A Good Teacher

A good teacher recognizes that students are different in their ability to read. Some students may be more advanced than others, but a good teachers end goal is to make literacy a part of each students life. Teachers must take action in order to teach how they want to teach. With new administrators and students coming and going it makes it hard to have a stable environment. It's important to use your other colleagues as resources to help when you need it. A good teacher is always excited about learning and encourages her students to be excited. Each day should be something that the children look forward to. Elementary school should be remembered as a happy place.

http://dailygenius.com/get-students-motivated/

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. What are some things that you think makes a good teacher?

2. Do you think motivation is a key factor?

Assessment

Before you can begin assessing children's reading you have to make sure that they are reading on the right level. In order to figure out if they are reading on the right level or not you must see if they know 9/10 words on the page or can comprehend for the most part what is going on in the passage. If a student can read 90-95% of the words easily it is considered to be on their reading level.

When assessing a child's reading you must make sure you are approaching each child differently because each child is different and could be reading on a different reading level than the child next to them. It is not a one size fits all approach. The students learn to read from their teachers so understanding and knowing what you are doing is very important.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/ATO73xQav7ANBUATABTO9U9Kg36yRJlVgQmqtHlJsLiJtGFc2nbWUIE/

This link is to a guide you can use to assess your students reading.

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. How can you figure out what level your students need to be reading at?

What is guided reading?
- Small reading groups with students of different reading levels.
Before reading: Set the purpose for reading, introduce vocabulary, make predictions, talk about the strategies good readers use.
During reading: Guide students as they read, provide wait time, give prompts or clues as needed by individual students, such as "Try that again. Does that make sense? Look at how the word begins."
After reading: Strengthen comprehension skills and provide praise for strategies used by students during the reading.What are the main elements or essential components?
- Small groups based upon reading levels, making sure you have books on different levels, having activities to learn new words, strategies such as context clues, letter and sound knowledge, and word structure.
How is GR done?
- Small groups with a teacher, teacher switches groups after a few minutes while the other students are doing reading or word activities.
What does the teacher do? Students?
- Helping the groups with guided reading. While the teacher is with one group the other groups are doing other activities until the teacher gets to their group.
What is the main purpose of GR?
- Foster confidence, efficiency and a love for reading.
How can guided reading be helpful for students?
- It gives students confidence, more individualized attention, and helps them learn to read.
What does it look like?
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0D7VdieHxE




Madeline Smith, Madison Weber, Becca Therrien

Guided Reading

The article I found was about guided reading in kindergarten, first, and second grade. This article gave steps for a guided reading lesson. This lesson included three steps:

1. Before reading: Set the purpose for reading, introduce vocabulary, make predictions, talk about the strategies good readers use.

2. During reading: Guide students as they read, provide wait time, give prompts or clues as needed by individual students, such as "Try that again. Does that make sense? Look at how the word begins."

3. After reading: Strengthen comprehension skills and provide praise for strategies used by students during the reading.

I think that each of these steps are smart ones to use. In order to get the students interested you need step one. Asking them questions, like what they think will happen, is a good way to grab their attention. In order to make sure they're understanding during the story asking questions like in step 2 is a good idea. And lastly, step 3 is a good step because all children want to be praised when they are doing something right. It motivates them to want to read and to continue doing what they are doing.

I like this worksheet because it is something that you could possibly do as a class and ask the whole class these questions to see what they are understanding and what they're not. This is a good way to see what else needs to be worked on while reading.

Thoughts to ponder:

1. What are some other steps you could do when teaching guided reading?

2. Do you think this worksheet could be done as a class?

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/guided-reading-primary-classroom

"Developing a strong vocabulary not only promotes reading comprehension but also enables us to actively participate in our society."

Vocabulary is very important to children, not only when reading and in the classroom, but also in their lives in general. Teaching children vocabulary can be fun. There are many activities you can use in your classroom to help children learn new words. In order for them to understand what they are reading they need to know what the words mean. One activity that I've have seen in a class is when groups get together and read a story. The teacher then gives each group a word and they are supposed to write the definition in their own words and draw a picture. They use context clues to figure out what the word means. The groups then present their work to the class. I think the students liked this because they get to be the teachers. This activity also helped them to learn new words that were in their story for the day.

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. What are some other fun ways to teach vocabulary?

2. Do you think this activity actually helps students learn what the words mean?

Comprehension and Understanding

Comprehension is something that is easier to teach when a child is reading something that is of interest to them. In Gill's article there was a question that was asked to teachers and it was when do they comprehend best? The answer was when they are reading something of interest to them, or when it is a book of their choice. I think that's true for everyone. It is much easier to comprehend something if it is something that interests you. So, giving students books to read that they have no desire to read is going to make it much harder for them to comprehend what the book is saying.

Another thing that is talked about in Gill's article is how prior knowledge is important when trying to comprehend. I think that prior knowledge is important for almost every topic we have discussed in class so far. Without prior knowledge a lot of things in reading would be very difficult.

This worksheet is one that I think is good for starting to comprehend things. I saw something like this when I was doing my reading inquiry and I think it really helped the students to understand difficult words.

Comprehension

Comprehension is the action or capability of understanding the meaning of something. It is a complex process that can be explained in many ways. A common definition among teachers is that comprehension is a process in which readers construct meaning by interacting with the text through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience. This is something that we have talked about before, using previous knowledge to figure out what something means. 

Since every child has a different background and a different way of understanding things teachers must find a way to teach comprehension to all students. In order to do this they teach decoding skills, help build fluency, build and activate background knowledge, teach vocabulary words, motivate students, and engage them in personal responses to text.

I saw this happening in a classroom I was in recently and I think it is a good way to help with comprehension. The students all read the same story in their textbook and then the teacher gave one vocabulary word to each group. After they got their word they were responsible for coming up with their own definition and drawing it out. Once everyone finished they had to present their word and definition to the whole class. This activity gave everyone a chance to try and comprehend what the word they were given meant.

Thoughts to ponder:

1. How will you make sure that ALL of your students are comprehending the readings in your class?

2. What other activities can you think of to help with comprehension?