Hello,
In class yesterday we discussed Emergent Literacy and how children learn phonemic awareness, which prepares them for phonics. We also surveyed a variety of children's books and found out how they could be used in reading instruction. I was not able to borrow the book to the left from the library, but it is the "predictable big book" our textbook often mentions.
For homework, please read Chapter 4 in our textbook (CMCM) and the three chapters in the handout --Rasinski, Timothy and Padak, Nancy(2001). From Phonics to Fluency. (Chapters 4,5, & 6) Together these four chapters are critical for understanding how children begin to read. Especially note the activities that match each of the stages. We will be talking about this next class and making some charts. Please bring your textbook and the handout to class next time.
Have a great long weekend!
For homework, please read Chapter 4 in our textbook (CMCM) and the three chapters in the handout --Rasinski, Timothy and Padak, Nancy(2001). From Phonics to Fluency. (Chapters 4,5, & 6) Together these four chapters are critical for understanding how children begin to read. Especially note the activities that match each of the stages. We will be talking about this next class and making some charts. Please bring your textbook and the handout to class next time.
Have a great long weekend!
I really enjoyed our last class. Something that really resonated with me was our discussion on spelling. During my 405 practicum in grade 7, I had a hard time addressing this issue. Poor spelling is a pet peeve of mine so knowing this, I went overboard in the other direction. When I was marking students’ work in Language Arts, I was so afraid of filling their assignments with red ink to point out their spelling mistakes, that I went completely in the other direction and barely corrected any. I tried to focus on their thoughts and ideas. But interestingly enough, in other subjects I was very strict when it came to their spelling. I think there has to be a balance of the two. Reading and writing spills into every subject in the curricula so I have to be aware of my difficulties with addressing spelling. While sometimes the thoughts and ideas are important, spelling must be addressed (especially at the intermediate level). I am not sure why I had such a variation in spelling in different subjects but I find it interesting how I addressed it so differently.
ReplyDeleteAnother point I related from class was teaching children the conventions of reading, such as turning pages. I spent one morning a week in a grade 1 class during 405 and I noticed something right away. Many students form Asian backgrounds at first did not “read” book the same way as the North American students. Instead of reading books start-to-finish and left-to-right, they began from the back of the book. I think a great way to promote understanding and knowledge of different cultures would be to point out to the class how books can be read differently, depending on “where” the book is being read.
Last class I really enjoyed browsing through the various books and then hearing everyone’s ideas on how to implement them within the classroom and curriculum. Everyone had great ideas, and those who had completed their full time practicums really had in-depth ideas which were often based from their experience.
ReplyDeleteI found it helpful to take the time to study so many interesting books and to make a list of the books would work well within various lesson plans/units as a future resource. There were so many great books that would apply to various grade levels and subjects.
I also find it interesting how much my other courses and this reading course are overlapping. The subject of emergent readers has been discussed through-out my classes and the strategies to support and teach reading skills. I find the most prominent message that reading needs to be enjoyable to encourage children to want to learn and struggle through the basics and become the reader that they want to be. The other emphasis is on early intervention, prevention and assessment to prevent the “wait-to-fail” model.
I too find it extremely frustrating working within the school system and knowing that a child is struggling but has to wait years for an assessment to gain more services and insight into their learning abilities. I see the effects on the children, their frustration level increases each year, often leading to low self-esteem, behavioural difficulties, and ostracization. A new system would be beneficial if it could be implemented in kindergarten and grade one for early intervention.
The idea of whether or not children should be allowed to use invented spelling is an interesting issue. I think invented spellings definitely have a place in the classroom, even with the older grades. During my practicum in a Grade 5 class I allowed students to use invented spelling on rough copies and tests, explaining that they didn’t have to worry about their spelling being “correct” but they should try their best. My thinking was that in rough drafts I just wanted students to get their ideas out and when they were writing tests (in subjects other than spelling) I just wanted to see if they understood the concepts we’d been learning in class. There was an audible sigh of relief from many students when they heard that spelling wouldn’t count on a test. When I talked to a couple of them about this they told me that when the teacher makes spelling count they’ll often skip questions or leave out information just because they don’t know how to spell part of the answer. This was a good indication to me that if I wasn’t assessing for spelling then it was best not to put too much emphasis on it.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed looking at all the books and hearing everyone’s ideas of how they could be used in various lessons. One thing I’ve found from working with children is that they tend to enjoy revisiting books from their past. If a book is too mature for students they won’t connect to it and will become bored. At first I was concerned that if I picked books that were too juvenile they would also be upset, but I soon discovered students will generally enjoy stories from an earlier part of their childhood, especially if you can put a new spin on it. I did a poetry unit with Grade 7 students and one of their favorite parts of that unit was when I read them Dr. Seuss books. Afterward their task was to find various poetic devices such as rhyme and alliteration in the story. They all really enjoyed this activity and even requested that I read them more Dr. Seuss later rather than reading from the chapter book the teacher had been reading to them.
