Classroom Structures: Organizing for Literacy

Students learn by doing and learning to think in new ways. Scaffolding helps teachers set their students up for success. Students first learn to answer questions teachers ask and eventually ask the questions themselves deepening their comprehension. Good teachers create good readers by teaching them appropriate skills so they can eventually be successful all on their own. Motivating students by using the skills we've been taught continues the learning process. Furthermore, teachers must learn to take cues from their students. Each student and even each class is different so teachers must adapt their lessons and methods for the most effective instruction. Checking for understanding and interaction with the students is essential to monitor how well we are doing our job of fostering student's development.Teaching is demanding and teacher's are expected to do more than ever, that is why we must utilize the information and tools provided for us. Developing advanced literacy in all, or most of our students takes time, planning, and utilization of proven methods. This idea ties together all we have learned in this class.

I really like this chart for classroom management. It includes many action verbs and I believe being a teacher is all about action. We must Lead, Engage,Play,Signal....our students influence how the day goes but as teachers we have the biggest influence. Using effective methods and making it all fun makes being in the classroom better for everyone.

Assessment

One thing I really liked that Cunningham addressed in her chapter about assessment is that assessment is part of daily life. Working with kids for several years I think the worst parts of assessment are the stigma surrounding it and it's political connotation. I've seen eight year olds in tears over studying for a state regulated test that the school puts a ton of emphasis on. These tests are seen as a way to see who is dumb and who is smart and not to ways to improve instruction and gauge comprehension. As teachers, not politicians, it is our responsibility to utilize assessment to better ourselves as educators and our students through understanding of strengths and weaknesses. As discussed in the reading this is when we are actually assessing students and not just giving tests.  I really like that she points out that even things like reading level help teacher's see how successful they are being as instructors. I also like that she talks about what to do after assessment, not just label students but use the information for effective instruction like guided reading. In my ELL class we've talked a lot about doing full reading profiles on students rather than just one assessment and labeling them:

Link: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/58828338855453613/
 How helpful would something like this be?! You could make one at the beginning of the year and the end. You would include all the information so you can see where there is improvement and struggles. Also, this would be super helpful as the child moves up in grades. Especially if they need special instructions like ESL or TPI's. It helps with knowing the student and making sure they are progressing.

Do you think you could use something like this?
What would be the advantages vs. disadvantages of doing such a thorough profile?

Guided Reading

 A good part of what we will do as teachers is set the foundation for reading in the future. In the article I evaluated it's stated that a child who is a struggling reader in 1st grade is 88% more likely to continue to struggle into 4th grade. My article focused on guided reading as a method of early intervention for readers moving towards fluency. Essentially if teacher's can incorporate guided reading into their classrooms they will more successfully be able to identify what students are struggling with, and provide important background knowledge that can help students with comprehension. We've learned that effective reading instruction is all about balance, guided reading is one effective way to insert reading instruction into the classroom a positive, timely, and most importantly effective manner. Guided reading is another way to meet varying instructional needs of students in the classroom.
Guided reading has 3 fundamental purposes:
1). Teach students to read increasingly difficult texts with understanding and fluency.
2). Construct meaning through problem solving strategies
3). Understand concepts and Ideas not previously encountered
Guided reading is a great way to promote better understanding for all readers. Many students will struggle with a text on their own but when they participate in guided reading are able to better interact with the text. These interactions can mean anything from vocabulary acquisition for struggling readers to clarification of complex ideas for the more advanced one. The verbalization of ideas and concepts helps bring every student to a similar level of understanding.

Activities like the one above are great for helping students get equal speaking time in their groups. They also challenge the student to use good reading strategies in order to retain enough information to answer the questions. Teachers especially in group activities must stay organized to make these lessons effectively work.

Charts like the one above help teachers stay organized and work it effectively.
How would use organize a guided reading lesson in your classroom?

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10643-006-0074-2

Vocabulary

Last Week

Comprehension Part 2

1/2 other.

