Jenna Fudge - Tompkins Ch. 5

I thought this chapter again, like the others had a lot of useful ideas that can be implemented in the classroom. Unfortunately again, it seems like I am not seeing these things in my current field placement. I am in a 2nd/3rd grade split and they do not have any word walls. The 2nd graders however sometimes have their spelling words posted on the wall and they are ordered based on like parts of the words (something we previously learned in class is not a good idea). The 3rd graders do not have their words posted but they are given handouts with their spelling words but written in cursive. Again, this is something we previously learned is not a good idea as far as teaching spelling. When I am trying to remember the spelling of a word and need to write it out or picture it in my head, I'm not doing it in cursive. Cursive is important for them to learn and they enjoy learning it but I think it should be kept away from spelling.

Tompkins Chapter 5

This chapter served mostly as a review for me because my TE301 class last year really focused on many of the same topics and especially on fluency. Reading the section on word recognition reminded me of the Kindergarten field placement class I was in last year; the CT in that classroom used a lot of strategies to help the students become fluent readers and writers. In particular, I remember that she had an enormous word wall that covered almost one whole wall. She started off with several high-frequency words that the students were familiar with. Then she added words to the word wall as the weeks progressed, and she would constantly refer back to the word wall during intruction.

Also, I always thought that word walls were only used for younger children as they learned to read and write, but in the chapter it mentions that "teachers can create word walls for older students too." After reading this part in the chapter, I realized that the second grade classroom I used to be in used a form of a word wall to aid them while writing. Each of the students had writing journals that included a glossary of high-frequency words and other words that the students may be familiar with but just not know how to spell. There was also space for the students to add more words in themselves. I thought this was a good resource for the students while writing and also for reading. I have not seen evidence in my new field placement of any type of word wall, but I haven't been in there that long and I haven't gotten to see a lot of literacy instruction.

Tompkins Chapter 5--Jessica Thelen

The topics covered in this chapter are what we just covered in CEP 301. We talked about the importance of teaching students to become fluent readers before they reach third grade. We also talked about how it takes a struggling reader much more exposure to a word before they can recognize it. I think it is important for all classrooms to have a word wall especially for struggling readers/writers. It is just another place they can find needed words.
In the kindergarten class I'm in they have two word walls. One that has seasonal or unit words on it. For example for Valentine's Day they had Valentine, cards, hearts, etc. They other words wall has removeable words so the students can take them off the wall and bring them back to their desks to copy them on their paper. This has helped a lot of the students write complete sentences because they are not worried about how to spell or stretch out words they should have already learned. After the students know how to spell the words on the word wall they no longer walk over and get them. I have noticed a decrease in the amount of students that need to take words from the word wall when they write.

Tomkins Chapter 3

I really enjoyed this chapter on young readers and writers because I'm really passionate about teaching younger students at a time when they are just learning to read and write! In my TE 301 class, we spent a lot of time on literacy instruction particularly in the younger grades. We even made binders full of resources on concepts of print, alphabetic principle, fluency, phonological awareness, etc. Also that year I was in a kindergarten classroom for field placement and I was able to really observe some of the strategies talked about in this chapter within that classroom. As this chapter mentions, my CT in the kindergarten classroom gave her students a variety of different types of print to work with. They worked with calendars, newspapers, narrative and informational books, song lyrics, etc. Allowing students to work with different types of print makes them better prepared for literacy in the future. If students are introduced to a wide array of print at a young age, they will feel more confident, know what to expect, and understand the purpose of the lesson more so than their peers with less experience with different types of print.

Jenna Fudge - Tompkins Ch. 3

I found this chapter to have a lot of good practical ideas as far as how to teach children in lower grades to read and write. I have never been in a Kindergarten or first grade classroom before and have always wondered how this is done. I wondered how teachers get a Kindergartner who has never even held a pencil to learn to read and write. I never even thought before that a person actually has to teach children how to make letters.

It was interesting to read about all of the different centers, activities, and styles that can be used in order to teach young children to read and write. I specifically like the idea of the writing center. I can see how young kids would really enjoy this and learn a lot from it at the same time. I thought the idea of writing friendly letters to fellow students was a great idea. I’m sure the students writing them are just as excited as the students are receiving them. I agree that this would be a great way for students to practice writing, learn the format of friendly letters, practice reading, understand the social aspect of reading and writing, as well as being able to practice spelling.

