Assessment

I read through the book Running Records For Classroom Teachers by Marie M. Clay for this week's reading.  I thought it was a good tool for a beginner teacher to use when assessing readers of all levels.  It states that records are taken to see what progress the students are making, an essential part of the child's education.  It also shows that as a teacher it is important to compare running records of a student with others to see that different students are going to need different kinds of instruction and ways to assess learning.
In chapter two, "Taking a Running Record", Clay states that as a teacher one should stay away from trying to assess with printed text, due to lack of space to take adequate notes.  I thought this was very vital information to talk about as new teachers may not think about that until they are trying to do an assessment, and they are writing in any space available on the page, and it creates disorganization.
I noticed that some examples throughout the reading looked like similar tools used when assessing students who are deaf and hard of hearing, so I believe that recording like that of on pg. 11 would be beneficial for all types of readers and learners.  I think that as a teacher though, one must pick out an assessment that will be on the student's level so that it is actually going to benefit their learning and progress.  The reading also states that recording can be done for individual and group progress, in which one may be better for one student than another.  Overall, I believe that accurate and reliable observation is the key!

This is a video giving an example of a running record.

Source:  Clay, M. M. (2000).  Running records for classroom teachers.  

What types of running records can you think that would be beneficial and time efficient in the classroom?

Guided Reading

This week I chose an article called "Guided Reading:  A Research-Based Response to the Challenges of Early Reading Instruction", bu Anita Iaquinta.  This reading focused on children in the first grade who are poor readers.  As mentioned, the early years are the focus for the prevention of reading difficulties.  I feel that it is essential to focus on any difficulties at an early age to correctly build upon reading knowledge.  As stated in the reading, I also believe that providing guided reading in the classroom helps children of all reading levels.  With this instruction children are able to improve their fluency, problem-solving, decoding, and comprehension skills.  This may take place in small groups or with the teacher one-on-one.  With small groups, Iaquinta states that they should be temporary and should rotate.  When children are around other readers of different levels, it allows them to self-monitor, predict, and self-correct.  As a teacher, one must introduce the text before diving into the lesson.  This may include discussion and brainstorming.  Each group of students have different needs so guided reading starts with good teaching!

Some facts from the article:
1 in 5 children is estimated to have difficulty learning to read in school.
45% if our children are having difficulty learning to read.
Reading problems are more likely to occur among children who are poor, are minorities, attend urban schools, or arrive at school not speaking English.

Do any of the facts surprise you?

Do you remember any specific guided reading tools that your teachers used?



Here is a video about organizing your classroom for a guided reading lesson. 




Source:
Early Childhood Journal, Vol. 33, No.6, June 2006

10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary

I chose to read the article eVoc Strategies:  10 Ways  to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary by Dalton and Grisham because from my experiences when working with students who are deaf is that vocabulary is something they struggle with and technology is something they love to use to build upon their knowledge.  As the article states, it is crucial to understand ideas to understand the text.  When teaching vocabulary, the teacher must remember to focus on even the smallest parts of language and provide multiple ways for teaching by using context clues and important words to know and remember.  With any student I feel that if they are provided with an array of reading materials they will find something they enjoy and will learn that reading can be fun and beneficial for they education.  Teachers can use graphic organizers, visual displays, word clouds, digital vocabulary field trips, comparisons, online vocabulary games (crossword puzzles, picture-word matches, and word scrambles), audiotapes, captions, photo essays, podcasts, PowerPoints, Visual Thesaurus websites, e-books, visual dictionaries, picture dictionaries, translation tools, book clubs, blogs, text-to-speesch tools, and vocabulary learning combined with social service.
Some websites available for these tools are:
www.wordle.net
www.wordsift.com
trackstar.4teachers.org
www.vocabulary.co.il
www.vocabulary.com
www.visualthesaurus.com
dictionary.reference.com/studenthandbook
www.thefreedictionary.com
www.wordcentral.com
kids.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/english
translate.google.com
kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids
www.naturalreaders.com
www.freerice.com


Did anyone ever use these technology tools while in school?  I feel like most of these tools can be used throughout many grades, as I used Free Rice when I was in high school.

Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders

Chapter 7 in Classrooms That Work, speaks about how important it is to not just teach students how to read but also to teach them to understand what they are reading.  I completely agree that without background knowledge, the text is really hard to understand.  I know when I took my philosophy class at The University of TN, I was often confused with the reading because I did not understand what it was speaking or relating to so comprehension was really difficult to where I would have to read it more than once, look on the internet for information that would be helpful, and ask a lot of questions during discussion.  I am sure that this has happened while I was in elementary school as well, when I came across vocabulary words that I did not understand.  Also I have noticed that when I read it seems that I am just reading through the words but not taking in the information, as this was talked about in the reading, Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders. 
I think it is important to predict what is going to happen in the text before reading, and imagining what the experience will be like.  I feel that using open-ended questions is also a great way to assess students as to whether they understand the reading or not.  I know that personally it helps when I can relate the text to the world, as talked about in chapter seven. 
I feel that students need to know how important it is to have comprehension skills, as it helps with talking in social settings, greater choices of books to read, and also collaboration skills.  One way to do this is by finding important ideas,  reading the text in segments, and by questioning.  I really liked the idea of using the "beach ball" method to help students comprehend reading. With this a permanent marker is wrote on each segment of the ball with phrases that tie into the reading.



