Vocabulary

I read the article by Blanchowitz and Fischer. I also read the article by Lane and Allen. I really like the word wall that was mentioned in the Vocabulary Lessons article. The teacher had posted a word wall in the classroom that the students helped to build. If the students encountered new words while reading, talking, watching TV, or anywhere else, they could post the words on the word wall. The teacher gave points to students for posting words, talking about where they heard it or saw it, and using the words themselves. I think allowing students to post words to an "Interesting Words" word wall is a great way to encourage your students to search for unfamiliar, interesting words. I think this would be a fun way to get students involved. However, I am not sure how I feel about making it a contest. Thoughts?

Comprehension: Schemas

I read the article by Gill and the article by Gregory and Cahill. Both articles talked about the importance of a schema in comprehension. The article by Gregory and Cahill talked about activating a schema. The students in that article were only kindergartners, but they knew what a schema is. The defined a schema as “what you already know.” This article talked about beginning to teach comprehension by activating schemas. The article by Gill talked about schema theory which “tells us that readers must have adequate background knowledge to understand what they read; it also tells us that readers must activate their prior knowledge.” I enjoyed reading the pre-reading activities in Gill’s article that can help to activate prior knowledge, such as graphic organizers and organizational walk-throughs. I would love to learn more about activities that can help to activate prior knowledge.

Here is an example of a K-W-L chart that was mentioned in the article by Gill:

Here is a link to a website I found that talks about activating prior knowledge and explains a few different activities you could use in your classroom:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/prior-knowledge-tapping-into-often-classroom-rebecca-alber

Fluency Activity: Shared Reading

Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience. Children join in the reading of a big book guided by a teacher. Student interactivity is the distinguishing feature of Shared Reading versus Reading Aloud. The books that you read need to be at the students' level in order for them to join in. The reader involved the children in reading together, allowing the students to participate. Shared Reading models the reading process and strategies used by readers.

Example video of a Shared Reading activity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu3QH9AJn0s

Teaching Methods: - Initial reading (done by teacher) follows this pattern: Gather children in an area close to the book. The book must be easily seen by the children. Chose a book that relates to topics being studied in the classroom, or books that the children are interested in. • Introduce book (share theme, examine title, cover, illustrations, etc. make predictions) o Prompt the students with questions about the illustrations, characters, and themes. Encourage the students to make predictions. • Excite student's imagination and relate prior experience to text o Encourage students to make connections to their prior knowledge and share any background information they may have. • Concentrate on enjoying the text as a whole (Read with few stops) o Teacher should read the book fluently. • Encourage spontaneous participation in the reading of the story o Reread the book several times. • Discuss personal responses to the book • Be positive in accepting/encouraging children's responses • Direct children's attention to various aspects of the text, and reading strategies, and skills. Many of the strategies needed for independent reading can be taught during shared reading, especially when shared reading takes place with a small group versus the whole class. • Identify vocabulary, ideas and facts, discuss author's style, skill, and viewpoint. Remember to focus on the enjoyment of the story. Try not to draw attention away from the story with too many teaching points or too much attention to detail. o Keep students engaged. • Experiment with intonation and expression, discuss colorful phrases or words. o Talk about expression and smoothness. • Attend to teaching points as they arise. (http://www.oe.k12.mi.us/balanced_literacy/shared_reading.htm)

Word Walls

I really enjoyed reading about word walls in Chapter 4 of Classrooms that Work. I have seen many word walls in primary classrooms that I have observed, but they have all been the same, bland walls. It was nice to read about different strategies to use to build your word walls. I like the idea of using different colors for the text and paper to make the wall more appealing. I think it would be good to use a different paper for each week so that the students can see which words are new for the week and which are words they were introduced to previously. Most word walls I have seen were ones that were made before the students even entered the class and remained the same throughout the year. I love the idea of letting the kids “do a word wall” rather than just “have a word wall.” I think allowing the students the opportunity to help create it and watch it grow is a great way for them take ownership and learn the words. I also plan to include my students names on my word wall. I have thought about adding pictures beside the words as well, like in the picture below, if the word has an image that could go with it. Any suggestions on adding pictures?

10 Important Words

I really enjoyed reading the Yopp and Yopp article Ten Important Words Plus: A Strategy for Building Word Knowledge. Instead of explaining multiple mediocre activities, this article focused on one great activity. I think a lot of times students read material without grasping what is really important. The 10 important words activity will help students realize the important points in their reading material by pointing out what they believe are the 10 most important words. I also think the “plus” part of the activity is a great way to keep the students engaged and further their understanding of the words. I think this activity would be great to do to integrate literacy in other subjects. For example, if your students are studying the Great Depression, you could have them read something about that topic and pick the 10 most important words. Not only does this help familiarize students with those words, but it will deepen their understanding of the content while building their vocabulary and reading skills. I made sure to print this article off, highlight some important concepts, and save it for future use!

Phonics!

While reading the Clark article, I was hoping to gain some advice on how to coach my students to read. The article gave some examples of general cues and directive cues and a list of "factors to consider" that I could use, but I didn't find much in the article other than that. I actually felt like some of the teachers in the examples given seemed a bit abrasive. However, I did like that the article mentioned helping students find word families or parts of the word that they recognized to help them figure out what the whole word is. I was hoping to find some great strategies to use to coach my students without saying "sound it out," but I didn't gain as much form the article as I hoped. I chose to read chapter 5 from Classrooms that Work as my second reading and I was not disappointed. The chapter was filled with great ideas and strategies that I think will be very helpful in "coaching." I really like the "Guess the Word" activity and the "Making Words" lesson. These are the types of strategies and cues I was hoping to find from the readings. I think students will appreciate these activities because they make learning fun by turning it into a game. There is still a lot more I would like to learn about coaching my students through reading and phonics, but the activities from the chapter are a good start!

Environmental Print in the Classroom

I noticed that both articles mentioned using everyday logos in the classroom. The Bell and Jarvis article went into much more detail about this. I think using these logos in a classroom is a great way to build students' confidence about reading. Students are familiar with these common artifact (like the ones in the picture above) and know what they say. Using these can help students to relate other words to these words that they already know. I also liked the idea of using the students' pictures and names along with the logos in your posted classroom alphabet. I observed a kindergarten teacher who used her students name like the above image uses logos, but I think using the pictures with the names would be much more helpful to the students, especially in the beginning. I think using these artifacts from their real world is a great way to build confidence and aid in their learning to read. I wonder if you could even use your students favorite TV shows and characters (like Dora and Diego) to engage and familiarize your students.

Encourage More Reading!

I was a bit appalled by the statistics of the amount of time students read and write each day in the Effective Reading Instruction article. The article stated that it is not uncommon for students to read and write for as little as 10% of the school day. The article also mentioned that many typical classrooms only spend up to 20 minutes reading each day. How are students supposed to become fluent readers if they spend so little time reading? Students should view reading and writing as valuable, but this is hard for them to do if they spend so little time doing it in school. I think it is important for teachers to encourage their students to spend a good amount of time reading both in class and outside of school. I saw the picture below on Pinterest and it was linked to another blog that I found really interesting. I think this picture shows a great strategy to encourage your students to read more. You can devote an area of your classroom to Post-Its where your students can write their name and a name of a book that they just finished reading. I think this is a fun way to encourage students to keep reading and find pleasure in doing so. I also included the link to the blog. The author is passionate about literacy and has some fun activities you might enjoy!

www.rainbowswithinreach.blogspot.com