Reading the article, Every Mark on the
Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children’s Writing by
Kate Cusumano, was such an enjoyable read for me as a future educator but especially for me as I'm working in a kindergarten classroom. I don't think before entering this field experience I realized just how little kindergarteners know about writing.
They very first thing the article starts out with saying things like "My daughter still uses only capital letters," "My son, Samuel, squishes all the words together," or "my child can't spell like that." These parents panic somewhat resembled my thoughts my first couple weeks in kindergarten. I think I'm extremely lucky to work with kindergarten during this field experience because it's by far my most challenging obstacle as an undergraduate education major. I like these parents thought the same things. Our teacher uses a writing prompt everyday. It's October and students still squish their words together and only use capital (or lowercase letters) and they can't spell at all. But to see how far they've come in just over a month of working there is awesome and wild.
I like that the author explains the importance of noticing what the student does right. When I saw the picture of the flag was done by a kindergartner I, too, was impressed because none of the kindergartners in my class could do that (so far). I noticed a lot of the strengths the author points out. That the author of the flag and story uses more words than pictures. Something kindergartners do not do in the beginning of the year (or even midway. My students are not there yet). She knows punctuation is important. Her invented spelling makes sense meaning that you can actually decode what she has written by thinking like a kindergartener. Remembering that they mostly only know sounds of individual words.
I love the idea of having a newsletter and/or workshops for families to attend. I think it's important for the family members to understand that students are often where they need to be. In my field experience during their writing notebook time, I had a hard time not correcting their spelling when we would sound words out to write in their books! So I can relate to these parents. I think that offering them some guidance on what to expect and what is okay is such a good idea. Like the article says, pushing students to conventional spelling can ruin their writing. We want to help parents create students who love to write. Writing is often about being creative! Helping parents understand how not to take away this love for writing can greatly benefit students.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Every week I read the readings assigned for E339 and I find myself learning so much information. Before when I attended another university, I took a reading class where it was no where near as beneficial as E339 so I am truly amazed as how much I learn and feel better about teaching reading. This week we read two readings one about teaching phonemic awareness and the other about phonics.
In the first reading, it was really interested that it's focus was so strongly on phonemic awareness because in a previous reading from Catching Readers Before They Fall, one of the chapter's stated that phonemic awareness should only be taught five hours throughout the year while this chapter said it should be taught twenty. The chapter from Catching Readers Before They Fall made the point that you do not want to overdo phonemic awareness so I think that you have to take how many hours are recommended with a grain of salt. It really depends on your students and what you think they will benefit from.
Additionally, the beginning of the chapter talks about using songs and rhyming poems which I have noticed done in my field work. I'm in kindergarten so I see a lot of this type of stuff. Every week the students have an assigned nursery rhyme for the whole week where they read it every day a couple times a day. I think that this is great. Not only for phonemic awareness but it helps students who do not know how to read yet memorize the words and then make connections.
Something else that I had never heard of was the YOPP Test. I thought that this was a great assessment and very quick too. I liked that the chapter had an example of what it looked like in the chapter. Also, I found it super beneficial all of the books that chapter listed! I enjoyed the different things the YOPP listed to do for extra help. One other thing that really stuck out to me was the brief piece about invented spelling, page 11, where it talked about how this actually can benefit students because it helps them with sounds!
The second reading was "From Phonics to Fluency." The chapter is essentially just definitions that teachers should know that relate to reading. I actually really liked this chapter because it wasn't too many definitions but enough. Some I knew but there was some I did not know. For example when I was school, we learned "y" was sometimes a vowel but the reading said sometimes "w." I certainly never knew that at all!
In the first reading, it was really interested that it's focus was so strongly on phonemic awareness because in a previous reading from Catching Readers Before They Fall, one of the chapter's stated that phonemic awareness should only be taught five hours throughout the year while this chapter said it should be taught twenty. The chapter from Catching Readers Before They Fall made the point that you do not want to overdo phonemic awareness so I think that you have to take how many hours are recommended with a grain of salt. It really depends on your students and what you think they will benefit from.