Just as an aside, Sonja’s comment about Asian students reading differently from North American students reminded me, a Japanese friend gave me a couple of traditional manga (Japanese comic books) for Christmas. The books are translated into English, but follow the Japanese style of being read from back to front, starting at the top of the right hand page and moving to the left. I quickly became accustomed to turning the pages from the back to the front, but I had to consciously remind myself to start on the right hand side every time I turned the page. I feel for those first graders, it is very hard to train your brain and your eyes to a new way of reading.
Amber, I really liked both your points about invented spelling and revisiting seemingly less mature books from our students’ past. I know how excited I was to see so many familiar titles from my own childhood last class and how much certain works of literature stick with you into adulthood. One of my all-time favourite collections is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity to read my Grade 3 class a chapter book rendition of the combined classics: Little House in the Big Woods, On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake. The book I read with my students was called, Pioneer Sisters, and they loved it! Part of this I think was my personal connection to the series. The enthusiasm with which I read and came up with activities I think made learning about the early pioneers a lot more fun and interesting for my Grade 3s. Therefore, I think it can be just as important to pick books that interest your students as well as you.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I noticed that when my students really engaged with a book of their own choosing, they were always so full of excitement when talking about it with their peers. They would sometimes even run up to me to share a mini plot summary, tell me their thoughts on characters and what might happen next. I think it is a great idea, as we discussed last class, to give students exposure to books that interest them and also to allow them to explore such literature in assignments and projects, rather than always forcing certain books on them. Giving them time to share their thoughts on what they’re reading, perhaps in the form of literature circles, is also a well worth it strategy to implement in the classroom. I think it is important for children to gain exposure to a wide range of titles that promote higher order thinking, but I think it is most important to promote a love of reading.
Another point from our last class discussion that really got me thinking was the idea that teachers should “start at students’ level of success”. My question is really how to do this, as there can be so much pressure to meet certain standards. During my 405 practicum, I once had a parent complain to me about the supposed low level of difficulty of the weekly spelling words. The spelling program she was referring to had been pre-determined by both Grade 3 teachers at my practicum school before I had arrived, and I wasn’t sure how I should approach this. My experiences marking the weekly spelling tests had informed me that indeed, the majority of the children consistently did well, often attaining perfect scores. There were some who struggled, but usually only ever spelled a few words incorrectly. My question is how do we as teachers approach a predicament like this one, while still ensuring student success? Should we increase the level of difficulty to appease parents or continue giving words that yield better scores and increased confidence? Or, is the solution that we rather start with student success in mind and gradually increase difficulty?
I don't know if this is the place to ask this question....I am looking for the class notes that we can download. Are they on this blog sight somewhere? Or do I need to look elsewhere?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Tarrie
First of all, I have to say that I was pretty impressed to find a lot of practical ideas for reading lessons in our textbook so far. I especially liked the ideas for the Big Book, “Hattie and the Fox” by Mem Fox (pgs 33-38). It was great to see that one book could help introduce so many different concepts to students, for example, print features, phonemic awareness, rhyme and background knowledge. For the same reasons, I really enjoyed hearing the class’ ideas for the different books that we looked at. It never fails to amaze me how many fabulous ideas come from collaboration. Great job everyone!
ReplyDeleteDuring my practicum I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours observing a Kindergarten class. It was really neat to watch them stretch out words so they could hear the phonemes and then write the letters they heard to spell the word. It was so cute to see them physically pull apart their hands as they slowly said the word, listening for the different letter sounds. Even though most of the time the words were not spelt correctly, it was amazing how close they got. Invented spelling definitely makes sense to me. It involves hearing sounds (phonemes) within a word and then relating each of them to letters that can be written down together in a way that makes sense. I think it is an important building block in learning how to read and write. Also, invented spelling can be used later in drafts so that students can get all their ideas on paper without having to stop their creative flow to look up the correct spelling. I think the key is to teach students how to go back and check their spelling and how to find out the correct spelling for a specific word.
I found this week’s topic of emergent literacy of particular interest, since I have a young son (three years old) with whom my husband and I are trying to develop literacy through a variety of experiences. Specifically, I found the notion of developing concepts about print, quite interesting. As this is one of those ideas we consider “so obvious” that it is often overlooked. Although I’ve been reading to my son since the day he was born, I never thought to teach him such concepts as we read from left to right of a sentence, top to the bottom of a page and front to back of a book. However, I realized somewhere along the way, perhaps during our nightly story sessions, he has learnt these conventions. Every night after I read him a story at bedtime, he reads it back to me (well pretends to read it) and during his reading session I noticed, to my amazement, that he was already following the conventions of reading!!
ReplyDeleteAnother interest point brought up by this week’s readings is the idea of reading comprehension. I think too often as parents, aunts, uncles and educators we focus so much energy around teaching children to read that we almost forget to ask ourselves: Is the child understanding what he or she is reading? I think it is essential, during the reading of any book to engage children through talking and thinking. This may mean stopping every few pages to ask questions, encouraging children to make predictions and generalizations and build connections to their own lives. With my own son, I often pause not only during our nightly reading sessions but also during a television show or movie to encourage this engagement. This is an easy method to test and build his comprehension in a child-centered way.
