Liz's Vocabulary Entry

The vocabulary I see in my Kindergarten classroom is mostly involving the main word wall in the classroom and then a separate word bank at the writing center. The main word wall has high frequency words, such as "in", "and", and "like". It also has all the students' names. The word bank at the writing center where students do a lot of journaling consists of a group of words that relate to each other. For example, the word bank yesterday had a number of words related to Spring and then at the bottom had the phrase, "are a sign of spring." The students were to pick a word or two from above, such as "green grass" and "violets", write those words and then finish their sentence with "are a sign of spring." They finished the center by drawing a picture to represent what they wrote.

I don't see the vocabulary they are doing as building on new vocabulary, but just introducing new words for them to write in their journal. The word wall is the most useful because the students are able to move to that part of the room and find the word they are looking for instead of me spelling it for them. This has shown to be a big benefit when it comes time for assessing how many high frequency words the students know.

Liz's Thoughts on Autism Workshop

I haven't had any experience working with students with autism. The workshop presented by Josh Plavnick really opened my eyes to the trials that the students, teachers, and parents have to go through. I found the statistics very scary, in addition to the large spectrum of characteristics that chilren with autism present. I haven't had any experience working with students with autism, but had a guest speaker in my TE301 class in the summer who worked with autistic children in her special education classroom. Many of the things Josh spoke about were facts that I had already heard from the speaker last summer, such as the notion that children with autism tend to fixate on specific objects or topics, like dinosaurs for example.

If given the opportunity, I would like to continue to attend workshops that deal with the topic of special needs children. Having no background in special education, I find that I want and need extra workshops and support because I know I will have special needs students in my classroom. I want to know ways to support their learning in my classroom as opposed to hindering it. One specific suggestion I found useful from Mr. Plavnick was the idea of peer support. Mr. Plavnick also had us come up with ways to match a special needs student with a peer and how important it truly was to make such a match with extra thought put in to it. I was really appreciative of Mr. Plavnick for coming to our classroom and giving us a very thoughtful presentation on Autism that really encompassed all special needs students. In fact, some of the ideas brought up during our discussion really included all students, and I found it very meaningful to me as a future teacher.

Emily's Vocabulary Entry

In my second grade classroom, there really isn't a strong emphasis on vocabulary building. The primary focus for learning vocabulary is through spelling tests. The students take a pretest and my CT grades them and gives it back to them. She then puts the correct spelling of the words on the board for the students to write down. She gives them a worksheet as homework so they can practice spelling the words. Then they have a test on them. The test is not just comprised of the 12 spelling words though. There are also 3 high frequency words such as there, their and they're. Then there are 3 challenge words which are words like cornea, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington (these are just a few I remember off the top of my head). Lastly, my CT will say two sentences and the children have to write down what she said, paying attention not only to spelling but also punctuation. This is a routine and the students are all used to it by now. There is a group of about ten students who have an alternative list, which is more advanced. The only difference is the twelve spelling words. The high frequency words, challenge words and sentences are the same for the entire class.

The only other vocabulary in my classroom that I notice is a word wall. It has high frequency words that students are expected to know such as too, two, to, sat, was, saw, etc.
There is also a classroom set of dictionary's that the students know where they are at and have access to them.

Emily's Autism Entry

The presentation last week touched my heart. Frankly, the statistics scare me horribly as a future teacher but also as a future parent. I have had only one experience with an autistic child but have had a couple of learning experiences about autism.
The first time I really heard any information about autism was at a child development conference and the keynote speaker talked about it. I believe he was a doctor from U of M and his theory was that people are getting smarter and people who are smart marry people who are smart so their smartness combined causes autism. He had data to support it, but of course I don't remember it exactly. This was about 4 years ago and the statistics then were less but still high.
Then, I work at a daycare center over the summers in the school aged program. I love it and we have a blast. A couple of summers ago we had a eight year old boy with autism join us. From his appearance you would never be able to tell. He liked to play on his own for the most part and especially with his Bionacle figures. He did befriend a little girl who seemed to understand him and they got along well for the most part. His autism showed through mostly during transitional times. He needed plenty of warning that we were going to go outside or get ready for a fieldtrip so he could prepare himself. Even still it was difficult. When he got upset, he got really upset. He would scream and run out of the room. The other kids in the program often got nervous and just stared at him. They didn't understand why he did what he did. We worked with him a lot over the summer and he did somewhat improve his behavior. The thing that I keep thinking about is that we had two of us teachers and about 15-18 children in the classroom and it was during the summer so it was more laid back and academics were not strongly pursued. However, I just wonder how it is for him in the mainstream classroom where there is one teacher and about 24 other classmates. Also, the pace of the elementary school day is intense with many quick transitions. I often wondered how he handled himself and what techniques did his teachers use to help him through the day.
I talked with my CT about autism in the classroom. She has never had an autistic child in her room but she has had a little boy with Asperger's. He was incredibly smart she told me, but he struggled socially. Like the little boy I worked with, he struggled with schedules and not staying within a routine. My CT taped a schedule onto his desk so he could see exactly what they were going to do each day. I asked her if she knew the statistics within the school of how many children had autism. She did not know, but she does know there is one boy in third grade who is autistic. It is interesting that all of the children I have been mentioning are boys and Josh said last week that boys are four times as likely to be autistic than girls.
After Josh's talk last week, I actually saw a HBO documentary about autism. I don't remember the name of it but it interviewed several families of children with autism. It was incredibly interesting to see the differences between the children. There was a 14 year old girl who was very chatty but she tended to repeat what everyone said. She had a difficult time creating her own original speech. There was another little boy who had imaginary friends because he said they were the only kids who understood him. The parents talked about how difficult it is financially because a lot of insurance companies to help pay for therapy. How sad.
My biggest questions, which I have yet to find the answer to is why all of the sudden (within the last 10-20 years) has there been this outburst of autism? Is it just being diagnosed more or what is going on? Many parents, including on the video, believe it has to do with vaccines children receive as infants.

