"One purpose for assessment is to determine the level of text that will challenge student"

- Rubin, Assessment

This article gives a great insight to the three most popular types of assessment:

1. Cloze Test

                                  Recommended for readers struggling in comprehension and vocabulary

2. Running Record

A student is to read a passage (never seen before) and the instructor is to provide critical feedback and scoring

3. Informal Reading Inventories

Evaluate comprehension through post-reading questions and usually report growth

To gain more perspective, I looked at the articles "Pause and Ponder" section. One question asked "What are different ways I can assess reading in my classroom"

I personally believe that there needs to be a collection of base-line data. This data includes comprehension level, vocabulary level, how they learn, and who they are as a student. After the baseline data has been collected, teachers should mediate course work with individual work, partners, and group study time. This will help determine what level the student lies on.  

Organizing assessment data is divided into three sections: independent, instructional, and frustration.

A teacher needs to be aware of what category their student follow, and be prepared for assessment and reassessment. If a teacher understands the reading level of their students, their scores will progress. Allowing students to read below their grade level isn't a bad thing. For example, I am currently in an ESL class. Some students are in 5th but read in a 1st grade level. Yes, that may look bad, but ESL (or L1) learn differently than we do. Their improvement curve will also slop very slowly. 

How can I recognize reading scores that are unreliable?

I believe its by paying attention to your student's needs and levels. What do you think?

 

Guided Reading

In the article Guided Reading in the Balanced Reading Programs by Melissa J. Rickey writes about the constructs of guided reading. Rickey also includes the opinion of Margaret Mooney and how she creates a balanced reading program.

"For example, instead of continuously stopping a read aloud to ask children questions or to generate predictions, Mooney (1994a) suggests that teachers carefully select and plan for presenting books. With their students' needs, interests and attitudes in mind, teachers can read aloud fluently, judiciously demonstrate thinking beyond the text, and take time to receive children's responses and invite them to return to the book at a later time."

This article really pushes the use of guided reading because the author believes it to be the cornerstone of a balanced reading program.

The flexibility in guided reading approaches allows teachers to teach in a variety of different ways that reach students who may not learn like the rest of the class.

By focusing on 'before, during, and after reading', teachers apply repetition to build the reading foundation of students.

How can teachers get students interested in all parts of guided reading, i.e. the introduction, reading, revisiting, discussion.

Pinterest helps in many ways:

 Introduction: This is more for beginning readers. Students can learn these sight words, understand their meaning and then apply them to the story they are reading.

    Discussion: Put students into small groups (maybe 2-3). Whatever the students roll, the students answer.


















In my WLEL class, my professor talked about how sometimes students are spoiled by games and candy. How can we, as teachers, make guided reading interesting without making the lesson a game? or have rewards like candy and trinkets?


http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/strategies/topics/literacy/articles/guidedreadinginthebalancedreadingprogram/

Vocabulary Instruction

In the Blanchowitz article, the main point was to promote vocabulary through means of games, student activities, and reading.

Throughout this article, however, I couldn't help but thinking about the group of students that don't like reading. How can we promote reading in a fun way for them, as well as everyone else?

In Dalton's article, it makes it easier to answer that question. The use of technology, direct instruction, and active learning surround almost every kind of instructive learning.

For me, It is really hard to think about computers in the classroom because when I was a student, we only had them in the library. This is something every teacher needs to adapt to. Technology can expand minds beyond school and if this will improve the quality of education, I don't see why not to incorporate it.

Because teachers need to be familiar with technology, research on appropriate games and/or activities should be done. If a game lacks feasibility, or doesn't challenge the student enough (or maybe it is too hard) than a teacher needs to know this ahead of time. Otherwise, they waste precious classroom time.

Here are some things I found:

Super Word Toss is a fun, educational game for kids to practice matching synonyms and antonyms. Kids can choose from two different levels of difficulty before they play. The rules of the game are simple. Get 10 correct matches and choose a new ball! Get 3 incorrect in a row and the game is over!

 Match the prefix and the base word!













Source: http://www.funbrain.com/
http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/staff/boldtkatherine/readingfun3-6/readingfun_prefixessuffixesroots.htm

November 3, 2014

In the article by Sharon Gill, we begin to understand the Comprehension Matrix and how we can organize our activities into pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading.

Gill also writes about the three theories involved in comprehension: Schema, Transactional,  Constructivist.

I believe that teachers can create an environment that works for all three of these theories.

Schema involves a readers use of prior knowledge to make sense of new information. Teachers could devise a lesson plan that surrounds some elemental part of the story they are reading.