Chapter 7--Jessica Thelen

Teaching comprehension is very important at every grade level. I was happy to see a chapter that would offer strategies for teaching this. I just wish they would have included examples of how to modify these middle school strategies for lower elementary. Being in a kindergarten placement, everything is pretty basic. The students have just started learning about how to make self to text connections. Other than the sequence of events that is about all the comprehension they have done. I think there needs to be more comprehension strategies used in this classroom because this is their first year of school and they need to see the importance. I know it is hard to teach comprehension when everything the students are reacting to is something that has been read to them. They do not have the option of picking out a book that is interesting to them, which makes comprehension easier.

Tompkins Chapter 7

While reading this chapter I was very interested in learning about different comprehension strategies that I could use in my field placement classroom and next year in my internship classroom. Although the example in the book was of a middle school class, I could see how I could adapt those strategies to fit a lower elementary class.

In my field placement class, which is a second grade classroom, there seems to be a lot of focus on comprehension more so than spelling. It seems backwards to put an emphasis on comprehension and not spelling when the two seem to go hand in hand. To me, it seems that in order to understand a word, you would associate the word with it's spelling. Personally, when I learn a word I hear the word and then picture the spelling in my head in order to better remember it. Also, when students are given spelling tests in my field placement they are expected to understand the word in context and be able to spell it correctly.

Tompkins - Ch 7 - Jenna Fudge

I thought this chapter on comprehension contained a lot of useful information. The examples they gave which were used in Mrs. Donnelly's classroom were very helpful in showing me many practical ways comprehension strategies can be taught to students. I was left wondering how these examples from her 6th grade classroom could be used in lower level elementary classrooms.

I know that in my field placement (2nd/3rd grade) much of the focus in the language arts instruction seems to be on spelling and vocabulary. I thought it was interesting that on page 224 in the chart, it says that spelling is not an important component of comprehension. This left me wondering why then so much focus is put on spelling in elementary classrooms? Tompkins made it clear through this chapter that the whole point of decoding and learning how to read is to gain meaning from the text. This seems to me then, that more focus should be put on comprehension rather than on spelling. Reading further, the section on fluency explained that in the primary grades "fluency is the focus of instruction because students need to learn to recognize words automatically so that they can focus their attention on comprehending what they are reading". This makes sense as to why vocabulary would be such a big portion of instruction so that more and more words can become site-words. I still however do not understand why there seems to be so much focus on spelling when the end goal of reading is meaning/comprehension.

Weinstein and Mignano - Jenna Fudge

I thought the section on moderating discussions was very important. I thought this section had a lot of good tips and suggestions for teachers. I know when I work with a group of kids I often have a hard time maintaining order. I often end up getting frustrated and the kids talk all over me and each other. Many of the kids who are trying to give their good ideas end up getting frustrated as well because they are not able to speak to the whole group since someone else is always talking. I think the idea of using a prop to signify whose turn it is to speak is a very good idea. This is something that I will try using in my field placement and definitely use in my future classroom.
I also think it is important during discussions for the teacher to ask questions. They gave examples of the types of appropriate questions in this chapter. Some questions are used to ask for more evidence while others are used to gain clarification. Some other examples of appropriate questions for the teacher to ask is linking or extension questions, hypothetical questions, cause-and-effect question, and summary and synthesis questions. I have seen my CT use most of these during literary discussions and they seem to work well. The kids who are usually distracted and not paying attention become engaged and excited about the reading. I plan on using much of what I read in this chapter in my Language Arts whole group lesson.

Managing Recitations and Discussions

This chapter from Weinstein & Mignano was interesting because I had never really thought so in-depth about the differences between recitations and discussions in elementary classrooms. To me, both recitation and discussion style formats can be helpful to students if used in the right way. In a sense I think that discussions are more beneficial to students' learning than recitations because there are less ways that discussions can go wrong and many more ways that recitations can be unsuccessful. I agree that if used in the right way, recitations can help students comprehend the story, review basic facts, and be involved by answering questions that can involve higher-level thinking. However, according to the chapter, many teachers mistakenly think they are involved in true discussions with their students when in fact most of them are engaging in a recitation-style format. Also, recitations are denounced because the teacher dominates the conversation, there is little interaction among students, recall of facts is emphasized, and little higher-level thinking is required. In contrast, discussions allow students to work together to ponder an issue or question; a variety of responses are elicited and students begin to appreciate other people's points of view.

