Tompkins Chapter 5

In the reading for this week, one thing that I saw that related well to my field experience is the use of word walls and how Tompkins applies the use of word walls to the understanding of fluency for both reading and writing. What my CT does with her word wall, is that she slowly introduces words based on degree of difficulty, and once the word is introduced and practiced, it is placed on the word wall where students are constantly referencing it for when they are reading books or looking for how to spell words. This is how the word wall is being used for the writing and reading literacy. I think it is important to keep the words at a level that the students will understand. My CT does this by first only having 2-letter and 3-letter words on the word wall. Now, three quarters of the way through the year, they now have some 4-letter and 5-letter words on the wall that the students are all comfortable with. They also use the sounds that they know from these words to help them apply it to when they are learning new words as well.

Chapter 5

This chapter focused mostly on how to get students to read and write fluently. One of the ways it describes is having high frequency words posted on a word wall so the students see them frequently so they can spell them well and understand how to use them in a sentence. In my classroom, 5th grade, we don't have a specific word wall however we have quotes posted all over the wall. My CT posts them up after they have read them and analyzed them in their journals. This way, if they have any questions about any of the words in the quotes they can ask as we are analyzing them. Also, they will understand how to use them and if there are other ways we usually explain how to use them in those ways. Having them write in their journals also gets their writing fluency better and allows them to look back at the end of the year to see how far they have progressed in their writing.

Chapter 3

While reading Tompkins, I thought it was largely stressed on the importance of reading and writing strategies for teachers to incorporate into lessons. Not only was this stressed with many different thoughts and ideas, but being a motivational teacher when using these strategies was just as important. It is very important to be aware of students reading and writing abilities at the younger grades because that is when they are developing the most. We as teachers need to recognize these abilities, and guide reading and writing strategies best to their learning level. I witness a lot of different reading strategies within my placement currently. Although my teacher uses reading groups all the type for literacy, and never whole group; she still does great motivational discussion with the kids. Using predictions, asking "what if" questions, and relating the story to their own personal experiences really help with comprehension for the students. These questions are motivational because they all want to participate. She often leaves the students to do some type of group "assignment". For example, having them fill out a ven-diagram for the last story they read was very useful. This was a good way to force the students to recognize similarities and differences when they weren't that obvious in the story. This created higher level thinking for these 2nd grade students. They worked off each others thoughts and ideas, and actually lead to even more discussion about the story without the teacher being present. Although, my teachers reading strategies are well identified in the classroom, I see lack of motivation and strategy for writing. Students are unmotivated, and often frustrated when it is time for journal, or writing sentences with their spelling words. I feel that the teacher should set up different opportunities for the students to be more motivated about writing in order to succeed. The more that these students lack interest in writing, the greater chance they have of falling behind. Thats it why I feel is it important to created opportunities that are better geared toward things they will be inspired by to create the motivational aspect. I've come to the recognition over the past year taking TE401/402 that motivation is key. Having the best lesson plan means nothing unless you can find a way to first get your students motivated.

Tompkins Chapter 3

The reading for this week got me thinking more about how reading instruction is applied to the learning of the kindergarten students that I observe. Tompkins talks a lot about reading strategies for younger level students. Some of the strategies that I feel are very important are predicting and asking questions. I feel predicting really helps engage the students into what they are reading. I use this practice a lot, even when the students are doing their individual "quiet reading". I've found that by going around and asking kids about what they think will happen in a story before they read it, they are more likely to attempt to read that story, rather then just staring at the cover or just leaving the book on the ground. During reading, it is important to stop the student and not only re-cap what happened so far in the story, but also recall the predictions that were made and perhaps edit those predictions. I really liked how Tompkins talked about different ways to teach aspects such as writing letters and working on phonetics (sounds). These are aspects that also apply to my field work.

