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?



Word Study

Word knowledge is highly related to comprehension according to the Yopp and Yopp article. If a student doesn't understand the words in a text it makes it harder to comprehend what is actually going on in the text. If you think about it, even now we might not know the meaning to every word we read, and it's the same way for children.

I found this on pinterest and I really liked the idea of a word study station. http://www.pinterest.com/pin/119978777542432131/

 I like that children have options of how they can spell out letters using different objects that are in the classroom. Using different activities is a good way to keep children engaged in learning new words, the meaning of the words, and how to spell them. I believe that any kind of activity that keeps childrens attention is a good one. I also really liked what I found on pinterest because it was a whole station for word study and it wasn't just an activity. It is something that is set up in the classroom every day.

Thought to ponder:

1. What kind of activities will you use in your classroom when teaching word study?

2. Do you agree that if a student doesn't know the full meaning of the word it is harder to understand what the text is saying?

Fluency

According to Rasinski there are three dimensions of reading fluency. These three dimensions are:

1. Accuracy in word decoding

2. Automatic processing

3. Prosodic reading

If a child can do all of these things then they are fluent readers. In order to be a fluent reader you have to be able to sound out the words with minimal errors, know the meaning of what you are reading, and know what punctuation is and how it is used. When you are reading you have expression in your voice, you don't read every word exactly the same, especially if there is punctuation. This checklist would be a good thing to have up in your classroom so that students could look and see if they were doing everything they were supposed to while reading.

I like the idea in the article of assessing the students by letting them read for one minute and then calculating the number of words they read correctly. I think that's an easy way to make sure you can test all of the kids in your classroom for reading fluency. I also liked the idea of having students read together. I like that a more fluent student is able to help another student is that is having trouble.

Thoughts to Ponder:

1. What kinds of activities would you use to help with fluency?

 



Using Your Knowledge

While reading the article I saw something I really liked. When the students in Mrs. Fry's class were reading aloud they couldn't figure out the work "grunted." They could sound out grunt but couldn't figure out the rest of the word. I like how she asked them what sound "ed" made. When they tried putting the sounds together they got words like "grundable," but once they figured out that it was grunt and not grund they figured out the word. I just really liked how she handled that scenario and I could see myself doing something like that in my classroom.


Whether you are a teacher or a coach I think a lot of what you're doing has to do with patience. You have to be patient with children especially when they are learning new words and trying to read. In the scenario above Mrs. Fry was being patient with the student and trying to get the student to use the knowledge she already had to figure out what the word was.



Things to Ponder:

1. Do you think coaching and teaching are similar?



Syllables and Sounds

Letting Go of "Letter of the Week" gives a really good definition of what literacy is. I love how they defined it as not only reading in a "school-styled" way, but its also reading things like shampoo bottles, microwaves, and soup cans. It's also about being able to read symbols and these are all things that we discussed in our last class.


Children are not illiterate when they come to kindergarten because they know what a lot of those symbols mean as well as, how to see literacy in every day things like coins and videotapes. I liked in the article when she gathered her kindergarteners together and asked who could read and no one raised their hand, but when she pulled out a McDonalds bag and asked what it was they all knew no matter what language they spoke.


I like the idea of an alphabet made up of pictures of the students. If I made one I would have every student hold the letter that their first name started with. I believe this would help the children learn the sounds of the letters better. I also liked the idea of the game Teacher, May We? I think that is a really good way to help the children learn about the syllables in words, and it is also a fun activity that would keep them engaged.

Thoughts to ponder:

1. How will you teach your students about syllables?

2. What activities will you use to help them sound out, read, and write new words?

Read Read Read

As a teacher, when you are trying to teach your students to read you must first think about their family cultures and backgrounds. Families do all different things with their children before school starts. Some families may value reading and literacy much more than other families. So when it comes to teaching children how to read things could get a little complicated.

 

One way to not only help children read, but to keep them engaged is to have books in your classroom that they enjoy. Having books that children find interesting will keep them engaged and wondering how they could read the book.

 

I also liked how the Jones family used household items to try and teach the children to read. They would use things like catalogs and magazines. I think that anything a family does to prepare their children for school is a good thing. Also, if a family is spending time doing this that means they are not spending time watching tv or using other forms of technology which is good in my book.

 

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

Thoughts to ponder:

1. How will you keep your students engaged in reading?

2. Will you discuss with parents their child's reading at home?

The Six T's

In chapters one and two of Classrooms That Work and the article, What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction there is an underlying theme. This theme is that we need good and effective teachers. Effective teachers matter much more than any program. Another theme is that children need to spend more time on reading and writing throughout the school day.

In the article, What I've Learned About Effective Reading the author talks about the six T's. These six T's are:

1. Time

2. Texts

3. Teaching

4.Talk

5. Tasks

6. Testing

Time is listed because the teachers that were observed had a very well balanced ratio of reading and writing to "stuff." These teachers had the children reading or writing for as much as half of the school day. When I was in elementary school I do not remember reading or writing for that long. We had many other activities that took place besides reading and writing.

The texts section talks about if children are going to be reading during that much of their day, they need good books that they can read. The children need books that they can actually read, but books that aren't too easy. They also need a lot of choices. Children need books that will keep them engaged in what they are reading. I've read plenty of books to children at work and some start to doze off because they are uninterested.

Part of being good at teaching is being able to plan reading times and choose the right books. A good teacher doesn't just throw the book at the child and tell them to read it. A good teacher gives instruction and demonstrates what the child should be doing. I personally think it is more effective if you show a child what to do, and don't just tell them.

Talking in classrooms should be encouraged. There should be talk between students and teacher as well as student and student. The article talks about the talk being purposeful. We don't want children  just chit chatting, but talking about ideas and helping one another out, asking questions, this is the kind of talk that should be happening in all classrooms. Not silence.

Longer tasks is what needs to be happening in classrooms. Teachers should not be trying to fill the day with lots of short tasks. Longer tasks helps the children to stay engaged in what they are doing versus a task that is 15 minutes. By the time they are finally engaged in something it is time to move on. Instead of reading part of a book and finishing it the next day, the whole book should be read, even if it is a long book that takes up a lot of time.

The last T is testing. The teachers in this article did something that I really liked, instead of grading the students off of achievement they gave them their grades based off of effort and improvement as well. I personally really like that idea. Some children may not completely understand the work, but if you can tell that they are trying to understand, and putting in the effort to learn they shouldn't fail.

I believe the these six T's are good things to follow. I think that if some teachers followed these they could have a successful classroom full of children who enjoyed being there.