illustrates the same concepts as the previous articles. The importance of prior knowledge is highlighted, and connecting information through schemas. This article also reminds us as teachers that "Readers vary in the skills, knowledge, cognitive development, culture, and purpose they bring to a text" (Pardo 273). Like any other instruction in the classroom, we have to remember that our individual students background knowledge and skill level will vary when reading texts in the classroom. I think comprehension can and should be done in whole group instruction, but I also think it is very important to spend time on comprehension in small groups and guided reading.
I really enjoyed the readings this week. Before reading the articles, I knew what comprehension meant, but didn't really know any strategies for instructing comprehension with my students. I feel like the readings were a little repetitive, but now I feel so much more prepared going into my teaching career. Now, the first thing that will probably come to my mind when my students are reading is "are they understanding this?" I will definitely be using the pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading strategies in my classroom to make sure that my students are comprehending what they read. I now know too, how important prior knowledge is before reading a text. I absolutely loved Mrs. Hope's strategy in Gregory and Cahill's article. I think I will definitely introduce and explain the schema concept by drawing a picture of a human head with many ideas swirling around it on the board, and explaining the connections a good reader makes as he or she reads. I also really liked the "Velcro Theory" and "mind movies" that were used in that classroom. Overall, the readings were very helpful, and I definitely feel a lot more prepared about comprehension as I begin my teaching journey.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Vocabulary
All of the readings this week focused on building vocabulary. Along with the other topics we've studied so far, the readings emphasize starting to build vocabulary at the youngest age possible. By giving young children access to a variety of books and words, it is planting that seed for their own growing vocabulary. Hart and Risley's article "The Early Catastrophe" really emphasizes the importance of exposing young children to as many words as possible at home before the age of 3. Family influence is the only way a child learns their vocabulary before entering a classroom. "We learned from the longitudinal data that the problem of skill differences among children at the time of school entry is bigger, more intractable, and more important than we had thought" (Hart,Risley 9). As teachers, we must keep in mind that all of our students are coming from different backgrounds. Just as their reading levels and skill levels will vary - so will their vocabulary banks. Lane and Allen's article discusses how we as teachers should model vocabulary in the classroom. I think this is one of the most important things we can do as teachers to spark an interest in out students. I really liked how in the article, Ms. Barker replaced day-to-day words with bigger words that have the same meaning. For example, what her kindergarten class used to call a "weather watcher" now calls a "meteorologist". Since I am interested in teaching primary grades, I found this really interesting. I would love to create a "sophisticated word list" as she did, and replace our normal words that children already know, with bigger more sophisticated words.
I really enjoyed the readings this week. It made me look at vocabulary in a new light. So often I just think of vocabulary words as a part of the curriculum. You give out a vocab list, the students memorize them, and there is a quiz at the end of the week. These articles made me switch my thinking of vocabulary from something that was necessary, to something that is actually very important and that I should make fun and enjoyable for students. The article "Vocabulary Lessons" explains how "vocabulary not only promotes reading comprehension but also enables us to actively participate in our society" (Blachowicz, Fisher 66). This is something we need to convey to our students. It's important to let them know that a strong vocabulary goes far beyond the classroom. The readings talk a lot about making vocabulary a fun thing. Instead of just having them memorize words, create games and activities that will capture their attention. I think as teachers if we started making learning new words fun and exciting, our students would be more likely to want to expand their vocabulary.
I really enjoyed the readings this week. It made me look at vocabulary in a new light. So often I just think of vocabulary words as a part of the curriculum. You give out a vocab list, the students memorize them, and there is a quiz at the end of the week. These articles made me switch my thinking of vocabulary from something that was necessary, to something that is actually very important and that I should make fun and enjoyable for students. The article "Vocabulary Lessons" explains how "vocabulary not only promotes reading comprehension but also enables us to actively participate in our society" (Blachowicz, Fisher 66). This is something we need to convey to our students. It's important to let them know that a strong vocabulary goes far beyond the classroom. The readings talk a lot about making vocabulary a fun thing. Instead of just having them memorize words, create games and activities that will capture their attention. I think as teachers if we started making learning new words fun and exciting, our students would be more likely to want to expand their vocabulary.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Word Study
There was a ton of informative and helpful information in the readings this week. All of the readings were based around students getting stuck on individual words in their readings, and how to help and coach them to read the word correctly. Many different tips were explained in the articles. "Chunking" was mentioned multiple times - this is when students put letters together to make familiar chunks in words they cannot figure out. The book emphasizes that when children are first learning to read and write, we have to remember that their brains responses to the words are not going to be automatic like ours are. We literally have to teach them how to read and comprehend each individual chunk and sound in the word.
I really enjoyed reading about the activities in Yopp's article. I like the fact that they reached out to auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners. I got a lot out of Clark's article "What can I say besides 'sound it out'? The title alone grabbed my attention, because in my own experience with working with students on reading, "sound it out" is a phrase I find myself saying a lot. I get frustrated because that was the only way I was familiar with in trying to help the student hear the sounds the word makes. This article taught me that for young students, reading is so much more than sounding individual letters out. And we, as educators have to be able to "analyze a word and generate appropriate clues" (Clark 445). Clues such as asking them to identify chunks, covering an ending to a word, or covering the word so that they only see half at a time are all useful in coaching students.
I really enjoyed reading about the activities in Yopp's article. I like the fact that they reached out to auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners. I got a lot out of Clark's article "What can I say besides 'sound it out'? The title alone grabbed my attention, because in my own experience with working with students on reading, "sound it out" is a phrase I find myself saying a lot. I get frustrated because that was the only way I was familiar with in trying to help the student hear the sounds the word makes. This article taught me that for young students, reading is so much more than sounding individual letters out. And we, as educators have to be able to "analyze a word and generate appropriate clues" (Clark 445). Clues such as asking them to identify chunks, covering an ending to a word, or covering the word so that they only see half at a time are all useful in coaching students.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Fluency
So I totally did my first blog on the wrong readings!! Here is my summary and reaction to the fluency lesson..
The readings this week were all based around what fluency is, and how while there are specific ways you can drill and practice it, it is also practiced each time reading is done in the classroom. The "One-Minute Fluency Measures" article describes the 4 components of fluency: accuracy, rate or speed, prosody, and comprehension. Something repeated in the readings was encouraging students to reread books. This will build fluency, while also building confidence.
I enjoyed these readings because they cleared up a lot of words and concepts that I know about, but didn't exactly know what they meant. When I heard the word 'fluency' before, I knew it had to do with reading, and I knew it had something to do with the way a person reads - but I wasn't exactly sure how to define it. Through these readings I now know that fluency is not just how fast or how well a person reads. It is a variety of aspects combined.
The readings this week were all based around what fluency is, and how while there are specific ways you can drill and practice it, it is also practiced each time reading is done in the classroom. The "One-Minute Fluency Measures" article describes the 4 components of fluency: accuracy, rate or speed, prosody, and comprehension. Something repeated in the readings was encouraging students to reread books. This will build fluency, while also building confidence.
I enjoyed these readings because they cleared up a lot of words and concepts that I know about, but didn't exactly know what they meant. When I heard the word 'fluency' before, I knew it had to do with reading, and I knew it had something to do with the way a person reads - but I wasn't exactly sure how to define it. Through these readings I now know that fluency is not just how fast or how well a person reads. It is a variety of aspects combined.
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