Tompkins, Chapter 3

In Tompkins Chapter 3, one important point I read which I also see in my classroom is the description of reading, “teachers read aloud to children and use shared reading, guided reading, and the language experience approach to teach reading. This is one concept I see in my classroom all the time when they are doing literacy. My CT does a lot of the read aloud technique to the class, instead of with the class or guided reading. I feel as though having the students pop-corn read or do guided reading, the class would be much more engaged and the students would get more out of it, as the book mentions as well. I also read and enjoyed learning about the literacy centers and the different variety they can be put together, for example, “ Bag A Story”, “Story Reenactment” and “Messages”. The "Message" activity was pretty interesting considering we discussed the necessity of practicing different genres, types of reading/writing and message writing to classmates is an interesting technique to use in class. I would be hesitant to use writing messages to classmates here however because I would not want my students to continue it after the session lesson.

Tompins, Chapter 7, Comprehension

In chapter seven of Tompkins, there was a strong overall focus on Comprehension. I found this chapter to be especially interesting to me because this is a topic that I often struggle with. Tompkins gave many suggestions on ways to help develop better comprehension for your students in the classroom such as sequencing, prediction, worksheet activities, etc. I think that we as teachers struggle with knowing and identifying with what strategies will work best for out classroom. I felt his suggestions were very intelligent and workable strategies to improve comprehension, but as teachers, I feel as thought it is a trial and error process for which ones will work best with your individual group of students. It can be hard to teach students that reading is more then just retelling a story, that it is the cognitive process of making connections with the text and conveying meaning; basically teaching different thinking skills. Although I feel that Tompkins strategies are well developed ideas, I feel the strongest about group discussion. In group discussion the teacher can develop questions that require higher level thinking, and can see how the students respond;whereas with other activities, you may not receive as good feedback. The problem with group discussion is time, and that is why I feel that teachers don't use group discussion as much.
In my classroom, my CT using the prediction strategy all the time in her reading groups. The students begin first by taking a "picture walk" silently by themselves. When the students are done, my CT will ask the students what they think will happen in the story by what they saw in the pictures. This seems to engage the students and they are excited to explain their idea. I like this strategy because it does keep the students attention, and they are focused on the story more. At the end, the students get to see who's prediction was the closest, then my CT begins with comprehension questions. She still relates the students prior predictions by stating, "Well do you think the story would have ended the same way if your prediction was right?". This really gets the students thinking, and they are getting more out of the reading groups then just summarizing a story. Different levels of thinking are being shown by asking questions such as these by the students.

In the Tompkins reading, I learned about the importance of reading activities to aid understanding. These activities can occur before, during, or after the reading. I found the most useful ones to be the ones that forced the students to think about the reading beforehand (predicting) and afterwards (recapping). Both of these tasks can be accomplished through a variety of ways, and to choose one would take a careful analysis of what works best for a certain classroom. I find that classroom participation works out best when students are put into groups or are given a set of pre-questions to answer. For the classroom I am in, a Kindergarten classroom, it is hard to get a higher-level of discussion going, but often the teacher will make a quick round through the students to get their predictions of what they think will happen based on a small piece of information, such as the title of the book, title of the chapter, or an excerpt from a certain section. This usually takes about 5 minutes and not only lets the children make predictions, but allows them to hear the ideas of others as well. I find it important to ask questions throughout the book as well, but not too often as I feel it will disrupt the flow of the book. A post-reading discussion usually works best with the Kindergarteners, and I find asking questions to the students about what happened during the reading a good way to recap.