Have you ever felt like when you read something for a college class that you were wasting your time because you were not comprehending the information?  Did it make you feel like you were not going to do well in the class?

Source:  Cunningham, P. M., & Allington, R. L.  (2010).  Developing thoughtful comprehenders.  (Chapter 7, Classrooms That Work.)

Creating Fluent Readers

Rasinski talks about the importance of creating fluent readers, and not just students who can accurately sound out words in this article.  Reading fluency is the ability to develop control over surface-level processing so that one can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text.  I agree that although a student may be able to correctly sound out words, it does mean that they will have an even flow when reading or comprehending the vocabulary that is presented within the words that they are reading.  They must also be able to take the step from decoding to comprehension.  I know this is a weakness that I had as I went through elementary-middle grades.  To this day I still struggle sometimes with vocabulary, so I do not feel that my education was focused enough on the comprehension part of reading and was focused more of getting the decoding process through.  I feel that students also struggle with automatic processing, where they make a lot of mental errors while trying to decode the reading.  It is important to calculate somehow the fluency of the reader either through some type of percentage, reading rate, or rubric.  Without connecting the weaknesses and strengths of the readers, I do not think improvement can be made.  Assisted readings with the teacher, a group, or a partner can be a natural way to access the student reading fluency.  This may have to be repeated to figure out improvement that need to be made or has been made since the last listen.  A chart of a Multidimensional Fluency Scale presented in this article gave some great areas of expression with volume, phrases, smoothness, and pace to help teachers realize what need to be worked on and what has been mastered.  Some examples to look at are making the language sound natural, enthusiasm, monotone, choppy reading, rhythm, and multiple attempts.  Do you remember ever using repeated reading to accomplish reading fluency?  Do you feel like learning to read was more about the speed that you could read?

Here is an example of building reading fluency with repeated reading.

Here is an interview with Dr. Timothy Rasinski about his thoughts about reading fluency.

Source: Rasinski, T. (2004). Creating fluent readers. Educational Leadership, 46-51.

Real-Life Reading Inquiry

On October 5, 2012 I observed at an elementary school in Knoxville, TN in a resource classroom.  Although some of the students participate with physical education, music, art, etc. with their peers from the general education classroom, most of the students are self-contained the entire days.  The grades present in the classroom this year are kindergarten- 5th grade.  Usually once the students reach 6th grade, they will be provided with inclusion in a general education classroom. 
I noticed on the wall everything was labeled from math words, furniture, the alphabet that was presented in cursive and sign language, colors, shapes, temperature, numbers, and word of the day sentences.  I think that it is essential for these students to have this connection with the words and the pictures or objects that they represent to help build their vocabulary since they can not hear these words spoken. The mode of communication that was used in the classroom was Signed English.  With this type of communication, the goal is to help students learn the structure of the English language while still being able to use a form of sign language.
I observed from 8:30-10:15 and noticed how much reading, spelling, and vocabulary are used in every subject.  When I arrived the children were doing calendar time for the day which included learning about the month, year, the day before, present day, tomorrow, the season, time, how many days of school had been completed, and who had birthdays in October.  The students must be able to read these words to understand the sign that corresponds and what meaning the word carries so that they can use it when completing morning work.
From 8:40- 9:10 different students worked on various tasks. One student in the third grade, John worked on his morning work using frequently used works, while two other boys used Microsoft Word.  Markus who is in fourth grade with multiple disabilities worked to identify words and learn how to recognize letters on the keyword that the interpreter Kara signed.  Branden, who is in fifth grade worked on typing sentences that describe a picture that he found on the internet.  An interpreter intern student from UT helped him complete this task.  Jasmine, who is in the fourth grade, worked with the teacher, Ms. Sally, on math problems.  She used a small white board to work on these problems.
Starting at 9:15, the students learned about China on the globe, how to fingerspell/sign the word, and how to use chopsticks.  I believe this lesson helped the students connect with the rest of the world while helping with fine motor skills.
At 9:30, the teacher, Ms. Sally read a book to the students that Branden had picked out.  The book was called "Horrorble Book", which she pointed to as saying.  The teacher did a wonderful job of presenting the concepts of print.  She stated things such as:  "I see an eyeball, spider web, and skeleton.  What do you all see?"  She then said "Let's open the book."  She did an awesome job of acting out the book as she signed to the students.  She asked questions before going to the next page.  The students were also allowed to touch the pages and express the pictures that they saw on each page.  I thought that this activity should a great way to get students to interact with one another, the teacher, and the book.
When it was 9:50, Jasmine and Branden had their spelling tests.  Since the students are at different grade levels they each had ten different words.  After the test, Ms. Sally explained to the students ways to improve their spelling.  She expressed the need that they need to write them down to help study and could also have their parents help them study throughout the week.  I believe that it is essential to get to parents involved in the student's learning.  A parent who helps the student learn, creates a connection that will help the child feel confident about learning in all aspects of education.  John worked on making origami during this time, which I also believe helped the students with fine motor skills, and connecting with the world.  Markus used flexible rubber cords to spell out recognition words.  This ended at around 10:15 when I had to leave.
Overall I learned that reading must be incorporated into all subjects of learning.  This can be done through hands-on interactive lessons, which I feel is essential for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.  I also feel that it is important for the teacher, interpreters, and parents to support the student when learning how to spell and read, to create a comfortable safe learning environment.  I also think that parents should understand that learning should carry over to time spend out of the school day as well.  Teachers must also realize that every minute counts while the student learns at school because the majority of their day is spent in the school environment.  Learning should be fun but meaningful at the same time.  This observation helped me realize just how much reading and spelling is used throughout the learning process for students.