I have had many experiences as a learner with teachers who engage solely in recitation, and then they wonder why their students do not know the information or are uninterested in classroom material. I think it is important as teachers to know the major differences between recitations and discussions in order to help students understand and internalize information. I think the best way to foster our students' understanding is to use a combination of effective recitation and discussion strategies because both are important to facilitate students' learning and comprehension of classroom material.

Performance Assessment

I like the section on how to create tasks for performance assessments because it reinforces the idea of meaningful homework. The criteria for these are very similar. They both require you to think about what you want to measure, if it is time and cost effective, and if it is clear. I like the idea of staying focused on what it is that you are measuring. This keeps from making the tasks too difficult for the students.
The only part of this website that concerned me is the part where is said the assessment should not just simply ask what the student has just learned. If you do something in class, then the students shouldn't be asked to do the same thing in their homework. What is confusing to me is that if you give students too much new information to cover at home it makes more room for misconceptions. Shouldn't the learning at home just be a continuation of what is covered in class? If the students are working on grammar in class, then to me the homework assigned should deal with grammar. Not just reiterating the same sentences that were covered in class, but in a different context. This is possibly what the author of the website was trying to say but it was not very clear.

Langer: Understanding Literature

This article discussed the teaching of literature and making meaning through envisionment-building ("the understanding a reader has about a text--what the reader understands at a particular point in time, the questions she has, as well as her hunches about how the piece will unfold"). I had never heard of the term "envisionment" before reading this article and I think it is a very important concept for the teaching of literature. The article next talked about the four major stances of interpreting a literary text. They are: Being Out and Stepping In, Being In and Moving Through, Being In and Stepping Out, and Stepping Out and Objectifying the Experience. I think that being able to identify these stances would be very helpful to future teachers because they would be able to track their students' progress easier and facilitate class discussions.

I have seen many examples in my field classroom of the stances of interpretation listed above. As I have mentioned before, there are several ELL students in my classroom and a fair ammount of low-level students as well. As discussed in the article, I have noticed that it is easier for these students to get off-task and go on tangents when discussing a literary text than those students who are more proficient in reading. When working with ELL and low-level students, it would be beneficial to have a set of stances to follow or use as a guideline.

McGee Jessica Thelen

I like the ideas McGree presented in this article. I think it is important to have students talk amongst each other with little contribution from the teacher because they can learn so much more from each other. The students will learn social skills and how to use details from the story to support their opinions. If the teacher keeps conversation going, then the students will not learn how to do this on their own. Teachers should want students to know how to discuss books without a teacher or adult facilitating discussion so they will do it outside of class.
I have watched some of these methods in the preschool class I work in. They have a hard time listening to what others are saying and only want to get their opinions out. I think it would be beneficial to the students if we started working with students in small groups. In a whole group, they want to talk about anything and everything about the book. They like to talk. I think once the students are in a small group they will be able to listen more and not feel like they have to compete for a turn to talk. I plan to try this in preschool and see what happens.

Free Day

I am using today as my one freebee blog. -Jenna

Gibbons Ch. 5 Jessica

What I thought was the most interesting and useful part of this chapter was where it explained how to choose books that are beneficial to students. For the most part, this section could be applied to all students. All emergent readers need repetitive text so they can focus on comprehension. Beginning readers are learning how to do so many things at one time and if there is some repeated text it gives the students a bit of break from focusing on figuring out what words they are reading. I've noticed this method of using text that have some repetition being used in preschool. In this example, it helps these students start to recognize words. They see the select words being repeated and begin to know what it is coming. Some of the advanced students can point to the correct words while I am reading in the repeated section. This is just helping them start to make the one-to-one correspondence.
In my kindergarten placement, I have seen the teacher use the opposite of what Gibbons believes that should be used in a classroom. She uses the short books with choppy sentences that do not relate at all. These students struggle to read the words, rather they rely on the pictures to tell them what is happening. I think this is a common response to these types of books and they do not support reading comprehension at all.

Gibbons CH 5: Reading in a Second Language

I found the writing for this week very enlightening because I have a very diverse population of students in my field placement class this year. While reading, I found it interesting that readers use a number of different strategies to help them comprehend meaning. Depending on the readers' background knowledge and previous experiences the text will be interpreted differently. I liked the quote in the book: "In one sense, reading simply confirms what we know: we map our already existing experiences onto what we read" (Gibbons, 79). I think this is very true because from my experiences as a reader, and from discussions I have had with other readers, texts can be understood differently depending on a variety of factors including differences in culture, ethnicity, etc. The example in the book (pg 80) emphasizes the fact that meaning is not solely made from the words themselves, but from the unique relationship between the text and reader.