I want to start off by saying that last nights class was great. Looking through all the books made me realize that incorportating books into our lessons are really important. Furthermore, it allows teachers to incorporate reading techiniques such as predicting, sensing, connecting.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with I would like to respond to the question that was raised regarding correctiong spelling of young students. My personal opinion is that we should not be correcting their spelling for a number of reasons. Firstly, are they going to gain anything. Some kids will, but a majority of them won't becasue they are still learning the phonemic awareness skills. Think about all the spelling tests that we give students. They study throughout the week for the test and then they forget. I am not saying that every student forgets, but some do becasue they don't use the words frequently. During my first semester of PDP I went to observe a grade 1 classroom. The kids were doing spelling, and one of the previous student teachers asked if they were going to correct them. The teacher responded 'no' becasue they learn better that way. They practice sounding out the words and eventually they start making sense of the words. The teacher further explained that if we push it to early the students are going to hate spelling as they are always told they were wrong.
Another dimension was that the class was noisy during reading time. The kids were sounding out the words and making connections. The students were echo reading, as they would always be working with another student. The progress the students made in a short peirod of time was huge. The students left feeling that they had accomplished something important, reading.
I was really interested in the various strategies for the way that students learn how to read. WHen I walked into my practicum classroom, the first thing that I noticed was the huge word wall at the back of the classroom. I never really understood the importance of the word wall until we discussed it in class. The world wall was a tool that the students could use to help them develop correct spelling. If the word was not on the word wall, the students had access to dictionaries. The students learned very quickly how to find words and meanings of difficult words.
Finally, the other aspect that resonated with me was providing students with different writing materials. In one of my lessons the students were able to write a letter to a teacher in the school thanking them for their help. The students were so excited as it was something different instead of the traditional worksheets. The students were so engaged that it did not matter how long it took becasue they were having fun. I think we as teachers need to develop alternatives to teaching becasue the old traditional ways are not working with today's students.
I really enjoyed this class. It reminded me how much I loved children's books as a kid, and now. It was really helpful to have such a vast variety of books to compare. As I was looking at those books I thought I knew well, I realised that it is such a different thing to read them as an adult. When I was a child I didn't have the capacity to see underlying themes or catch certain nuances. I am even more eager to introduce some classics and current books with the understanding that I have now.
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative sharing of lesson plan ideas. Everyone had really creative ideas that would not have necessarily occured to me. I hope that we have more opportunities to share in the same way again. It seems that we have a really unique mix of experiences in this class and I look forward to learning more from everyone.
Thanks,
Esanju
I also enjoyed our class on Thursday particularly because it brought me back to my childhood and elementary school years. It was great to share our opinions for different books and to listen to different ideas/suggestions for lesson plans. In one classroom, having a variety of books will almost reach every kid, even the most reluctant ones who can at least look at the picture books. It was interesting to see how the whole class got so deeply involved in looking at different books. I looked around the classroom and everybody was in their own world looking at their own books of interest. There wasn’t a lot of talking except an occasional “Oh, I remember this” or “Oh, this is so cute it used to be my favourite”. This could relate to little David from Chapter 1 who goes through a variety of reading experiences during his school years, starting from reading in his grandmother’s lap to using PQ3R method of reading which to him makes perfect sense but reminds his peers what they should be doing while reading. When I started doing my practicum, though I knew that we all come from different backgrounds, cultures and attitudes, I almost expected everyone in the classroom to be like David. However, not even a week went by when I realized how different the students can be and that it was time for me to start adapting my lessons to meet individual needs. This was challenging for me as a beginning teacher but with the help of my SA and the help from my own experience in school for 15+ years, I was able to find a method of teaching that was comfortable for me for my particular class. There just isn’t a one best way to teach reading and writing!
ReplyDeleteThinking is the essence or reading and writing. The first time I read this paragraph in our book, this made sense for me as an adult, but my question was how do we teach children to effectively think about what they read. Though I believe that effective phonics instruction is an important part of reading and writing, it is not the most important base and the key to becoming a good life- long reader. To understand what they are reading, students must enter the story/book thinking, and as teachers, our job is to provide them with texts/books worth thinking about as well as strategies which will help them think. Rather than teaching our students what to think, I believe it’s far more important to teach them how to think. One of the easiest ways to do this could be done through our lesson planning in which we try to address all needs by using different methods/strategies of teaching. During my practicum, my SA really emphasized how important it is to children to reflect on their own learning. Thus I spent a lot of classroom time using journals, self-assessment, portfolios, etc. to give them a chance to think about their own thinking. After all, by doing MANY post conferences and reflecting on my own teaching I realized how important self-reflection is and how much we can learn from it. I hope that my students will benefit from it as well.
The readings/class this week have indeed helped me to begin to think and understand emergent literacy a bit more. Particularly, the difficulty students must feel in kindergarten when exposed, some of them for the first time, to print. The things we take for granted, such as reading left to right and pausing between words, is tremendous. The story about the planet of Norite, as cheesy as it was, was helpful to understand how foreign this is to some students who have either not been exposed to much print before or are from other cultures. Also, the readings enlightened me as to why the teachers I sub for do what they do. I have TOC'ed for only a few early primary teachers (I usually work with intermediate) and have read predictable books, read rhymes on chart paper with a pointer to emphasize the left to right movement, read from big books, had students scribble made-up words on paper with a picture, all as part of my dayplan. However, I had not understood the meaning behind why I was doing it. Sure, I knew this is what kindergarten teachers do, but I didn't know the research behind it. It is more than simply babysitting. There is meaningful teaching happening there! I am glad I can now defend this point.