Additionally, the beginning of the chapter talks about using songs and rhyming poems which I have noticed done in my field work. I'm in kindergarten so I see a lot of this type of stuff. Every week the students have an assigned nursery rhyme for the whole week where they read it every day a couple times a day. I think that this is great. Not only for phonemic awareness but it helps students who do not know how to read yet memorize the words and then make connections.
Something else that I had never heard of was the YOPP Test. I thought that this was a great assessment and very quick too. I liked that the chapter had an example of what it looked like in the chapter. Also, I found it super beneficial all of the books that chapter listed! I enjoyed the different things the YOPP listed to do for extra help. One other thing that really stuck out to me was the brief piece about invented spelling, page 11, where it talked about how this actually can benefit students because it helps them with sounds!
The second reading was "From Phonics to Fluency." The chapter is essentially just definitions that teachers should know that relate to reading. I actually really liked this chapter because it wasn't too many definitions but enough. Some I knew but there was some I did not know. For example when I was school, we learned "y" was sometimes a vowel but the reading said sometimes "w." I certainly never knew that at all!
Sunday, October 12, 2014
"Making Decisions for Individual Learners Within a Small-Group Setting"
In the webcast, Making Decisions for Individual Learners Within in a Small Group Setting, I was flooded with important reminders as well as new ideas about teaching reading. The webcast has three important women speak about a few different important key aspects to help reading.
We've definitely heard many different things Pat has said before because of our book, Catching Readers Before They Fall. Much of what Pat had said in the webcast goes off what she says in the books. She talks more about the three ways to figure out a word when they are struggling. I like when Pat talks about if a student is struggling, don't have them use the same strategy again. If a student is only using visual, have the student use meaning! Another thing that really stuck out to me in Pat's talk was when she quotes Frank Smith saying, "Reading depends on more than what is behind the eyes - on the non visual items than on the visual information in front of them." This is so important! If you would have asked me this before I started out into my school for teaching, I would of wondered how that possible could be true! But it is! We as teachers have to make sure students have these non visual items in their mind helping them process and understand the visual information presented. If the do not have non visual information, they will not do as well with the visual information presented to them.
Pat also discusses that we are teaching the readers, not the book. To me this struck as extremely important too. It took me surprise for a moment because I was like wait, we don't teach the book? But of course not, we are teaching the reader. The book is irrelevant if the students are not taught the correct reading processes. This is the most important part. It's easy to get caught up in teaching the book, but we have to beware. Our students learning process is much important. We have to plan our instruction according to that most.
Diane talks about some stuff that I think I knew was important but sometimes I overlook. She talks about how we have to know the strengths of our readers. This is crucial in understanding our students. We have to know what they can do to build off of this when teaching them. She also talks about how we should have one or two things that they need to work on. One or two. I think that's an important idea because we should not and cannot do too much or our students will feel lost and won't understand. Again Diane expands on the idea Pat discusses about teaching the readers, NOT the books. She too goes on about how we must pick books that teach our students what they need to understand. We must pick our books based on what strategies our readers need.
Finally, Mary talks about ELL and small groups. I think that Mary's discussion provided me with the most ah-ha moments because I've never really been sure how to help ELL without knowing their language. In fact, I use to think it was impossible to help them if they were not able to speak to me but I no longer have this view (Thank God!). I think one important point made was that we need to know our ELL! We need to know them on a deeper level to help them become proficient readers in English. There are so many ways Mary provides us with to help ELL to become proficient readers. In my class at University Elementary, there is a little girl who mostly speaks Korean. She does not speak much English. The last time we were there, the writing prompt was "I like fall because ___." Emily (the ELL) wasn't able to understand what exactly fall meant. One thing Mary talked about was how we need to know what knowledge they possess in reading strategies in their own language. I think this is important. This can help us build off of their knowledge of those strategies even if they are in another language. I grew up in a town with a ton of Hispanics so I've seen first hand how teachers let these ELL fall behind. The strategies that Mary provides are super beneficial for me to know to help my future ELL. I hope that I can continue learning about helping ELL become proficient readers in English because I think it's important not to let them fall behind or they may never catch back up!