In my field placement classroom this year, there are two students who hardly speak a word of English, and I found it interesting that the CT does not use many of the strategies mentioned in the book (before, during, and after reading activities). The CT does not do much to accomodate the ESL students in the classroom, only further contributing to their sense of alienation among their peers. As the book mentions, ESL students should be used as resources in the classroom instead of hindrances to learning. If the CT would set aside a couple class periods to showcase the ESL students in a geography lesson for example, the ESL students would feel more included and accepted among their peers, while the native English speakers would gain more of an appreciation for places and people from all around the world.

Gibbons - Ch 5 by Jenna Fudge

I found this chapter Reading in a Second Language to be very informative. I agree with the idea that in order to gain understanding from a text it takes all three kinds of knowledge: semantic knowledge, syntactic knowledge, and graphophonic knowledge. The author proved this with the three paragraphs all missing a word. I was able to figure out the missing word based on my semantic knowledge, syntactic knowledge, and graphophonic knowledge.

I also thought it was interesting that the knowledge of the content/topic and the knowledge of the kind of genre are also important when reading a text. I have learned this before but this chapter reinforced this for me by providing many examples.

I found the four components of literary success to be new ideas for me and I think they are very important. Reading as a code breaker, reading as a text participant, reading as a text user, and reading as a text analyst are all important to strategies to teach students. Although each individual strategy is important these should all be used together in order for students to achieve literary success.

I thought this chapter also contained many important different kinds of activities to use with ESL students. I noticed that most of these activities can be used with mainstream students as well. I plan on using them in my field placement this semester and also in my future classroom. I feel that this chapter contained much useful information about how to teach reading skills to ESL students and mainstream students as well.

Digital Literacy: A Conceptual Framework for Survival Skills in the Digital Era

This article discusses the term "digital literacy" and describes it as being more than just the ability to use software or digital devices, but that it encompasses a wide variety of skills (cognitive, emotional, motor, sociological) the user must possess. The article talks in-depth about five types of digital literacy: photo-visual literacy, reproduction literacy, branching literacy, information literacy, and socio-emotional literacy.
Photo-visual literacy is used with young children (online games, photo-visual books) as well as adults (type-writing skills). In my field classroom I have seen a lot of photo-visual literacy in the form of online games. The students in my second grade class go to the computer lab everyday where they are encouraged to play interactive online games that require them to match pictures with words in oder to figure out the answer. I think it is important that educators as well as students are familiar with this type of digital literacy in order to effectively use it in the classroom. Research with with this type of digital literacy shows that adults were not as able as young children in decoding photo-visual literacy.
I noticed that several of the five forms of digital literacy talked about in the article showed that young children were more capable and comfortable using digital technology than adults. However, with socio-emotional literacy, which focuses on cognitive ability and experience, adults were more skilled. Socio-emotional literacy deals with the Internet, chat rooms, discussion groups, e-mail, etc. Because of the unpredictablitly and uncertainty of reliability in this digital form, users have to be extra careful not to be tricked, scammed, or slipped a virus. Cyberspace may be risky for users who are immature or are not up to speed with the "rules of the game." (This form of digital literacy is the most complex form discussed in this article because it requires the user to be familiar with the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms, etc. It also requires the user to be critical, questioning, mature, and familiar with other types of digital literacy like information literacy and branching literacy.
As a future educator, I think it is important to teach students the dangers and benefits of socio-emotional literacy so that they are able to use it effectively and smartly. Because younger students have grown up with this age of digital technology, they are more able and comfortable using it. It is important to make sure that students are familiar with these five types of digital literacy because digital technology is only going to increase over time.
(Eshet-Alkalai, Digital Literacy: A Conceptual Framework for Survival Skills in the Digital Era.)

SEARCHing for an answer: The critical role of new literacies while reading on the Internet - Jessica

Being literate in online reading is just as important as being able to read. The example provided is about how some students don't understand how to successfully search on Google. They struggle because they do not know how to narrow their search down so they can read more information that directly relates to their topic. Instead, they are reading information off different sites that are not specific enough for them. After teaching these students were taught how to successfully search, they found many different usable resources that they could use.