ReplyDeleteI talked about this course today with the LST teacher in the school I regularly TOC for. She did her masters in reading and it was interesting to be able to talk to her about her opinion on early literacy. She stated many of the same things about teaching literacy that the text had stated (and in class too). What stood out for me about our conversation was the comment she made about reading fads or trends. She commented on how students learn differently and are distinct in their needs, in terms of decoding and comprehension. She emphasized how using one method, taught at a workshop for example, simply will not cut it. However, a variety of workshops, blended with a teacher's intuition will. I agree with this notion. Yet, it does put pressure on new teachers to actually possess this intuition. Unfortunately, a lot of intuition comes from experience. I hope I have what it takes to pick up on what is needed for a student in terms of reading, without having a book or manual to rely on to tell me what's best. It is not black and white. The comments/debates concerning spelling, discussed both in class and on the blog, are a perfect example of this grey area in literacy instruction. Hopefully this course will work out some of the kinks in my head surrounding this lack of black and white.
Hi everyone! I particularly enjoyed last class as I love any opportunity to flip though children’s books. It was interesting to hear how everyone would incorporate the stories into a reading lesson.
ReplyDeleteSomething that interested me was the general discussion around learning phonics. As an elementary school student I was a terrible reader. It couldn’t understand phonics! All the rules and constant exceptions to the rules. I before E except after c - unless your spelling receive, science, species, ancient, weird, vein etc. The list goes on. I struggled and struggled and eventually ended up in learning assistance. The worst part was, I always loved listening to stories, but now hated anything to do with reading. Eventually I improved and became a good reading. What I needed was a direct focus on phonics which didn’t seem to be the priority in the classroom. I became a good reader, but several students in learning assistance with me did not. They learned how to decode the words, but they never learned how to visualize while reading. They’d read the words and not understand a word they were saying. Thankfully now we have programs like reading power to help these students.
I’m under the impression that phonics is making a comeback in elementary classrooms. For a while it seemed that is was not a priority. I really believe that phonics is needed in order to develop strong readers – or at least strong decoders. It is a step in the right direction.
Last class had so much information regarding to an emergent reader and what I found particularly interesting was the concept of invented spelling. I am a secondary teacher and I don’t often deal with students who are learning to read and write for the first time but I do encounter varying levels of reading and writing in my classes. Something I have always been particularly adamant about is the idea of spelling. When I am marking an essay I find myself becoming a Microsoft word processor when it irks me that students misspell words. I have never noticed how much time and energy I spend on correcting spelling mistakes when class really made me think of what are my objectives for that writing assignment and why am I spending so much time on small errors. Invented spelling I have noticed in high school sometimes is laziness’ but often are the perceived phonetic spelling of words because for a lot of students at the grade 8-12 level they still have not been exposed to large quantities of reading and writing. Even though they are older and have more experience, I find they can get careless.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really learned from last class was that perhaps I am approaching this spelling thing from a traditional perspective of schooling and something I went through in school. Spelling tests for example were often rote memorization and not spelling from sounds. Last class made me look at writing in a different way because when I am reading a paper, I should focus more on does that student comprehend the information they are conveying. I know when marking provincial English exams, they mention that as long as spelling does not impede meaning, that it should not be marked. I think I am going to take that approach in my teaching. I can either stress out about spelling, or recognize that sometimes students are taking risks in their spelling, using words they may not know how to spell but want to use and I think those moments are more important than making sure a student can spell every word they choose to spell. Especially in the world of computers where they can easily find the correct spelling if needed. When doing in class work, it should not be a priority.
Also, I loved looking at those books in class even though they didn’t correspond with my grade level, I still enjoyed the literature out there that is available. Also, when listening to the ideas presented in class I recognized that many of the books could be easily used to teach certain concepts or even to practice certain reading strategies.
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteAfter attending the class and also reading the chapters; I have got many ideas about teaching language arts, and to add linguistic resources to my students’ vocabulary. I am so grateful to Sue for introducing the various books to me because I came from different country and I did not have much knowledge about children’s books. The other thing I really liked that everybody got different ideas about how they will include theses books in the curriculum. It was great to listen to people’s ideas and plans for different books. I was amazed, how people made connections to these books, and how they will include these books from elementary to high school. I always used to think about art books which I can use to teach language arts. I came across those kind of books during May 14th class. After sharing my idea about an art book in the class I thought I also have this kind of book at home too. But I never thought before that I will use this book to teach Language arts. The name of the book is “Mountain Alphabet” signed by the author especially for me and the author is Margtiet Ruurs. This book is very beautifully illustrated by Andrew kiss and the book has great scenes of mountains, forests, and lakes. After the class, I as soon as I came home I thought that I will use this book to teach oral language and to practice writing skills in any grade. I really appreciate the books and the idea sharing activity. It was great and I have got many plans and ideas after experiencing this activity.