For example, if students watch a video and paint a picture of a butterfly, then read a text about the migrating monarchs, their confusion will be less likely..while an interest increase will be more likely.












Transactional surrounds the idea that different experiences = different meaning. Readers will adopt either a efferent (Take away information) or aesthetic (Take away experiences).
A good example of this is what Halloween means to an American L1 student vs a Spanish L2 student. Latino culture typically do not celebrate Halloween so a teacher must make sure that this holiday is defined to the L2's and that their culture is also described to L1s.

A good way to sort out this theory is by asking; Why am I reading this. A pintrest user created a bookmark/checklist to promote this thought.

Constructivist theory uses the construction of their ow knowledge by making connections. Gill stated that reading, writing, drawing, graphic organizers, etc are a great because they help build and extend comprehension.

Text Structures

In the Pardo article, one section that stood out to me was the section on text structures. The exposure to narrative genres and expository structures help students understand basic story grammar and literary elements.

This brought me back to my middle school creative writing days. Every Friday, my teacher would provide us with a writing prompt-- sometimes it was creative, sometimes it was analytic. But I remember getting excited for this part of the day. I remember on prompt: Write a story about how the dragon saved the princess from the knight.

I think that creative writing opens up a new way of understanding for students. Instead of reading out of a textbook, they are applying their knowledge to create their own little something.

Another idea for teachers is to have the same prompt every week, but have students add on to it. For example, week one can be about setting, week two can be about theme, week three can be about foreshadowing...etc. This is wonderful practice for story-building and can be used as a connector to other narrative stories.

October 13, 2014

Word Study:

In the The Reading Teacher articles, we saw 3 ways students can learn new words and how each instruction differs from the other.
While wide-reading exposes students to new words via books and pictures, establishment of environment promotes learning outside the lesson or classroom.

So how can we incorporate all strategies to help our students?

With Wide Reading, we can buy books in the library that are either slightly above the average reading level, and/or accurately drawn pictures that make it easy to connect the unknown word to the known image.

With Explicit Instruction, teachers can group unknown words with known words that have some of the same contexts. Instead of using the old word, use the new one.
                   For example: - sheet, blanket, comforter
                                         - cat, kitten, feline
Establishment of Environment is more focused on parental guidance. While teachers can promote challenging words, parents can continue it by making it a game. For example. on the way to school a parent can ask their child how many bridges they see. To get a point, the child has to say the word and point to the object.
     -Word lists from teachers can help with this.
                                        

 

Poetry Performance- Fluency

Performing poetry can be used to integrate reading across the curriculum. Students read with expression, using their voice and gestures to convey the meaning of the text. With repeated readings of a poem, students become fluent readers and increase their comprehension.

October 6. 2014

Fluency is one of the major goals in reading instruction. The speed, accuracy, and expression are representatives of a students level of fluency.

In ch. 4 of Classrooms that Work, the author discusses how reading repetition will help develop a students level of fluency.

I suggest that you discover the exact level the student is on, and find a series of books that will work.

For example, if a student has a low frequency level, "Little Bear" by Else Minarick or "Franklin" by Paulette Bourgeois. 

 
 












A more challenging series, is the Magic Tree House books. This series is both educational, fantasy, and sci-fi so it reaches a broad audience.

Once a student has exceeded fluency but still wants a challenge, in terms of pronunciation, the Harry Potter series is an excellent choice.

In conclusion, these books work well for progression because they use repetitious names and sequences that help the reader develop a strong reading fluency.

What series books do you remember reading over and over again?

Teaching Phonics and Spelling:

In ch.5, the book discusses how students have more words in their listening/meaning vocabulary than in their sight-reading vocabulary.

It also discusses certain lesson formats for students to learn and pay attention to patterns in words.
-Guess The Covered Word
-Using Words You Know
-Making Words

However, which format is appropriate in terms of grade and skill level?

In my opinion 'Guess The Covered Word' is for the early elementary grades. This game allows students to guess and introduces them to not only focus on the word, but also on the meaning. It also leaves room for students to grow--once they know certain words, they can practice on harder word sounds.

'Using Words You Know' is intended for middle elementary age because they use the words they already know. The purpose is to decode unknown words by using the patterns of words they do know, but it still leaves room for new knowledge and improvement.

'Making Words' is for the higher elementary grades. Guided discovery leaves students to grow on their learning independence.  They use the skills they have already obtained and apply them to this format. Students use the sorted rhyming words to spell some new words with the same rhyming pattern.

