Readings About Writing

                     Chapter 4 and Chapter 7 of Donald Grave’s book talking about teaching writing. Chapter 4 discusses brainstorming writing topics, conducting writing conferences, and sharing writings. Chapter 7 is more about the organization of the classroom for writing. Chapter 4 reminded me of Stacy’s E340 class. In this class, we have read and talked about writing workshops in which teachers have mini lessons, teachers give students ample of time to write, students have some type of idea notebook for writing ideas, teachers confer with students during the workshop, and students share their writings. Some of the ideas stressed in this workshop are, also, stressed in Chapter 7. Grave claims in Chapter 7 that teachers should allow students plenty of time to write. In addition, Grave mentions that it is important for students to have a choice in what they write. Therefore, writing could be more engaging for students. It is easier to write about something you like or want to learn rather than something that has no interest to you. Instead of focusing on exactly what students are writing, teachers need to help students be engaged with writing and help them to love to write. I like the author’s ideas in Chapter 7 about combining writing with other subjects. Also, the author mentions that students should write 4-5 days a week for a long time to get students used to writing and to help them not dread writing. I plan on using these strategies when I become a teacher.

Every Mark on the Page

              I really enjoy the article, “Every Mark on the Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children’s Writing” because it talks about teachers working with parents. I think it is very important for teachers and parents/guardians to always be in strong communication. When it comes to literacy, I think it is important for parents to understand literacy terms and reading levels, as well as, the teacher’s methods for teaching literacy and the reasoning for those methods. Then, parents could better assist and work with their child at home if they understand what is happening in the classroom. Also, parents may be more willing to work with the teacher if they see that the teacher wants to involve parents and that the teacher wants the parents to see what their child is doing in class. Parents/guardians can be a valuable resource outside of class for helping students with their literacy.  

Phonics

                From Phonics to Fluency and Teaching Phonemic Awareness were both helpful articles in regards to teaching phonics to elementary students. I thought the words and definitions in From Phonics to Fluency were interesting. For instance, there were some words I had never heard before. Also, there were words I heard before, but I did not know the definition or I did not know the correct definition. Reading this article helped me with my understanding of phonics terminology and the meaning of the terminology.

                Teaching Phonemic Awareness was helpful by explaining how to teach and assess students’ phonics. The article mentioned many texts and games/activities that can help with teaching phonics awareness. My favorite part of the article was the section about assessing phonemic awareness. I have learned some strategies and activities for teaching phonics, but I do not know how I would assess the students’ progress. The article mentioned administering The Yopp-Singer Test of Phonemic Segmentation to assess students’ phonemic awareness (45). The author, also, mentions that there is a correlation between phonemic awareness and students’ reading skills (45). This would be important to consider with assessments because a teacher could correlate a phonemic assessment into a reading assessment in many different ways. Both the articles helped me with understanding how to teach phonics, how to assess phonics, and important words/definitions that I should know about phonics.

Making Decisions for Individual Learners within a Small-Group Setting

                The webcast, “Making Decisions for Individual Learners within a Small-Group Setting” contained many familiar ideas to me, but, also, new concepts about familiar topics.  For example, one of the speakers discusses that there are three sources of information which helps readers with their reading process. These include meaning, syntactic, and visual cues. Having skills in all three of these categories can help readings with solve words. This is a familiar idea to me, as well as, how teachers prompt students to use these three sources. A new idea was built upon my previous knowledge when the speaker mentioned examples in which teachers can prompt students to use one or many of the three sources of information. There are many ways in which teachers can prompt students depending on the student and there are the student needs prompted with. Hearing more examples of how teachers can prompt students in different scenarios helps me with feeling more well-rounded and prepared to prompt students on my own.

                The speaker gave another idea about small groups which I found was interested. The speaker mentioned that teachers should not teach the book in small group readings. Rather, teacher should teach the reader. At first, I was confused about this idea because it was new to me. I used to think that one of the purposes of small group reading was to give students more individualize help with understanding a concept of the book. Now I know that that could be a goal, but the main purpose of small groups is for teachers to teach and help readers. Teachers can work with the skills readers need by using a book or other reading in a small group setting. This made me think of what I will do with small groups when I become a teacher.