The other great idea or I can say strategy I have learned from the class is how to help emergent readers. I may have used my seven crucial understanding about print during reading and writing, when I was learning to read. But I was not aware of all the seven strategies that readers and writer use in order to read a book or write a book. When I was reading chapter-2, I realized that it is very important to teach students about why they are reading and writing. Also, it is crucial to tell them that there is a process one has to go through in order to learn to read and write anything. To support emergent readers, a teacher has to encourage the children to join in the reading. After the reading let them act it out to make a real connection. I remember when my mom used to ask me to read all the signs and also spell them loud. She used to point out at news-paper print to me and some time we used to read it together. I think my mom’s strategy helped me to develop the habit of reading, even though my mom was not a teacher. But now I think she was doing a write thing for me. I also remember my mom never corrected me at the time but she used the correct pronunciation in other conversation. I used to pick-up the write pronunciation from the conversation. I believe she boosted my confidence by saying I am glad that you are trying to read every word. I strongly believe that as a teacher, I will focus on big-ideas not trivialities. For instance, if I am teaching a lesson on bullying I will not assess my students on, how they spell bullying rather what they know about bulling? I will encourage my students to use invent spelling strategy rather than memorise the spellings.
May 20, 2009
ReplyDeleteI have a few thoughts about the course so far. Last week’s class was interesting on several levels. I thought it was neat to look through an assortment of books that can be used in our classes. I also thought it was a good idea to write down, how and why that book would be useful in a class. That brings me to the sharing of lesson plan ideas. I thought this was a great idea, to not only gain info from others but also to see what others thought about our ideas. I think a lot of teaching involves borrowing and sharing resources with other teachers. This was just one more example of using others as a resource.
The other issue I want to touch on is the use of inventive spelling. Now I am troubled by this issue because I see both sides of the coin. Not only do we want our students to learn proper spelling, we also want them use their creativity and enjoy the process of writing. I suppose the more restrictions teachers put on students (like spelling) the less likely they will enjoy the process. The question remains, is it more important to develop the skill of spelling, or more important to foster the love of writing and then work on the spelling. I think I am going to lean toward the latter in that it is more important to have children love the process of writing, mainly because the spelling is helped along with word processers and spell check.
From my experiences I have been faced with a student who wants the correct spelling (I was only observing the day). The teacher specifically stated not to correct the students spelling it was an assignment on ideas and not about spelling. I came across a student who was frustrated and not being able to write because he did not know how to spell the words. I tried to explain to him the intentions of the assignment, and he responded with telling me he knew what he had to do, but he needed to know how to spell too. So the dilemma is do help this student spell so that he can have his creative thinking progress, or do I let him stumble along and allow him to be frustrated by the fact he was not spelling correctly and as a result slow his thinking process? I chose the latter and gave him a dictionary to work through his words. I am not sure how the teacher would feel if she knew this, but…I won’t tell if you don’t (shhhh).
I really enjoyed being able to look through the assortment of books in class and discuss ideas around implementing them in the classroom. Having the opportunity to collaborate with fellow students and educators is sometimes a rare thing and I am thankful at any opportunity I can get. During my 402 practicum I was fortunate to have an SA that was very focused on reading in her classroom and engaging her students in active participation through prediction, self evaluation, evaluation of the book, and using a variety of guided reading approaches. She had an extensive collection of books of various levels in her classroom and several opportunities throughout the day for students to read. Each morning began with pal reading where students chose a new partner each week to read with. They could take turns reading passages from their own books to each other, read from the same book, or echo read. The students all seemed to enjoy this time and were excited to share their reading with their partners.
ReplyDeleteI also was interested in the topic of invented spelling and strategies for learning how to spell. I have operated under the assumption that students who are allowed to write without the pressure to spell correctly will actually learn how to spell sooner than those who are not. I was glad to hear that my assumption is valid. One of my SAs uses “Try Cards” with her grade 3 class. Instead of the students asking the teacher how to spell a word right away, they give a first, and if needed a second attempt on their own to spell the word. Then the teacher will write the correct spelling at the bottom of the card if needed. This gives the students an opportunity to try with invented spelling first, and is useful for those students who are intent on spelling everything correctly the first time. Rough drafts are for students to get their thoughts on paper and then each student uses an editing checklist. The list asks such questions as “Does it make sense?; Does each sentence end with a punctuation mark?; Have I used the word walls to check spelling? Etc.”. I was interested in one of the prior posts to mine commenting on the issue of spelling tests and teaching at the students’ level. The spelling program that I am most recently familiar with does not include spelling tests at all. The students have daily spelling activities with this weeks words such as writing the words out, partner sorts, hang-man games etc. There are different groups that have different words to incorporate all levels of learners. This seems to be very successful in the classroom and the students have a very positive experience with spelling activities instead of the traditional tests.