Comprehension

 Right of the bat this weeks readings struck me with Pardo's opening sentence talking about how teachers need to understand comprehension and all that is involved in comprehending before students can be effective comprehender's. As educators it's easy to think that our job is only to teach but really are job is to learn. To learn the subjects we are teaching and the most effective and up to date methods of teaching them, to learn from our students and base our lessons on their needs, and to learn are own strengths and weaknesses and constantly work for improvement. This is reinforced by Gill's discussion of the comprehension matrix. Utilizing resources can make teaching easier, more effective and more fun.
Comprehension like all aspects of reading is complex Comprehension itself is all about interaction with texts and bringing your own knowledge, experiences, and ideas into the text you're making sense of. This correlates with a responsibily for the teacher to introduce the students to a lot of text so they can broaden their vocabulary and knowledge and thus comprehension. It also is a responsibility to introduce text that bring unfamiliar and new ideas that can fall anywhere from scientific language to cultural ideas outside what students are normally exposed to. Reading is all about putting pieces together. It is a very involved experience.

 Teaching students to make connections helps them learn to do it automatically.

 You can also help readers show their thinking to increase comprehension. I really like this activity below.

The final article showed that it's never too early to teach reading comprehension. As with all aspects of reading it develops as the student develops as a learner. 

Question of the day: What part of comprehension do you is the most difficult for teachers to teach?
What methods would you use to promote comprehension that are more fun than just a worksheet?

Word Study: reading requires words

It's becoming more and more clear that reading is all about exposure, which make sense sinse reading is a part of everyone's daily. Students word knowledge is highly related to comprehension, if they don't know important words it is very hard to understand what they are reading. Developing vocabulary is a continuous process throughout life. Giving the students different skills decipher meaning of words themselves can make reading more fun, less difficult, and more practiced. I really liked some of the idea's of the Ten important words plus. I really want to teach the younger grades so I tried to tink of some ways it could be tweaked to make it more level appropriate for beginning readers:

1. In readings for younger children there are less difficult words because their vocabularies are smaller. A teacher in the younger grades may want to have the students pick out four words. Since the children are still developing reading skills the teacher may want to read the text to the class first and let them listen for comprehension and then they can go back and find four words they may not know on their own.
2. After the children get their 4 words do a similar chart and see which words the students chose. Have a discussion about the words. 
3. Let the children practice using the words in a sentence. Choose one word for each day and have them write a sentence that includes that word used correctly.
4.  Next, put them into groups and have them talk about what clues helped them decide what a word meant and what other words could be used in its place.(The beginning of understanding synoyms and comprehension) Have them read their sentences to eachother and talk about them.
5. On Friday, or however you want to do it, have the students get in their groups again and make a story using their words and sentences from the week. This will be fun for them and then they can present to the class. This gives you the chance to discuss any misinterpretations but also to praise the creative ways the children used the words to express an idea.

I think the writing exercises can help students with the concepts discussed about invented spelling. The more students are requried to read and write the more they will be exposed to words and learn to use them correctly, spell them correctly and understand their meaning. Maybe teachers could even pick out the words that children may struggle with and do a making words activity with the students before they do the the Important vocabulary words. Plan the lesson using the words of the week so if one of of your words of the week is gigantic us that for a making words activity before you define it and use it in a sentence.

I think a word wall like the one above could be a really cool way to keep tracks of the word the students have learned. Tis not only shows them their progress but gives them constant exposure to the words so they may continue to use them in discussion and writing. It might be really great to comment on the children using these words and encourage them to do so.
The blog I got this from has some really  good ideas about activities for writing : http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/02/my-january-top-ten-list-writing-lessons-and-resources#.UKr-gAb6MlE.pinterest

Questions of the Day:
 Do you think it would be effective to blend the two activities I talked about?
What other ideas do you have about incorporating these lessons into daily class, maybe use a book about butterflies when discussing metamorphosis in science?