Overall, I found such great tips from these three women. They provided us with great examples in each to help us better understand what we can do as teachers. This kind of learning is great for me because it's so much better to hear experienced teachers to understand ways that they actually know are capable of working.
We've definitely heard many different things Pat has said before because of our book, Catching Readers Before They Fall. Much of what Pat had said in the webcast goes off what she says in the books. She talks more about the three ways to figure out a word when they are struggling. I like when Pat talks about if a student is struggling, don't have them use the same strategy again. If a student is only using visual, have the student use meaning! Another thing that really stuck out to me in Pat's talk was when she quotes Frank Smith saying, "Reading depends on more than what is behind the eyes - on the non visual items than on the visual information in front of them." This is so important! If you would have asked me this before I started out into my school for teaching, I would of wondered how that possible could be true! But it is! We as teachers have to make sure students have these non visual items in their mind helping them process and understand the visual information presented. If the do not have non visual information, they will not do as well with the visual information presented to them.
Pat also discusses that we are teaching the readers, not the book. To me this struck as extremely important too. It took me surprise for a moment because I was like wait, we don't teach the book? But of course not, we are teaching the reader. The book is irrelevant if the students are not taught the correct reading processes. This is the most important part. It's easy to get caught up in teaching the book, but we have to beware. Our students learning process is much important. We have to plan our instruction according to that most.
Diane talks about some stuff that I think I knew was important but sometimes I overlook. She talks about how we have to know the strengths of our readers. This is crucial in understanding our students. We have to know what they can do to build off of this when teaching them. She also talks about how we should have one or two things that they need to work on. One or two. I think that's an important idea because we should not and cannot do too much or our students will feel lost and won't understand. Again Diane expands on the idea Pat discusses about teaching the readers, NOT the books. She too goes on about how we must pick books that teach our students what they need to understand. We must pick our books based on what strategies our readers need.
Finally, Mary talks about ELL and small groups. I think that Mary's discussion provided me with the most ah-ha moments because I've never really been sure how to help ELL without knowing their language. In fact, I use to think it was impossible to help them if they were not able to speak to me but I no longer have this view (Thank God!). I think one important point made was that we need to know our ELL! We need to know them on a deeper level to help them become proficient readers in English. There are so many ways Mary provides us with to help ELL to become proficient readers. In my class at University Elementary, there is a little girl who mostly speaks Korean. She does not speak much English. The last time we were there, the writing prompt was "I like fall because ___." Emily (the ELL) wasn't able to understand what exactly fall meant. One thing Mary talked about was how we need to know what knowledge they possess in reading strategies in their own language. I think this is important. This can help us build off of their knowledge of those strategies even if they are in another language. I grew up in a town with a ton of Hispanics so I've seen first hand how teachers let these ELL fall behind. The strategies that Mary provides are super beneficial for me to know to help my future ELL. I hope that I can continue learning about helping ELL become proficient readers in English because I think it's important not to let them fall behind or they may never catch back up!
Overall, I found such great tips from these three women. They provided us with great examples in each to help us better understand what we can do as teachers. This kind of learning is great for me because it's so much better to hear experienced teachers to understand ways that they actually know are capable of working.
"I thought I knew how to teach reading, but Whoa!"
Chapter 7, I thought I knew how to teach reading, but Whoa, was a little bit scary at first. With the chapter beginning by introducing us to a real teacher who had so many different grade levels in one classroom was a little bit scary for me! That would be quite a challenge so having this chapter go in depth to help better understand what we can do for that made me feel a little bit better.