May 20, 2009
ReplyDeleteI have really enjoyed the readings as they overlap with the ideas I am discovering in Learning Disabilities. I am hoping that with time all these new definitions will be part of my vocabulary and I won’t have to think so hard to recall them! I was excited to see that many of the strategies I learned during my practicum were backed up by the readings. When I started PDP I had no idea that so many strategies were being employed by the teacher during story time: predicting, connecting, echo reading, acting, asking questions… All of these strategies allow the students to become active participants in their learning, instead of just sitting and hearing a story told. The readings also talk about “feelings” and I have noticed that when the students are engaged during a story they really become excited and want to participate, if not, they get a glazed look and learning is done. On this same note, it was a lot of fun to look at the storybooks in class and hear all the lessons that could be taught from something as “simple” as a storybook.
As invented spelling seems to be a popular topic after last week’s discussion, I thought I too would delve into this. In the grade two class that I did my practicum in, ten new spelling words were given on Mondays. The meanings of these words were explained/discussed, and then the students worked to find similarities between them (word families) and the word wall was added too. From Tuesday to Thursday, they would put the words in sentences (most of them could do this correctly) and work on worksheets with the words. On the following Monday they would receive a test. From looking at their future work most of the students could remember the spelling words they had learned, so they were learning correct spelling. However, during the rest of their assignments, spelling was not the focus. Students were encouraged to look at their dictionaries (each had a personal one that could be added to) if they needed the spelling of a word; if they could not find it, they could ask the teacher and record it in their dictionaries. Many times they were told to write and not worry about the spelling and during quizzes and tests (other than spelling) they were repeatedly told not to worry about spelling. It was so interesting to see the invented spelling that students used and it helped us see what areas of teaching we needed to focus more on. I agree that it is very important to teach correct spelling but I also think that it should be done at a time and in a way that does not squelch your other teaching objectives.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
ReplyDeleteLast week’s class was great. I really enjoyed pouring over all of the children’s books and hearing everyone’s impromptu lesson plan ideas for their chosen book. I only wish that there was more room on the “survey of children’s literature” sheet to record all your great ideas!!
I have to admit that the term “emergent writing” is a new one to me. The first time I heard this term was during an observation day during 401/402 in a grade 1 class. Every morning the students would pull out their little chalk boards and chalk, and the teacher would say a word for them to spell on their board. The teacher would walk around the room and observe the students, ask a few students “what do you have for…?” so they could share their “answer” with the class, and help a few struggling students to “sound it out”. Quite often, these struggling students would spell the words incorrectly. I was a little surprised when I heard the teacher say things like “that’s great, you have a vowel in there this time” or “good job, your spelling is getting better”, even when the words were spelled wrong. Then, a little later in the day, she had the students do a writing activity where they wrote down some of the things about Chinese New Year that they remembered from the book they had just read. Again, I was surprised that she did not really help her students or correct their spelling as they wrote. When I asked her about this, she explained what “emergent writing” was and how she likes to build up her students self esteem by focussing on the process vs. the product in most of their work. One thing she did say about correcting students work, that I found particularly interesting, was that she based the amount and type of correcting on each individual child. She said you have to know your students and not all students can handle corrections. Perhaps this is a way to answer your question, Craig: “It depends” on the student ;) If a student’s writing is being hindered by their inherent need to spell correctly, then yes, help that student learn to use a dictionary, word walls, or other strategies so he/she can get ideas on the page. However, if a student feels and acts “crushed” or defeated because the teacher is pointing out spelling errors, then that student would benefit from using “invented spelling”. I really think it is all about finding the right balance; for each student, for each subject, and for each grade.
Something else that I really connected with was the concept of “word walls”. Many people believe that word walls are exclusively for use in primary classes, but I would have to disagree. While doing my short practicum in a grade 5 class, I was doing a unit on advertising. Since most of these terms were new to the students, I asked the teacher if I could create an “advertising word wall” for and with the students. She thought it was a great idea and we even used the words for their weekly spelling list. The best part about creating the word wall was the collaborative process with the students as they would constantly say things like “Mrs. Rhodes, that would be a good word for our wall” or “Mrs. Rhodes, can I write ‘consumer’ on our list?”. Even after they realized that the words on the wall could be on their spelling test, they still suggested difficult words to include. It was great to see the students taking responsibility for their own learning. Another “misconception” about word walls is that they are reserved for language arts, social studies, or similar subjects. I actually found that my class benefited greatly from the addition of a “math word wall”. In this case, however, I also included a definition of each math term to help students directly in their math work. This was especially useful when it came to solving and creating word problems.
Shanie
Week 2: May 14th
ReplyDeleteDuring the reading of the text there is constant reference made to the children what are coming to school from an already literature rich experience. I am left to ponder what happens to those students who do not come with such an advantage. Yes I read, give them lots of print and literature based classroom but is this enough? Will they always be at somewhat of a disadvantage?
I work with students who have difficulty with reading. As I read the importance of reading to children I realized that I spend most of my day having them read to me. I now realize the importance of me reading to them. Some of the students really look forward to this time and it has shown me the importance of reading being fun and enjoyable in order for it to be life long. I have also began to see the importance of giving the students choice in the topics they read about. One student is always looking for factual books and since we have been searching together I have noticed she is constantly choosing to read these books when her work is complete. Sometimes it’s the little things that are overlooked that make a big difference in engaging students into the love of literature.
