Organizing Literacy

Main Ideas:
1. Simple ways to keep the classroom orderly and keep on track with literacy goals
2. Examples of ways to keep your classroom going all day long

In chapter 12 of our Classrooms That Work, it discusses how to spend your day with different level classrooms. I was a little skeptical about this, because I can imagine how hard it is to keep to a perfect schedule. As a teacher you never know what delays you might have and how to stick to the schedule. Would you move activities around? Skip them? Or just adjust them to the time you have remaining? How do you decide what is most important when everything is so important?

A lot of the activities are revolved around centers or stations. Some of the stations that could be worked on for a small amount of time at the beginning or end of  the day could be reading to yourself, reading to a friend, listening to a book, practicing writing, and working on writing. Letting students choose the station they want to work at is extrinsic value and would allow students to be interested while learning. Students still need to be required to work in all stations, so a maximum at their favorite station would be necessary. 

Discussion Questions:
1. How would you discipline students who just choose a station because their buddy wants to go to the station? Would you let them be together or would you work to separate them? And would they still be choosing their station in that scenario?
2. Would it be good to set up a system that allows students to pick first different days or do you think going by the alphabet is the easiest, most time efficient? -My teachers would always start with A or Z and I having the last name Phillips would never get to go first.

Differentiating Instruction

No child is the same as another. Children in our classrooms come from rich homes, poor homes, supportive homes, negligent homes, bilingual homes, and many other different types. Needless to say it makes classrooms multicultural, and teaching style needs to reflect that. This is what is called differentiating instruction. Variety is important while selecting materials, lesson plans, student groups, and engagement.

Throughout the book we have seen many different activities that vary in methods that teach children how be fluent, learn vocabulary, comprehend, and others. This chapters gives us some different activities to look into. These being: Using collaborative groups, literature circles, tutors, coaching groups, using technology.

I didn't realize how important groups were until I read this, I always have liked working with a partner or a small group during class to do a simple task, but still am not a fan of big group projects. I believe that it is important to teach students an appropriate balance of each. 

Something that I have noticed from being in several different courses is the type of note taking. Teachers should encourage different styles of note taking that benefits students while reviewing for an exam. I once had a teacher who wanted the students to pay attention while she was talking instead of just writing slides down word for word, so she gave us fill in the blank notes. It sounds juvenile, but it was an AP level class and I found it very helpful and paid attention throughout the course.

Along with a variety of activities, there should also be a balance of assessment. Teachers, especially in high school and college, love using scan trons, but its not always favored. Students should experience a mix of multiple choice, matching, true/ false, short answer, and fill in the blank when they are tested. This allows students who prefer to be tested a certain way to maybe get to experience that relief while testing. I personally always loved short answer questions in my science classes because I could at least explain what I knew, unlike if it had been multiple choice and I would of just had to guess.
Discussion Question:
1. Do you think different kinds of note taking is helpful?
2. What is your favorite way to be tested on material, and do you think it differs from your peers?

     

Guided Reading

I chose an article called Accountability: Guided Reading Kidstations by E Francine Gustello and Claire Lenz.

Guided reading is one major component in a balanced literacy program. When reading aloud to children teachers give students the opportunity to think and develop opinions on text the otherwise would not be able to read.

Guided reading allows teachers to observe these things in students:
1. Self-monitor
2. Decide unfamiliar words
3. Check predictions
4. Determine if words make sense
5. Self correct
6. Read with expression and fluency

What is the kidstation model?
Kidstation incorporates guided reading and literacy principles of balanced literacy and empowers teachers to work collaboratively. Kidstation is used instead kidcenter because center means that it is away from whatever they are doing in the classroom (Around the Classroom), this is because of a teachers common problem of having lack of space in
their classroom. An example of a kid station is one group listening to the story and the other groups observing and explaining what the teacher and students are doing.  This model is to make students responsible for their own work.

Above, is a photo of a kidstation that lets the students listen to the Cat in the Hat. 
To the left, other groups would be working on Cat in the Hat word activities.