Chapter 7: Comprehension Strategies

In Chapter 7 of the Literacy for the 21st Century Book they give multiple different strategies of how to be sure your students understand the information they are reading. In my opinion, some of them are just busy work that give the teacher time in class to do some of their own work. However, the predicting, connecting and questioning strategies are three strategies I would implement in my own classroom. Predicting what is going to happen then reading to see what actually happens is a great strategy because you can see into their creative mind and see if they know how the story is progressing in regards to what should be next. Connecting the text to their life experiences, to the world or the other texts is also very important. This will allow the reader to look back on what they have read and remember it possibly because it is something that has happened to themselves in the past. This memory jogs their thoughts on what may have happened to the characters in their book by either it happening in a similar way or a completely different way. The questioning strategy is a good one if you implement a buddy system. In this you would have two students read a certain passage one night and the next day bring in questions about either the literary text or questions on inferencing things in the text. This way the students would be testing each others knowledge. They would also be able to use this as an assessment if the teacher gave them the questions they had to give each other, but they could talk about them together.
My placement uses the predicting strategy the most. My CT will read the back of the book and give them a general overview and possibly even read the first few paragraphs. She will then ask the students what they think will be happening in the book. They will continue reading and sometimes they have to write a follow up journal on how what they thought would happen and what actually happens is either similar or different. This also brings in the writing aspect of reading, considering they go hand in hand.
The evaluating strategy is the least effective since the readers are assuming responsibility for their own reading. At an elementary and middle school level, I don't think you can quite take what the students say completely truthfully. So, when they evaluate themselves they would be giving higher scores than what they should actually be getting. However, a good way of implementing this strategy would be if you had the students do their own eval. and you as the teacher did the same eval on them, except yours would have actual detailed questions. This way you would see the difference in their scores and your own and if they are being truthful or not.

Chpt 10

In Weinstein and Mignano, chapter 10, I focused on the idea of recitation versus group discussion. I found this topic to be interesting because it is something that I do not see that often in my class. The only time I really feel that I witness group discussion is during reading groups, when my CT is asking them questions about what they have just read, but that often seems to be more recitation style as it is talked about in the group. We as teachers need to be careful on how much emphasis we are putting on recitation talk versus group discussion. I Feel that some teachers may try or would like to do more group discussion, but because of the stress in the amount of material and lack of time, teachers end up falling back into recitation style rather then discussion/teaching. As mentioned in the book, we as teachers need to watch out for continuous recitation teacher, but also need to know how to conduct a whole group discussion so that is it results in successful learning for the students.
I also wanted to just briefly comment on the rubric website. I found this website to be very resourceful. It has so much to offer for a wide range of grades and subject areas. It is something that I will definitely use in my future teaching career.

Recitation vs. Discussion

The Weinstein and Mignano article in Chapter 10 concerning managing recitations and discussions really got me thinking about how these apply to the kindergarten classroom for my field placement. Weinstein and Mignano break down the hazards of recitation exercises from the teacher, as they often overpower the students but do a good job of maintaining attention levels and checking for understanding. Discussions, they add, are able to achieve a slower pace and a more equal-role between student and teacher. However, discussions can sometimes exclude certain students whom choose not to participate as actively as others. Teachers often will back out of discussions so that the students can take the lead. This lack of leadership from the teacher can sometimes cause quieter students to sort of "check out" of the conversation.
In my field placement. I often see the teacher often lead recitation exercises during the lessons. Because of the students young ages, they often appear incapable of participating in a fluent discussion. The CT also feels that recitation can serve as a form of assessment. I feel this is best for Kindergartners and I am failing to figure out how to incorporate higher-level thinking skills into a discussion-based activity. I feel recitation at such a young age can lead to the greatest productivity and achievement levels for the students and perhaps discussion-based lessons should be slowly Incorporated more in the coming years.

Instructional Intranet- Chicago Public Schools

The Chicago Public Schools website on Instructional Intranet tells its readers about the various types of rubrics and how to use them properly. One point I really like is that they include not only Science, Social Studies, Math and Language Arts in their fundamental learni9ng areas, but also fine arts and gym. Some teachers pull their students out of gym or art for various reasons of punishment, however with this website they view these two subjects as truly important for the students academic success.
The Math Rubric used in California is very interesting in that it allows the teachers to acknowledge that the students started the problem correctly and got up to a certain point doing the work right, however they missed something and incorrectly finished the problem. I think this is very important for students to see to feel as thought they do understand some of it or it was just a silly error and that they did receive some points. Often times the teacher just puts an 'X' over it and leaves it at that. This response leaves the student wondering where they went wrong, that could be the most important information for the students--what step they forgot or messed up--so they can go back and review the section they did not get correct. Maybe that will help them with other problems they did not do correctly.
I also like how they say rubrics "give you a means to clarify your vision of excellence and convey it to your students" because that is what us (as students) are always wondering for our first big projects... what does my professor/instructor expect/want out of us?! If you give your students a rubric, they will always know exactly what is expected and are not able to give you excuses as to why something is graded as it is.