Sarah's Entry: Working with students with autism

          Before I entered college I knew very little about working with students with disabilities.  I had very little experience interacting with these students and did not feel comfortable doing so, as I knew very little about how to do so and about these disabilities in general.  I was originally majoring in elementary education, but after speaking with some peers and spending a little time working with students with disabilities I became very interested in these students and in learning about different strategies for teaching them.  There is never a dull day working with these children and finding out what makes them tick, some can be a challenge but its amazing how simple techniques and strategies can be used to turn their behavior around.   

         Personally I have never had the opportunity to work closely with a student with autism.  I have seen students with autism, but autism is a very complex disability in that no two cases are the same.  Some children with autism are nonverbal while others are constantly talking and repeating.  I listened to another guest speaking in a CEP class talk about her son who has autism and is nonverbal.  His case was pretty severe, and so many strategies that other children with autism found beneficial only frustrated her son.  I think the speaker that came in on thursday gave some great techniques to try out with students with autism and with learning disabilities in general, but it is important to remember that no two children are the same so what works for one may not work for another.  I would definitely like to learn more about autism and different strategies for teaching students with autism, so I hope in the near future I am given the opportunity to do so. 

Emily's New Literacy Reflection

When I first began this class, I knew deep down that literacy was more than just reading out of a book and writing with paper and pencil. However, I did not know how extensive the definition of literacy really is. When I thought about literacy class, I thought about reading books silently, in groups or teacher read aloud and having discussions about a given book, poem or article. I also thought about writing in response to prompts or writing a book report or even answering questions from books in all subjects. As the semester progressed, reading the articles, Gibbons and Tompkins started to open the creative literacy box in my brain.
This project, however, has been a real turning point for me. I am a visual learner so when I saw the list of different types of literacy a light bulb went on. Just seeing the words gave me a mental image of all the types of literacy’s and the possibilities they elicit. I realized that there was numerous ways literacy can be classified besides merely ‘literacy.’ These types include cultural, digital, emotional, environmental, print, social and visual. I immediately was drawn to digital literacy just because I enjoy technology and know that children are fascinated with technology as well. I went to the Technology Conference this past fall here at MSU and was introduced briefly to ePals. I knew I wanted to learn more about the website, but I had not sat down and taken the time to learn about it, until now. This project was a great excuse to dive right in and get my feet wet with ePals. This technology has really showed me that even under the umbrella of digital literacy, there are countless ways to use digital literacy in a classroom. Even with ePals you can use emails, blogs, papers, research projects, etc that is all done online in some form.
I would use this technology without hesitation in my classroom. I think it is especially great for middle elementary grades, middle school and high school. I am not saying I would not use it with lower elementary grades, but I think they will need a lot more support than higher-level grades. I think they can still benefit from the experience though by learning about other cultures through interaction with peers their own age in another part of the world via email. The teacher would probably need to spend at least one lesson getting the students acquainted with the website and how to navigate it. The students would each get their own email but share a class password. I think the most sufficient and efficient way to teach students is to use a computer lab where each student has a computer to work with or at least in partners. I would also do this because if a student has a computer in front of them that they can follow along the steps as the teacher does them it seems they will have a better understanding of what they are doing. If I were working with the older grades, I would most definitely contact a classroom from another country to correspond with. I would collaborate with that teacher and discuss how we can develop a cultural project for our students. I learned that ePals will automatically translate emails into English if we are conversing with a non English speaking classroom. Another possibility is to use ePals to learn another language. Students can practice writing in another language through emails. The ideas are endless!
I remember writing to pen pals in elementary school and it would take several weeks to hear a response from them. ePals introduced me to the virtual world of pen pals. I think it is fantastic because students can interact more frequently with their ePal because it takes a matter of seconds to send an email halfway across the world. This technology allows all types all learners to have access to literacy in some form. Some students would rather type on the keyboard than write on paper while some students prefer to write to an audience member compared to writing research or answering questions. ePals also teaches students how to compose and edit an email, which is a highly used form of communication. All students, in my opinion, should be knowledgeable and familiar with emailing. I personally was very impressed with ePals and literacy possibilities it possesses for all learners. It is a true demonstration of not only digital literacy but literacy in general.