When I become a teacher, I plan on grouping students in small groups by a reading skill or strategies they need to work on. I can choose a book that would be helpful with learning a specific lesson. In the small groups, I can work with students on a skill they are struggling with or learning through the book. As students start to gain skills and learn new ones, the groups will change based upon student’s skill levels in reading.

Another idea about small groups that I found interesting and important is that small groups allow support in reading. When students are reading in small groups, they should feel supported by their peers and teacher. When I’m a teacher, I will want to enforce peers to support each other. On the first day of working with a small, I will talk about respect and treating others the way you want to be treated. I would talk about being supportive, as well, to establish ground rules of the small group before we begin. I’m hoping that discussion will help create a supportive small group environment.

What is Guided Reading?

               “What is Guided Reading?” is an article by the New Zealand Department of Education about guided reading and its importance for new readers. According to the article, the importance of guided reading is to help readers develop their skills, give readers a supportive environment for their development, readers can develop reading strategies, students can have positive experiences with reading, and teachers can observe students’ skills (1). After reading this section, I observed the importance of guided reading in an educational setting. I would like to use guided reading practices in my classroom to help students with their reading. I want my students to enjoy reading and have practice with reading in a supportive environment. This article showed me that guided reading can help me with my classroom desire. Also, guided reading practices in the classroom would help me assess students’ knowledge and skill base with reading and reading comprehension.

Catching Readers Before They Fall Chapters 5 & 10

             The main idea the authors mention in Chapter 5 is the components of a comprehensive literacy framework. The authors state that reading aloud, shared reading and interactive read aloud, guided reading, and independent reading are components to reading to, with, and by children (73). A morning message, community writing, and independent writing are components of writing to, with, and by children according to the authors (73). I never thought of literacy components in this way so this idea was very interesting to me.  After looking at the chapter, I understand how each component is crucial to students’ overall understanding of literacy. To me, it was interesting when the authors stated that they use the activities throughout the day to show students that literacy is a “tool to make sense of the world” (91). The teacher that authors mentioned used literacy components throughout the day in different subjects. This idea helped my form my idea about literacy in my classroom. I, also, would like to use different literacy activities throughout the day in different subject areas to cover the components of literacy. Like the author’s stance on using literacy throughout the day, I would like to use literacy in many different subjects so students can see the importance of literacy in our lives.

                Chapter 10 discusses assessing readers which is an important concept for teachers to help make students better readers.  The authors mentioned some resources or tools teachers can use when assessing students’ readings. The author stated that informal assessments can include anecdotal notes about reading conferences or observations (181). Formal assessments include benchmark tests, running records, and other tests (181). The authors’ statements helped me form my idea of using assessments in the classroom. I think using assessments are helpful and valuable for teachers to see where a child is at in their learning and how I child has improved or still needs to improve. I plan on using informal assessments daily but focus on a couple of students per day so I am not overwhelmed. Kidwatching will help me with making observations and assessing what a child already knows and what they could learn. I would like to use formal assessments, but not as often as informal assessments. I could use formal assessments at the end of a unit. Both formal and informal assessments will help me with seeing where children are at with their reading and help me to progress every students’ reading skills.

Catching Readers Before They Fall Chapter 4

                    In Chapter 4 of Catching Readers Before They Fall, the main idea is word-solving strategies. The author states that meaning, structure, and visuals are used to help students solve a word they don’t know (Johnson & Keier 53). I thought it was interesting when the author states that students usually don’t use these three strategies of learning words when they are beginning to read (Johnson & Keier 53). I think this is crucial information for a teacher to know. Teachers, like myself in the future, should teach beginning readers how to use all three of these strategies to help students with their readings. When discuss this topic in class, I plan on modeling the strategy for students multiple times. I, then, plan on having partners and/or groups try using the strategies. The partners/groups would work together to help solve an unknown word given the information the teacher modeled for the students. I would assess the students’ use of the skill from listening to conversations of students solving unknown words and watching to see if they have difficulty with solving unknown words. From there, I could let the skilled word solvers to practice using that skill on their own and I would work more with the students who are struggling. The plan I created for my classroom is an example of the gradual release of responsibility. To me, it is important that students learn strategies for solving unknown words and that they start to use multiple strategies for solving words they do not know. The text helped me realize that not all students know how to use word-solving strategies so it is my job to teach them.