Langer -- Understanding Literature

I took some valuable information from this article concerning the ways in which literature is disscussed and understood in classrooms, as well as it's importance in regards to critical thinking skills.
Relating to my kindergarten classroom, I see literacy being applied to many aspects of the daily cirriculum. Every day the students spend time reading books on their own and every day the teacher spends time reading from a chapter book to the students. During this teacher-lead read of the chapter book, the students are asked questions before, during, and after the text to check for understanding. In relation to Langer's "Possibilities for Instruction" (815), the students are asked to develop interpretations as well as reflect on personal experiences while applying the reading that they just heard.
I like the methods that my CT has used for her students when checking for literacy understanding. Even though much of it is both prediction and reflection based, I find it to be limiting about how you can go about dissecting the reading with kindergarten aged students. The students do not understand a lot of the meaning of the text without applying it to either something else they know or through the expression of their own personal ideas. The CT allows all students who raise a hand to express their opinion of the text and I feel it allows other students to get more ideas about the meaning of the literature.

Response-Centered Talk, McGee

This article focuses on the importance of response centered talks, what we as interns usually see as small reading groups in the classroom. It has been noted that there are two different types of discussion or talk that goes on between the teacher and the students, recitation and response-centered talks. As described on page 69 of the McGee article, recitation is "when teachers expect children to demonstrate their mastery of material or procedures by reciting facts and information they they have been taught". For example, how to locate a city on a map or asking for a definition. This is basically regurgitating information they are expected to know. However, the article is not implying that recitation is bad, it can be used well for geography facts, and so forth; but the use of recitation talk for literature is not recommended. As described in the article, (page 69, McGee) the purpose of response-centered talk "is the discovery or construction of new understandings about literature. Overall this article explains that through this type of talk students students can develop problem solving, reasoning, and interpreting skills.
I really liked this article because I strongly agree with what it is saying. Students would be restricted in learning one type of skill, reading a story and summarizing it to a teacher if all teachers did was recitation talk. My CT does an excellent job with response-centered talks in her reading groups each day. Before a new story is introduced, she takes a "picture walk" and has the students predict what will happen. She asks many questions throughout the story to get the kids thinking about different ways the story could unfold in the end. This way the students are doing more then just listening to the story, and summarizing. Definitely a type of teaching that I will strongly enforce in my future teachings. Like the articles explains, it is a could way for students to learn and explore a variety of skills.

Student Roles in classroom discussion

In Almasi's article, A New View of Discussion, she talks of the different roles students can play when having a class discussion and which would be more student orientated rather than teacher led. As we all know, whenever students can take control of a conversation with the class and have the teacher present, yet not disrupt they usually do. However, in my observations with my placement now and in the past I have not seen this happen to frequently. The teacher faciltates most of the discussions and the students listen and raise their hand when a question is asked. I would not know whether the students are understanding what I was saying/teaching or whether they were just staring off into space. When getting them involved in the discussion, whether it be as the inquisitor, respondent, facilitator or evaluator you will get more of them to participate because they usually do like to give their opinions and that is what most of these roles will have the students do.
This 'meaning construction process' (Almasi, p.53) also allows the teacher to assess what exactly the students are getting out of the activities/readings. It also allows them to see each of the students' strengths and weaknesses in order to put them into groups if you want to have small discussions or which students you want to prompt more often to get them more comfortable with speaking out in class.
Overall, I feel as though each class should have at least a few days a week be like this so you can get the students more involved. The more they talk and regurgitate what you are saying, the easier it is for them to remember it and recall it for future uses.

Chapter 5

The reading for this week really brought to light the importance of reading literacy and the complexity of effort it takes from student and teacher to create a good reader. As I learned, reading is not just accomplished from looking and reciting the text, but it is comprehended through pre-questions and follow-up questions. Questions can also be asked during the reading as well. These questions can check for understanding and also engage the reader into the type of thoughts that they will come across when reading the text. Another point about reading, is the role of reading literacy with ESL students. These students have a more difficult time when it comes to reading as they are at a disadvantage from other students of their age.
The reading was easy for me to relate to (as I'm sure it is for others as well). In my classroom, I am constantly engaging with the students in various reading activities. I work with a couple of ESL students as well as some kindergarteners who barely know half of their letters. The comprehension questions don't necessarily apply as much when the kids are reading books to me that have no storyline, however they do listen to a chapter book that the teacher reads and are asked comprehension questions in regards to that. Asking students questions about letter sounds has helped me work with students and their reading literacy.