I enjoyed the discussions we had with all the books that were displayed and how we would use each one in a lesson. I don’t think it was mentioned but I think we need to not shy away from using picture books when teaching intermediate grades there are some great lessons that can be developed with these books. I look forward to try some of these when I am in the classroom
I really enjoyed looking through all the different books on Thursday. I'm glad that Sue brought them because I really have no clue where to start and it gave me an opportunity to at least write down some titles and start from there. I also liked everyone's idea on what kind of activities the books could lead to.
ReplyDeleteI was never really into books when I was a kid. I think it was partially due to teachers pushing certain books on me that I did not want to read ( ie. The Babysitters club) and tried to convince me not to read books that I want to read (ie. the Eye Witness books). I'm glad that Sue brought in the Eye Witness books and Goosebumps because those were the books that I read the most when I was a kid and teachers tried to make me read other books for reasons that are unknown to me.
I think another reason that I was not that into books was because I never learned phonics. I don't remember ever being taught that so reading out loud was always a problem for me. I am a bit wary about teaching reading as I myself don't know phonics. Hopefully this class will teach me how to do it properly.
I would just like to start off by saying how amazed I am at how quickly you can create a lesson out of a book you just got introduced to. When I looked at the book “Look-alikes" by Joan Steiner, I was amazed at how fast I was able to create an art lesson that would be fun and enjoyable for my students. All of you had really great ideas and I look forward to looking into those books.
ReplyDeleteI noticed from reading the blog, that many of you have concerns about "spelling" within the school system. This was also what my discussion was going to be about. Just recently I actually had a discussion with a family friend of mine who used to be a teacher and is also a mom of two girls in grade 6 and grade 8. When I told her about my practicum and that I'm going to be a teacher, her first comment to me was, "Please find a different way to do spelling." She then went on to say that her daughters get perfect on their spelling tests each week but they are the worst spellers. I found this to be very interesting because it seems that they are just merely memorizing the spelling words that they need to know for that week and then they just simply forget about them. After having read Chapter 4 of our readings, this situation makes me think that they need to grasp an understanding of the rules for spelling instead of just memorizing the words. "A person needs to construct meaning in order to be able to read" (p. 87). I think this statement would also make sense for spelling. "A person needs to construct meaning in order to spell."
In my short practicum I had the opportunity to observe different grade levels as well as different schools. In a grade 1 classroom I observed in, the teacher never did spelling words. She created a word wall, including many rules. From this she created games for her students where they had to roll a dice and pick a letter formation and make a word from it. For example on the word wall she had the letters "SH" and "CH" or "ST" if the dice landed on number 1 which was "SH" they would then have to make a word from it.
I liked this in the sense that the students were not simply memorizing the words but taking in a deeper meaning and truly understanding the words and the rules that applied.
Sharon wrote:
ReplyDeleteI was not in our last class and from reading the blog it seems like I missed an interesting class. I found that chapter 1 and 2 were interesting to read. In particular I found the “I’m thinking” section great. I find that so many students say this and until now I thought that it was an excuse not to do their work. But with the explanation of the thinking process I now understand what most of the students are doing when they say I’m thinking. I also enjoyed reading about the benefits of introducing books to children at a young age. It as neat to see that at such a young age children start to understand what reading is. For example the idea of reading from left to right. I also enjoyed the sample activities that the chapters introduced us to. I have seen some teachers at the school I work at do these activities and now I know why. Although I did not see the books that were brought to class I did look at some books at work. I noticed that the beginner books had few to no words and lots of pictures. I also noticed that the kindergarten class had many books that rhymed and or had repeating words. As the levels went up the number of words increased and there was around 3-4 words. Next there were more words and more sentences. And they continued to increase in length of words, sentences and even pages. I really enjoyed looking at theses books and look forward to next class.
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed looking at all of the children’s books last class. It was great to hear everyone’s ideas on how you could plan a lesson from a picture book. I got a lot of great ideas that I will definitely try out in my practicum in September. I think that we often get so wrapped up in what we are doing that we do not take the time to share ideas, which can be so beneficial. I did my short practicum in a grade 4 class and we never read story books and so I really value everyone’s ideas because for my next practicum I will be in a grade 2 class and will be reading stories.
ReplyDeleteThe part of the text book that I really connected with was the “Thinking Is the Essence of Reading and Writing” section. As a child I always loved reading, but it was something that was incredibly challenging for me. From kindergarten to grade 4 it was something that I struggled with. I was able to read the print on a page, but I was never taught to think about what I was reading. I struggled with reading comprehension and read at a level far below the rest of my classmates.
As a teacher I plan on thoroughly going over reading strategies with my students. Once children know the sounds that letters make and are able to recognize words, it is crucial that a teacher takes an active role in helping students understand what they need to be thinking about as they read. One way that this can be accomplished in the primary grades is by the teacher taking lots of breaks while reading aloud to let the students think. In my Language Arts class my teacher was reading us a story and mid way through just stopped and told us about a connection that she was having with the book. I think that this is a very important thing for teachers to do because we need not only to teach, but to model characteristics of good readers.
