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.
I had a skewed idea of exactly how books were leveled as well. The articles informed me otherwise and I thought that they were very helpful as well! Like you, i enjoyed the running record readings and loved the break down of how to take notes for students in each error or corrective situation. Doing this in class was especially helpful!
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