Stephanie Buday, Ch. 5

I would first like to comment on "Theories of Literacy Pedagogy" from chapter 5 of Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning . From my understanding, this is referring to the "correct" strategy or method that is to be taught by teachers in order for successful literacy performance by students. I found this to be interesting because there are many different methods to be used when teaching a student how to read, and who is to say one works better then the other? I feel that there are so many different methods due to such a diverse group of learners teachers encounter in the classroom. One student may learn better through phonics, while another may learn better through a whole-word approach. It stated that not one specific method is known as working better or worse, but that the different approaches just focus on different literacies. As long as a child can take on the four related roles that were mention in chapter 5 with the chosen method of learning, I do not feel that there is necessarily a right or wrong way.
I also wanted to briefly comment on the before, during, and after reading activities. I cannot stress enough the importance of these activities during a reading lesson. I feel that it engages the student, and keeps them interesting with what they are reading. In the classroom that I am in currently, I noticed the main problem during reading groups is that the students are bored. They do not have any interest in what they are reading. I feel that if the CT incorporated fun activities that are mentioned in our book, the students may be more engaged in what they are reading, and would get more out of the lesson.

Chapter 5: Reading in A Second Language

Chapter 5 focuses mainly on students who are reading English as a second language and how difficult it is for them. It then states different activities for them to participate in in order for them to feel apart of the class. One particular point Gibbons brought up which I have never thought of was how ESL students/people feel when they are in an English speaking setting. He mentions that its like walking into a conversation without having any personal or background knowledge about the subject; ". . . you are effectively robbed of the ability to make use of a key resource for reading: what you already know: (Gibbons, 78). At the school I am placed they have a Chinese teacher who comes in a few times a week to teach Chinese. However, she doesn't know really how to converse with the other teachers because she doesn't have enough background knowledge of what they may be talking about. Her responses do not always correlate to what is being said which shows she does not understand the other communicator. I can relate to how she may feel because I traveled around Europe last Spring while studying abroad and while visiting Slovenia I didn't know one word they said, however when my friend introduced me to them they were so friendly and tried to speak in English so I could understand. The Slovenians helped me with some background knowledge on where we would be going and what to say to people so I would not feel out of place. In France, on the other hand, they did not want to speak English and forced you to feel completely out of the loop.
Looking at the different type of activities the students can do to help their background knowledge I came across one in particular with a good point to it. The activity is Storytelling in the Mother Tongue. This is when they first read it in their first language then read it in English so they know what is going on and they are able to correlate certain words with each other. This could also help them build their English vocabulary.

Schmar-Dobler Article. The link between literacy and Technology

This article talks about the importance of technology in the literacy world. They now include this statement in the definition of literacy as, "literacy skills necessary for individuals, groups, and societies to access the best information in the shortest time to identify and solve the most important problems and then communicate this information." In simpler terms, this means that students are expected to not only know how to read and write in the print world, but also in the digital world. With this technology expectation, students must know how to do a number of things. For example, students must be able to hand the volume of text that can be found when using the internet, because as we all know, their is endless amounts of information, and with that comes deciding on what is good information and what is bad. A student is also expected to know how to read and understand different formats that the internet produces; columns, graphs, charts, etc. A main part of this article was asking what can educators do to help students learn this process to be successful in the digital world. I was expecting a much more elaborate answer, but it is as simple as helping students take what the know in reading print text and apply it to the reading of internet text. Simple comprehension. Have students ask themselves questions, look for main ideas, draw inferences, etc. We as teachers need to guide students to help them reorganizing their experiences with text, and apply this knowledge to internet reading. This will help students become successful in the "digital world".