Note:  All names are pseudonyms.

Making Words with Invented Spelling-Decoding

This week's reading was about allowing children to invent their spelling.  It is a powerful indicator of their phonemic awareness.   I think that it is a good starting point for knowing what children's knowledge is about spelling and making words.  However, if their mistakes are not corrected then I feel that the children will not be good spellers as their education progresses.  The article also states that children who can spell words are more likely to be able to read those words.  I do not feel that this is always the case, especially in the English language where sometimes the word does not sound like it is spelled.  I do however feel that having a decoding ability in reading is improved with being able to spell.  A 15 minute activity that is used to accomplish these skills is Making Words.  This allows children to take letters and use them to make words.  The children start with two-letter words and continue to make eight-word letters.  This active, hands-on manipulative activity where children discover sound-letter relationships and how patterns work in words.  They understand that changing one letter or sequence of letters changes the entire word.  This activity also teaches children the five vowels, and that the letter y can be a vowel and consonant.  Overall this activity is supposed to help those who lack phonemic awareness develop this skill.  I think that it is important to use an interactive lesson to teach children how to create words with invented spelling.

 Making Words
Invented Spelling 

Source:
 Cunningham, P. M., & Cunningham, J. W.  (1992).  Making Words:  Enhancing the spelling-decoding connection.  The Reading Teacher, 46, 106-115.

Coaching Young Minds

I noticed that for both readings this week, the common definition for reading was described, understanding meaning.  Although I enjoyed the book reading for different activities to use when teaching phonics and spelling patterns, I thought that the information presented by Clark was more beneficial.  I feel that coaching is more like scaffolding instead of making the student "sound it out".  Although the student may be able to effectively sound out a word, it does not necessarily mean that they understand what the definition of the word it.  Coaching seems to be a better way of going about teaching word recognition so that students understand words in various contexts.  I thought that this article did a wonderful job of reminding teachers the factors that needed to be considered when coaching.  These include:  vowels, the y sound when it is a vowel, consonant sounds, blends, silent letters, r-controlled vowels, context in which words appear, and known word parts.  There were also three stages of word recognition considered being:  selective-cue, spelling-sound, and automatic.  I think it is important for teachers to understand that when learning words, students must first pay conscious attention before mastering automatic recognition of words.  I think that is is also vital to break students up into coaching groups so that struggles in recognition and comprehension can be worked on.
Below is a video that shows ways for coaching context reading comprehension.

Reading Tutoring: Reading for Context

Sources:
 Clark, K. F.  (2004).  What can I say besides "sound it out?": Coaching word recognition in beginning reading.  The Reading Teacher, 57, 440-449.

Cunningham, P. M., & Allington, R. L.  (2010).  Teaching Decoding and Spelling Patterns.  (Chapter 5, Classrooms That Work.)