For me, I have some exposure to invented spelling during my observations. However, it was in the practicum which I know why my SA encourage using invented spelling. For example: My SA does not mark spelling when checking their journals. He merely takes not of the content the the children write. I agree with his point that we are not assessing their spelling abilities in their journal, we are marking their content. Invented spelling does not equal to spell a word randomly. A kid needs to demonstrate some phonemic awareness in order to spell a word that closely resembles the correct spelling.
ReplyDeleteI find the book session quite useful becasue it shows us some concrete examples of what teachers read to their children.
I enjoyed reading the teaching phonics and spelling patterns session because it gave you a detailed lesson as to how to teach early kids to
learn new words. One that interest me is to guess the covered word where children can learn to distinguish the different sounds. Students make their guess as the teacher reveals the word one letter at a time. This in turn will give students hints as to when their guess are wrong in a subtle way and encourages them to make another educated guess.
Kathie wrote:
ReplyDeleteOne of the things about beginning reading and writing I had to reconsider the most was my views on invented spelling. Because I am a good speller, and because I think that written work, as a form of communication, should be as accurate, easy to read, and as high-level as possible, I tend to put a lot of value on accurate spelling. As a result, I spend probably too much time making sure students know how to spell words correctly. What changed my thinking was a comment made by Rozinsky to the effect that we don’ t expect children to learn to speak by getting everything perfect all at once, so why should we expect them to learn to spell that way? "...invented spelling is not an end state in learning to write (chapter. 4)”, but part of many stages along the way, as they use their partial knowledge to try and figure out new words. In fact, the authors stated that children allowed to use invented spelling were "… more fluent writers and better word recognizers” than children expected to stick to the traditional approach to spelling. Those statements made sense to me; children are applying their knowledge in actively trying to construct words and make sense of written language. I can still remember when, as a child, I was trying to figure out the word for “had sat”. I knew “sit” and “sat”, but not what should go with "had”. I tried “had sitten”, which I could tell immediately was not right. My mom and I had a good laugh over it, then I asked her to tell me the right word. Through all that thinking, I was sifting through my store of language rules and possible exceptions to come up with the right word.
I agree with Amber that teachers should not worry too much about the rough draft, as the purpose of the writing is for students to get their ideas out, but that always seemed too simplistic to me, although I do do it. I think it is important for a child to focus on ideas and not be too bound up by spelling at that stage, but, as a child, I was constantly checking my spelling and grammar as I wrote. What I like about invented spelling is that it is a cognitive process by which children explore, struggle with, and learn how written language works.
Another thing I really liked about the readings and the textbook was the wealth of practical ideas that could be taken into the classroom. I think both phonemic awareness and onset/rime are very powerful tools for teaching reading, but it is not always as easy to know how to do it. One of my favourite ideas for teaching phonics was “Action Phonics (chapter 5)”. It makes sense for students to use their naturally active bodies to both learn and remember letter sounds, and I loved the cross- curricular idea of using Action Phonics during P.E. time. Once, I saw a very experienced teacher helping young children practice counting with one-one correspondence by bouncing a ball back and forth during P.E., and I thought it was really neat.
I have a few ideas that I use already with children learning to read and write. One is a song I got from a learning assistance teacher that takes the sounds of the alphabet and combines them with sign language, so students can connect with the song, the letter sound, and the kinesthetic sense of signing. Another one I use with spelling is to put up one finger for each single letter sound, and more fingers for multi-letter phonemes, so duck (in fingers) would look like: l-l-ll, with each sound said as I put my fingers up. It’s just another way to connect sounds with symbols in a multisensory way.
Our class discussion on thinking skills during reading and writing really got me thinking about all of the different strategies teachers can give to students. This reminded me how important reading comprehension and prediction is when it comes to writing, especially for emergent literacy in Kindergarten students. In my practicum, I remember doing a sequence on a book called “Corduroy.” Most instruction was through oral language, but the students had opportunities to write their thoughts down. After predicting what the story would be about based on looking at the cover of the book, I read a section of the book. Stopping where it was appropriate, the class predicted about what would happen next and how Corduroy was feeling. The students told each other in A/B partners and each shared answers. Then, they had the opportunity to write down their thoughts. I found that while they shared their answers and listened to each other, they had many other ideas and remembered what they wanted to write when it came to the writing portion. As well, it was easier for them to focus on how to spell the word (based on sounds) because they had no writers’ block.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoyed the activity we did on looking at books as resources and how they can be used as a reading tool for teaching the strategies. I have found them to be quite useful when Tocing. There was a book on First Nations that really caught my attention. There was one story about the “talking stick.” I have seen it being used in the classroom as a way to solve problems. If you don’t know, only the person who has the talking stick gets to speak. Then it gets passed along to the next person and that person gets to speak. I have noticed that applying this in the classroom has many benefits for the students. First, they solve the problems themselves and each person need to figure out a solution to the problem. Second, it helps create a sense of community and respect for one another. I am sure that the students learned about this idea from reading about it and then using it in the classroom.