First, I liked the section Finding a Starting Point because I like where Katie advices her this new teacher to start with what she know like read alouds, community writing, and independent reading. This way the new teacher, Rachel, could determine the strengths and weaknesses of each child specifically and she would not have to set up guided reading groups within the first month or so, it said. This made me a feel a little relieved. Another thing the next section goes on to say is that there does not have to be a set teaching sequence. You can move around based on the needs of your students. The chapter goes on to discuss different strategies in more depth. All of the discussions on each of the strategies are pretty informational but I liked a few best.
The strategy discussing voice/print match was pretty interesting to me. I liked the emphasis on which of the two pictures better represented one to practice with which talks about practicing with one with essentially enough spacing to use your pointer finger. Then after this section, there was a couple ideas that were suggested if students were still struggling which I liked because I feel like some struggling readers may not fully connect to just using the pointer finger. I personally felt like the idea of getting a book with the students name to have repetition was such a good idea.
Another thing that chapter talked about that really stuck out to me was the different between phonics and phonemic awareness! I really hadn't known that or at least realized it. I think another thing that stuck out to me was that you should not put too much emphasis on phonemic awareness. I liked that it gave the example of only needing to use phonemic awareness with a couple letters because they get the concept so they do not need to do every single letter.
The last strategy that I found really ah-ha about was fluency! I do not recall really being taught to read with expression as much as I think it should be. Emphasizing fluency can really make readers fall in love with reading, understand what they are reading, and learning to love what they are reading. When I was in middle school, my history teacher had use accents to read so that it was interesting to us. I liked doing it and sometimes with boring texts, I try to read really excitingly.
Finally, I like that the authors have a section that makes suggestions for teachers. These may be something to look back on when I am a first year teacher, or anytime I need guidance with readers! I mostly loved the closing remarks about how sometimes the hardest to teach are the hardest to love. I feel this rings true in many cases but as teachers it should be our passion to teach these students.
First, I liked the section Finding a Starting Point because I like where Katie advices her this new teacher to start with what she know like read alouds, community writing, and independent reading. This way the new teacher, Rachel, could determine the strengths and weaknesses of each child specifically and she would not have to set up guided reading groups within the first month or so, it said. This made me a feel a little relieved. Another thing the next section goes on to say is that there does not have to be a set teaching sequence. You can move around based on the needs of your students. The chapter goes on to discuss different strategies in more depth. All of the discussions on each of the strategies are pretty informational but I liked a few best.
The strategy discussing voice/print match was pretty interesting to me. I liked the emphasis on which of the two pictures better represented one to practice with which talks about practicing with one with essentially enough spacing to use your pointer finger. Then after this section, there was a couple ideas that were suggested if students were still struggling which I liked because I feel like some struggling readers may not fully connect to just using the pointer finger. I personally felt like the idea of getting a book with the students name to have repetition was such a good idea.
Another thing that chapter talked about that really stuck out to me was the different between phonics and phonemic awareness! I really hadn't known that or at least realized it. I think another thing that stuck out to me was that you should not put too much emphasis on phonemic awareness. I liked that it gave the example of only needing to use phonemic awareness with a couple letters because they get the concept so they do not need to do every single letter.
The last strategy that I found really ah-ha about was fluency! I do not recall really being taught to read with expression as much as I think it should be. Emphasizing fluency can really make readers fall in love with reading, understand what they are reading, and learning to love what they are reading. When I was in middle school, my history teacher had use accents to read so that it was interesting to us. I liked doing it and sometimes with boring texts, I try to read really excitingly.
Finally, I like that the authors have a section that makes suggestions for teachers. These may be something to look back on when I am a first year teacher, or anytime I need guidance with readers! I mostly loved the closing remarks about how sometimes the hardest to teach are the hardest to love. I feel this rings true in many cases but as teachers it should be our passion to teach these students.
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