This is particularly important for students to learn because technology is advancing constantly. Students need to know how to use these as different sources because of the opportunities that arise from them. The internet is a very valuable source for most students. Resources are so much more accessible if a child knows how to search. The acronym presented in the article is SEARCH. It goes through the steps on how to get the results you need from a search engine. I think this would be very valuable for students to learn because like any literacy, students need to be taught how to use it, so they can benefit from it.

Figure 1 is an example on how to help students get their ideas organized before they start searching online. I think that this would be particularly helpful to all students because it will keep their ideas organized and focused. Students with learning disabilities could also benefit greatly from this because some struggle with keeping their ideas straight.

"Where do you want to go today?" Article - Jenna Fudge

I found this article to be very interesting. Before reading this I had never heard of "inquiry-based" learning before. The article described it as the students being responsible for formulating engaging questions and then participating in experiences to answer them. I thought it was great that this kind of learning involves some kind of action. For example the student who studied the idea of using horses as therapy for special ed kids. After visiting a special stable the student then made brochures about it and took interested kids to the special stable. I think it is so important that these kids are taking what they have researched a step further by putting it into some kind of action.

I also thought that this learning is very meaningful to the students. They are able to pick a topic that they are interested in. The option of choice makes this meaningful as well. The kids feel like they have a say in the things they are learning and spending their time researching.

I thought the focus of technology in this article was interesting as well. The article made it clear that computers are not the focus of the learning but instead the "vehicle for getting to the destination". I remember when I was in school the teachers were very leery of us using the computers and the internet was basically there to be used as a last resort. The computer is full of so much practically endless information and should be thought of as a valuable resource. Along with technology resources the students also used live resources such as visiting the actual places of interests and interviewing the people who knew about them.

I thought this article was very interesting. Inquiry-based learning is something I will definitely be using in my future classroom. I also think it's great that students today have so many resources available right at their fingertips and think any available resource is always worth looking into.

Gibbons Ch. 1-2 Jessica Thelen

I have been fortunate enough to have worked with an ESL student. She was in kindergarten and had just moved from Zimbabwe. When I first met her the only word that she could say was "Yes" but after 3 months she was able to carry on a conversation with her. When I was reading chapter one from the Gibbons book there was a section about how ESL students can have conversations sooner than they can understand their school work. I could definitely see this with the student I worked with. We could talk about many different subjects, but she struggled with her alphabet and counting. Eventually she did meet the requirements needed to go on to first grade but just barely.

When I was working with this student I was able to observe her in her classroom. Most of the students were English Language Learners. When they had free time to play, a majority of them spoke in their native languages and occasionally said a few words in English. The teacher really had to spark conversation between the students by asking them about what they were doing and why. This teacher used some methods similar to those presented in the book. For example, she had them place pictures in order and asked them to explain why.

I think that these methods will be very helpful in a classroom setting. It does not have to be just for ESL students. I think that students that are behind their peers in learning how to write and speak English could benefit greatly from these activities. In special education classrooms these could be very helpful. This could be helpful to any child that is having a difficult time understanding and speaking.

Gibbons - Ch 1 & 2 by Jenna Fudge

I found this reading to be very interesting. I felt these to chapters were full of very valuable information. I am excited to learn about how to best teach second language learners in my future classroom. The first chapter sparked my interest when talking about the different views of learning (empty vessel and progressive). I have learned about these two views in previous classes and have never really found myself fully agreeing with either one of them. I was excited to see that this book is offering an alternative to both of these views. From what I have read about this third view so far I find myself agreeing with it. I think it is very true that "while we are all biologically able to acquire language, what language we learn, how adept we are at using it, and the purposes for which we are able to use it are a matter of the social contexts and situations we have been in."

I am excited to read in the future chapters how this learning view will be applied to how we as teachers should teach second language learners. Chapter 2 covered a little bit of this in the ideas about classroom talk. I never realized how important the role of talk in learning is. It does make sense that actually having to speak the second language will enable the student to process the language more deeply than when they are just listening. I thought the use of group work was a good idea and thought the principles for making sure the group work is effective were very important. I also thought this chapter contained many good ideas for group activities that I can use one day in my future classroom.

I think I will be learning a lot from this book. I am excited to see what the next chapters have in store. So far I have found it to be very useful and informative. I am looking forward to learning more about how to best teach English language learners.