Owens, Hester, Teale article

Inquiry Based Learning and Technology

This article focused on inquiry-based learning and how technology can make inquiry-based learning an effective tool for all students, and in particular how it can serve as a motivational tool for underachieving students. Inquiry-based learning, as I found out from the authors, is learning not just the information, but also the who's, what's, when's, and why's, etc. and most importantly, how one can use the information effectively.
A great point that the authors also made, was that technology has enhanced the effectiveness of this form of learning for students, as they can now use the internet to research material, as well as using various forms of presentation tools like PowerPoint, Video, Graphing, etc. According to the authors, students become more engaged and motivated by their ability to choose a topic of interest and to have many tools in which to research it.
Inquiry-based learning is something I would like to become more familiar with as it seems to be a popular tool for both teachers and students. I have not had much experience with this in my field as I am in a Kindergarten room currently. However, I am interested in how to use Inquiry-based learning as an aspect of my day, and not a comprehensive tool, as Owens, Hester, and Teale describe it.

Sweet

I can write on this blog now. Get ready for a great post tomorrow night team.

The Internet and Education- response to Henry's article

In my fifth grade classroom, they have one hour a few times a week with guided instruction. However, their teacher also brings in the laptop cart when they are doing any kind of research for a project. Basically, the laptops are at their disposal, at fifth grade; however are they being taught how to evaluate the results they find when they search? The article states that, ". . . merely turning students loose to surf the Web will not necessarily help them make the required connections to develop a mental model of the process of Internet searching (Brandt, 1997)" (Henry, 624). As teachers, we have to point them in the right direction as far as what to look for in the URL and in the limited details they give under the title. Those details make the child's initial decision as far as which one they should take research from. They could be "researching" all they want on the internet and not find one credible site if they don't know how to look for it. "Teaching students how to search and how to read on the Internet needs to be a focus of classroom pedagogy for the future" in order for them to be successful in their searches.
The article recommends using Internet Workshops to show them what to look for and teach them skills and strategies for searching. They also recommend using Internet Scavenger Hunts teaching them how to navigate around the internet and find what the most effective keywords are when searching. One of the sites it recommends is actually one for ESL students which I think is awesome. This could also be used as a tool for connecting ESL students to non-ESL students because they would be working on the same thing. I feel when the students are working on the same things they feel more included since they can ask their neighbor a question about it instead of only being able to ask the teacher or the other ESL students. This will also provide time for interaction for the ESL students with non-ESL which we read is huge. ESL students need to feel welcome in a classroom full of Native English Speakers to help improve their English, conversation with kids their own age is a place to start and using the internet as a connection for that is not only something we should be doing with our students anyways but simple at the same time.
During the research process, the students have to keep the main idea in the back of their mind, but remember that it's the steps it takes to get there that are the important ones.

Scaffolding Language and Learners

Scaffolding is not a word I recognized at first, so I had to look it up. I found it is basically a supporting framework for something. As I reflected on what I read, I realized everything we do as teachers is scaffolding. As teachers, we may provide more support for our ESL students or Sp Ed students, however we are providing support for the gen. ed students and our students who are gifted and talented as well as the rest of the school. I say this because if we were not there the upper grades would collapse since the students would not have enough background information for them to succeed.
This applies to teaching language to ESL students at a young age. When ESL students are learning English they are not only learning the language, but also their other subjects are being taught in English so it is even more difficult for them to understand what the other subjects are including, as mentioned by Gibbons. In regards to learning a language as you come into a new country I feel as though you should already have a base for that nations language, it is out of respect. Learning a second language and wanting to be completely integrated in that language and learning your other subjects in it is one thing, but if you move to a new country with a different language it is not only difficult for the students to learn the material, but it may also drag the rest of the class down because of their questions and misunderstandings. This is where reinforcements come in and help those students understand the information in their own language then learn the information in English. I feel as though their native language will make more sense to them (initially obviously) than learning it in a different language and making sense of it like that. This refers back to the two different views of learning: the Empty Vessel/Banking and Progressive. I think the answer to which to use would be a little bit of each, I don't believe there is one right way, but if you implement their learning with different options of how to understand it, one way is bound to be better than the others.