Reading About Writing

Scott 2

Day One: Help Children To Write And Keep Writing

I like how the author states that the first entry point into writing is simple conversation. I agree with this because it lets the students easily make connections and think of topics in their own lives that they could write about. I didn’t ever think of the fact that drawing often helps the children to think about what might be said in the text that follows.  “Inventing” words saves the teacher time as well as helps the students attempt to hear the individual sounds in a word and figure out the spelling.

It is important to help students learn how to listen to themselves. They can do this by taking notes as they are discussing and thinking of new ideas and memories. Some techniques to use with students are:

Thinking back to former experiences, making lists, sign or brief command, messages, show children the options for writing topics from an everyday reading of the world, writing conferences  (abt 2 minutes) where the students teach you about what they know, and conducting a writing share sessions with a small group or with the entire class.

With these techniques, the students will learn the three basic elements in the writing classroom: discovering writing topics, writing conferences, and sharing their ideas. I like how the author brought in demonstrating. Demonstration and modeling has always helped me to learn as a student, so I will need to remember that as I am teaching.

Scott 4

7 Conditions For Effective Writing

I like that this article focuses on conditions that encourage good writing rather than focusing on instructions or a particular methodology. I could really relate to the author’s examples she provides under “time”. Procrastinating and not having much time to do a piece of writing really does interfere with the outcome. I also appreciate that she says, “Correcting errors is not teaching, teaching requires us to show students how to write and how to develop the skills necessary to improve as a writer,” which takes time.

Time, Choice, Response, Demonstration, Expectation, Room Structure, Evaluation, and the Final Reflection are the 7 conditions that the author lists and explains that she feels are the main conditions for effective writing to take place. While reading the article, I agreed with all of these conditions. They all are important aspects that teachers and students need to take into considerations when writing time comes.

Phonics Readings for 10/20

Teaching Phonemic Awareness

Students need to learn how sounds work in order to understand phonics and reading. Rhyming and poetry in natural activities help struggling students catch on to the sounds in words. Students must have phonic awareness to be able to recognize words and to help them read. It is not only recognizing, but also being able to blend the sounds represented by the individual letter. This awareness is the students’ awareness of speech sounds, smaller than the syllables.

 “Phonics refers to the knowledge of letter-sound correspondence…”

I think it is interesting that phonemic awareness is a key indicator (by correlation) of how well the students will learn to read during their first two years in school.

I also find it interesting that the National Reading Panel gave an instructional guideline to only have a total of 20 hours of sessions over an entire year with a student to help with phonemic awareness. I would have guessed it would be about a half hour a day, which ends up being WAY more than 20 hours in an entire school year.  It does make sense, though, that children develop phonemic awareness naturally, so too many of these conferences may just burn the student out.

I have never considered that struggling 5^th and 6^th graders in reading might be struggling because they might have been stuck drilling more and reading less than all of the other students because of one misunderstanding. This makes me want to be sure that this does not happen to my students in the future.

From Phonics to Fluency

I agree that many of the terms for reading are very confusing, and there are so many of them that it is hard to remember the terminology for all of them. It does make seem important that the instructors and teachers know these terms so that they can interchange ideas intelligently and more fluently than having to stop to explain what they are talking about so others could follow along.

The list of definitions in this reading will be very helpful now as well as in the future. It will create a common language for teachers. It is important for the teacher to know these terms, but the students definitely do not need to focus on them- they just need to learn how to read.

Making Decisions for Individual Learners Within a Small-Group Setting

October 12th, 2014

Making Decisions for Individual Learners Within a Small-Group Setting

Throughout this Webcast I learned much about what strategies to keep in mind while working with readers, especially in small groups. A lot of it is the same as we have been learning in class, however it is nice to recover it incase I have missed anything and also so that I can refresh on the topics. The Webcast starts out by reminding the teacher to teach the reader, not the book. Also do not just teach individual letters. Must support the reader as they build a reading process. They should become active participants and be able to overcome their obstacles at the word or text level. Students need to be able to self-monitor while they read and use their sources of information to solve words. They can do this by using a balance of the meaning, syntactic, and visual information. They should not focus on only one of these sources. The struggling readers in the groups are having trouble making a reading process system. Stay future oriented. Reading is not always about accuracy- would rather have synonyms at first if needed. Need to use strategic action.  Children need to have opportunity (guided reading time) to be able to make their reading system automatic. Let children have discussions to make meaning of their reading. Also, should make the books about something so that the children can make meaning. Know your students’ strengths and interests. Know their common experiences so that you can guide their thinking and help them make connections. Match the text to the readers for their passions and experiences. No more than one or two new things to learn at a time. Plan for change and note self-correction. English language learners can be grouped by looking at the ELP and DRA levels as well as their primary language and interests. They do not always need to go down a reading level if they cannot do one book because of vocabulary, because he or she may be more successful with another book at the same level with different vocabulary.

Chapter 5 and 10 Catching Readers

In chapter 5 of Catching Readers Before they Fall, I agree that reading and writing to children, with children, and by children in every day is important because it gives them the practice they need as well as the modeling they need. I also liked that the author added in the importance of the considerations for scheduling groups together and tells how that can be done in the classroom. It is also nice that they made a section for "Putting it all together in a typical day". I know that will be helpful to use as a guide later on in my classroom.

In chapter 10 I liked that the authors stated how conferences are much more helpful to the students than answering questions are about a story. It gets them thinking more critically and can help the teacher have a better idea about where the students stand in their understanding of the text. The grids they give us in the book will also be very helpful for me in the future as a teacher.

Chapter 4: Beyond "Sound It Out"

                                                     Chapter 4: Beyond "Sound It Out"

      While reading chapter 4, I was interested that the authors pushed straying away from the regular approach of having students sound out a problem he or she does not know. The three "Balances of Sources of Information for Word Solving", Meaning, Structure, and Visual, make a lot of sense to me as useful sources. These are three things I use when I read, so when the chapter mentioned how these three things will help children, I thought about my own experiences with reading and how they also help me to make sense of what is happening in what I am reading. 

       It was also very interesting to me that most words actually do not work when trying to use the "sound it out method". The statistic they gave of the words that do not actually work with that method was surprising to me and I did not actually believe it at first. After they gave a few examples such as "said, night, and know," I began to think of many more words that would also not be very easy to sound out. This chapter was helpful to me and I think I will come back to it when I have my own classroom because it gives many options and techniques of what to say to help struggling readers when they are stuck on words or misplace words with other words. 

Blog 1: "What really matters: Kids need to read a lot

When reading this article I thought a lot about the class I student taught in during my senior year of high school and during cadet teaching last year during my sophomore year of college. Thinking back to that class, the teacher always added in reading time whenever she could for the students. Whether it was during silent reading time, small groups, or as a class, the students always had time throughout the day to read. This article made me realize how important individual reading really is for each student. With all of the research that was brought into the article, it would be hard to argue otherwise. My initial thoughts about some of the things that the author said, though, were that they were a little unrealistic. The main thing that is coming to mind is how the author said that all of the clerical work could be taken care of before school starts by volunteer parents. It would not only be hard to get volunteer parents for every day of the year, but also many parents are already rushing to be able to get their students to school on time. I think it is a good idea in theory, but it sounds like it would be a very difficult task to accomplish.