Supporting Phonemic Awareness

In the article by Yopp & Yopp, phonemic awareness is a somewhat misunderstood concept. Many people confuse the term phonemic with auditory discrimination.

Phonemic awareness: awareness tat the speech stream consists of a sequence of sounds.

So now the question remains, how do you translate this difference into the classroom?

1. Create/ Incorporate activities that are child appropriate:
- songs, chants, word sound games, storytelling, rhymes and riddles
- create posters that focus on a holiday or theme.

"I Have, Who Has" is a game that will help reinforce the ability to identify phonemes in a word. Students love to play this game and are excited when it is used in small and/or whole group settings. This game is a "chain reaction" activity for the kids, with this set focusing on segmenting two, three, and four phoneme words.

 Now this woman, I feel, is a little obnoxious but her game does well with both letters and the sounds they make. According to Yopp & Yopp, a game needs to be playful, engaging, delilberate, and purposeful. I think that this game could even be broadened as the lesson continues and the students learn more. Maybe have bean bags with prefixes and affixes to work on those tricky pronunciations.






All in all, the understanding of what phonemic awareness is will help students progress into metalinguistic awareness and alphabetic orthography.
Did you find her game stimulating? Was it too focused on smaller classrooms?
Feel free to comment below.

9/15/2014

Building Literacy Foundation:

     In chapter 3, we learn about the benefits of pretend reading and how memorization is sometimes a good thing. It also dug deeper into the concepts of forming a foundation for literacy.
     What I really found interesting was the activities that educators can create to promote a foundation for learning.
            Reading to Children:
Reading to children creates a relaxed and soothing environment. When I was in elementary school, after lunch we would all sit in a circle on a rug and listen to my teacher read The Watsons Go to Birmingham or  a Judy Blume book. I believe that the excitement over a story draws on a child's independence thus, having them reciprocate their teacher.
            Independent Reading Time:
Independent reading time can be considered as a form of positive reinforcement. For example, when I was little, if I finished my test or in-class work early I got to read for the rest of the designated time. It gives students a chance to practice reading, build independence, and have a some self confidence aka being proud of their hard work.
            Supporting and Encouraging Writing:
What I learned at A.L. Lotts was that students hate writing almost as much as they hate reading. To change all of that, I believe teachers need to create a more relatable and creative prompt or project. A student has the opportunity to express their imagination and also practice on correct spelling/grammar. Two birds, one stone.

Jones Family Culture:

In this article, researchers observed The Jones Family. The purpose, as stated in the introduction, was to see how families value literacy and what legacies families hold with literacy,
What I found interesting was that The Jones did not have nuclear family roles. Kiki's aunt and grandmother had just as much to teach her as her own mother would. According to Gadsen "Extendedness is important in African American Families".
Intergenerationality shows how the importance and use of literacy differs in each generation. Writing letters, nowadays, is almost obsolete because of technology. Recipes once told orally are now written down and stored in a computer.
Students can learn from Intergenerationality through the means of reading books that focus on a different culture. By furthering discussion on the differences and similarities in culture and literacy use, students can analyze the reasons why literacy is so important.

Upon further thinking...

        I wanted to find books, besides The Patchwork Quilt, that would offer cultural enrichment and excitement in the classroom.

#1. Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco

"After being initiated into a neighbor's family in a solemn backyard ceremony, a young Russian-American girl and her African-American "brothers" determine to buy their "gramma" Eula a beautiful Easter hat. But their good intentions are misunderstood, until they discover just the right way to pay for the hat that Eula has her eye on."
--> This book deals with cultural diversity in community as well as family.


#2 Esperenza Rising By Pam Munoz Riyan


"Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it."
--> I have a feeling the girls in the classroom will like this more than the guys. But it's a good story about the cultural and socioeconomic changes during the Great Depression and how this event wasn't restricted to just America.

#3. Molly's Pilgrim By Barbara Cohen


"Molly and her parents are a Jewish family who have emigrated from Russia to the United States to escape religious persecution. Molly is the only Jewish child in third grade.
When Thanksgiving arrives, the teacher assigns a project to make a Pilgrim doll. Molly is embarrassed by her mother's attempts to help with her Thanksgiving project. She makes a pilgrim doll — but dresses it in Russian clothing. Soon, however, Molly learns that it takes all kinds of "pilgrims" to make a Thanksgiving."
--> Perfect around October/November. This book is more for the upper elementary levels (3rd-5th grade). This is a good book about community acceptance and unity. I also get a sense of anti-bullying.



You can find more culture diverse books here: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/books-teaching-about-cultural-diversity