The Small Pieces of Language

This week the reading was about the components that make of language and how to successfully teach children how to understand the language in which they are learning.  One of the articles talked about steering away from teacher a new letter each week, but instead incorporating all letters into words that the children already familiar with.  Teachers often do not realize how much language children have already been presented with even if they are not in a text-rich environment.  Some examples given were that text is found on the microwave and fast-food boxes.  I think this is a simple way to get all children used to what letters look like and how they form words and sentences.  It is an easy way everyday to point out words and letters that the parent and teacher spot out to get the child used to seeing the letters of the alphabet and can practice on becoming a pro at language.  Open ended questions, I believe, would be an awesome way to ask children about language. I also think that "think-alouds" and interactive writing is a brilliant way for children to see that reading and writing is meaningful but can also be fun.  It is also important to make children understand that they can build upon the language that they already have knowledge of.  Some ways that the reading talked about doing this with is through chunking letters together.  Another important statement made in this reading was the just because the student can name letters does not mean that they can use them to read.  I believe this would be hard for teachers to understand when they are just trying to cover state standards.  I totally agree with what Donna Jarvis said in this reading that it is vital to make children understand that any type of writing they present in a form of written communication that can built upon.
Another reading, Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom, took more of a linguistic approach to how language work.  I thought it was smart to put these readings together to see how language is actually made up so that as I become a teacher I am able to understand how language is broken down.  With this knowledge, it should be easier to teach my students how to form language, and be able to understand the differences that there are within language. Metacognition was mentioned in this reading, as thinking about one's thinking.  This definition seems to be the same as any other class that has had this type of vocabulary.  I feel that it is very important to understand how to use the language.  This reading also did a great job about breaking down the parts of speech and providing ways to teach that particular part to children who are learning how to read and write.  Some ways to start this off would be through rhyming, syllables, onset, and phonemes.  I think this is a great video linked below that shows how to break down words that are being taught.

Phonological Awareness Activity

The Importance of Engaging in Early Literacy

The reading for this week focused on the importance of reading as soon as possible to children and finding ways to teach children how to read in all ways of everyday life.  The article spoke about the Jones' family who lives in a small rural community in the southeastern United States.  This family integrated literacy into all aspects of their lives.  Some of these are:

1. Instrumental (magazines decorating, crafts, sewing, and family recipes)
2. News-Related (newspaper readings about local, state, national, and international events)
3. Financial (recording numerals, budgets, expenditures, and loans)
4. Spiritual (Bible)
5. Recreational ("love novels", folk and fairy tales, "books to make sense of things")
6. Educational (storybooks, and tasks at school)

Johnson, A.S. (2010).  The Jones Family's culture of literacy.  The Reading Teacher, 64 (1), 33-44.

 It is not often thought about how much literacy is used every single day in different ways.  The one that I would most likely forgot about would be for financial means.  Of course as a college student, I have loans and a budget I must keep, but I have never really thought about reading over agreements and amounts for such things to be part of literacy.
 

Chapter 3 in Classrooms that Work, talked about building a literary foundation for young children, even before getting to kindergarten.  Allowing children to pretend read is a critical part of this.  I am sure that others like myself think that it is adorable when they see children pretending to read, but probably do not consider how important it is to allow the child to engage in this activity.  This helps create a background of knowledge and vocabulary when these children come to kindergarten.  This can be accomplished through those that can read teaching children how to print concepts work.  These include:  letters, punctuation, spaces between words, paragraphs that are formed, and jargon that is used such as words, letters, sentences, and sounds.  I feel that parents don't often realize how much of an impact they have on their children as they watch them write out recipes or bills, read magazine or books, or how they make grocery lists.  With children being able to observe these activities should also help them learn how to "invent-spell".  I am not sure that I agree with this concept as some children may build a weakness for using this and spelling words incorrectly.  I noticed that the reading also talked about allowing children to write with and on different utensils/materials.  I think this is a wonderful idea so that they do not get bored with writing or reading.  Some suggestions for this are using cereal boxes, ads for local stores, restaurant menus, making birthday cards, labeling pictures and name tags, and having a bulletin board in the classroom.

Cunningham, P.M., & Allington, R.L. (2010). Building the literary foundation. (Chapter 3, Classrooms That Work)

-----What other ideas do you have for bringing literacy into the classroom?

Effective Readers in the Classroom

To become a teacher with effective readers in the classroom, one needs to remember the six T's of daily elementary literary instruction.  These include:  

• Time (having students read and write 50% of the school day)
• Texts (having a rich supply of books for all levels of readers) 
• Teaching (selecting appropriate books and involving these in active instruction such as decoding, composing, and self-regulation)
• Talk (fostering student talks between peers and the teacher and posing  conversational open ended questions) 
• Tasks (small groups working on reading and writing in all content areas, as well as providing student choice)
• Testing (grading based on effort and improvement) 

Creating an Effective Learning Environment

• • Emphasize High-Order Meaning Construction
  • Maximize Opportunities to Read
  • Use Reading and Writing in ALL Subjects
  • Discuss Readings
  • Scaffold and Coach Students
  • Emphasize Self-Monitoring and Self-Regulation
  • Set High Expectations for Students
  • Read Aloud to Students of ALL Ages
  • Create Caring, Positive Learning Environment
  • Communicate with Parents
  • Independent Reading with Documentation
    

Discussion Questions

• Do you feel that the more you read, the better you read?
• Does active instruction benefit students when it comes to learning reading strategies?