Below, another group could be making a crafts

Discussion question:

In your classroom would you want you different stations to be on the same topic or would you let each one be different?

Vocabulary and Read Alouds

Main points:
1. Vocabulary can be learned in creative, fun ways
2. Vocabulary is important because it allows understanding of text

In the Lane and Allen article we read several examples of teachers promoting stronger vocabulary in creative ways. In the first classroom we saw an example from beginning of school to mid school were their job titles changed from weather watcher and line leader to meteorologist and class movement coordinator. From an observer of the class, "Their comfort came from their teacher's careful approach to developing their vocabularies through modeling and meaningful practice." Some of the ideas in this reading were called circle time and morning meeting.


In the Dalton and Grisham article it shows a strategy for learning from visual displays of word relationships within text. The example the reading gives is to the right- the picture is in the shape of a bee and gives different words that categorize and describe bees.

The  Blachowicz and Fisher article states that reading comprehension and vocabulary are linked. To the left is a picture of a different kind of word wall, its called a Word a pillar. It is creative and encourages sentence building.

These activities in our readings are designed to maximize and teach students vocabulary.

Comprehension and Think-Alouds

Last week I did the readings for this week, so this week I'm doing the readings for last week.

Main point:
1. Why comprehension is important and how it happens.


How do teachers support readers?
-They teach decoding skills
-Help students build fluency
-Build and Activate Prior Knowledge
-Teach new vocabulary
-Motivate Students
-Engage students in personal responses to text

I enjoyed reading about how to make reading and writing connections visible. When I'm doing school work I always enjoy doing my writing assignments more than reading assignments. A technique for me when I'm reading something I need to know but am not particularly interested in I will take notes of the main points to comprehend it a little easier.

In chapter 7, we learned that comprehension is thinking about and responding to what you are reading. Comprehension typically gets focused on less in the classroom.



Discussion questions:
*What is a good way to teach new vocabulary?
*Do you have any tips to make comprehending readings easier?
*How to focus on comprehension in the classroom?

Comprehension and Think-Alouds

Main point: Methods that help teachers teach children how to comprehend

The problem with comprehending could be that students get all words correctly but get no reading.

What are some comprehension strategies?
-Predicting, questioning, and wondering about what will be learned and what will happen.
-Visualizing or imaging what the experience would look, feel, sound, taste, and smell like
-Drawing conclusions and making inferences based on what is read

Teachers want students to use these strategies not only in the class room, but always when they are reading.

What are Think-Alouds?
Think alouds are a way of modeling or making public the thinking that goes on inside of your head, while you are reading. While teaching this to students show students you are making connections by using sentences that start like...
This reminds me of...
I remember something like this happened to me when...
This is like in our school when...

The picture to the left shows the strategies of think alouds. 

Discussion Questions:
What strategies would you use to help your students comprehend something they didn't have any interest in?

Word Study

Main topic: Showing the difference of good and bad ways of teaching children how learn vocabulary.

Do-

• Teach your children these important prefixes: -un, -re, -in, -dis
• Create a Sticky-Note New Word Day
• Read lots of books, read aloud
• Teach morphemes, context, and how to use the dictionary to learn more words
• Teach them to monitor their vocabulary knowledge, so when they have a question about a word they know to go look it up

Don't-

• Bore students with endless amounts of definition
• Let kids think the when they see the letters -un, -re, -in, -dis that it is automatically going to mean something because there are lots of exceptions (uncle)

The picture on the right is an activity called different shades of emotions which is to show students that their are different words than just sad, tired, mad, happy, and etc.

The picture to the left shows an activity where a word is read and the first to identify gets to add a card to their pile and whoever has the most cards at the end wins for the day. This allows children to learn and be encouraged by other classmates.

Discussion Question-
On page 109 in our book it says that vocabulary experts tend to disagree on whether Latin and Greek roots should be taught.  I learned these when I was a junior in high school and found them very helpful. Do you think they should be taught and if so at what age would they be most beneficial?