Liz's New Literacy Project Reflection

At the beginning of this class, I thought of Literacy in terms of reading and writing. I expected to have a long list of texts to purchase for this class and expected to use those texts to discuss ways we could implement them in the classroom. Using the book Shades of Gray to organize a Book Club was exactly what I thought the whole class would be modeled after. As we began the New Literacies project, I realized that my idea of Literacy was very limited. The presentations from my peers really opened my eyes to the ways technology can be used to enhance literacy learning in the classroom.
For our New Literacies Project, Kailey, Tara, and I chose to do a digital story about England because Kailey and Tara are studying abroad in England this summer. To tell our digital story, we used iMovie on Kailey's iMac computer. The three of us had never used iMovie before so it was completely new to us. We found that the format was easy to use after watching the tutorial. We were able to add pictures, music, text, and transitions to enhance the entertainment of our story and to capture the attention of our viewers. We found pictures on Googles Images and used The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" as our background music. I think the iMovie turned out really well and I would use iMovie or a similar program (such as Windows Movie Maker) to teach lessons in any grade. Additionally, iMovie could be introduced as early as second or third grade for the students to do presentations. iMovie is a new way to showcase work in an entertaining way and I think students would have fun with an assignment that they are able to do creatively with iMovie.
Using iMovie was a new spin on an old idea, in my opinion. The idea of presenting a topic by using research was still the same, but the presentation in general was different. The organization was still an important aspect, but was made easier by using iMovie to switch around slides and add captions. Using iMoving is a great way to give the presenters creative control over their research and a way for the viewers to enjoy the presentation.
The grade level I am planning my literacy instruction for is Kindergarten so iMovie would be best used to enhance my instruction as opposed to having the students creative an iMovie of their own. A great way for me to do this would be to use Brittany's idea of compiling the students' work (like drawings) into a movie in order for the teacher, students, and parents to enjoy. I plan on doing this for a part of my lesson so the students could enjoy their hard work and the parents could get a peek into what their child has been doing, as well as what my role in their child's classroom has been.
After viewing the presentations of my peers, I can see that technology is important in the classroom. I feel like if technology is introduced to students beginning from Kindergarten (for example, the Kindergarteners at my field placement used a SmartBoard in library) and continually used throughout the rest of their academic career, then they would be very strong in terms of technologically literate. As the students move through their elementary career, their capacity for learning more literacies through technology will grow. Using these technologies to make literacy more challenging and exciting will give students motivation to keep trying new things. I also believe these students will continue to want to learn more.
Academic support could be necessary for E.L.L. students but they too would find excitement in the creativity allowed through technology. With the support, I feel as if they would flourish with their English language learning.

Sarah's New Literacies Entry

For my project Katie, Nikki, and I decided to use interactive maps to explore cultural literacy.  We used google maps and I learned how to create a map of the and how to drops pins and label the map.  The map was fairly easy to navigate and it was not too hard to enter in information.  We created a map of beginning teacher's salaries in some major states and cities in the US.  For the different states on our map we made sure to include teacher shortages such as math, science, or special education.  On our map we also included a little bit about each city we mapped and what attractions they offer for residents.   We also stated any interesting cultural attractions we discovered that these cities have to offer.  We felt that this topic would be interesting for not only us but for our classmates as well since we will soon be looking for teaching jobs and moving to new cities.  Overall, I thought this project was very beneficial since it allowed me to learn how to use a new technology in a creative way in order to make cultural literacy more interesting and interactive for students.  In the future I hope to have the chance to explore other technologies and implement them in the classroom.

Emily's Book Club Entry

This past week we finished our book club for Shades of Gray. I have to say that I did enjoy the book and found there to be many lessons learned while historical information was presented. I haven't had a lot of experience doing a book club in school so this was a somewhat new experience. I was familiar with some of the methods and basic concept of a book club though.
I wasn’t able to go to the field trip to observe the book club so I went to a fourth grade classroom in my placement school to observe a book club there. I was so impressed! They had parent volunteers who came in to work with a group of 4-6 students. I am pretty sure the parents read the book at home so they can prepare and follow along with the student’s discussions. They are reading Traders in Time, which is about Michigan history. They have the book split up into five sessions, which covers about 3 chapters per session. Each session they have a different focus. When I was there the focus was on point of view. Each student had to respond to point of view in whatever way they chose to. One girl wrote a diary entry from one of the characters point of view. After a student shares, the group comments or reflects on the students work. In addition to the specific topic they also explore vocabulary, predictions, and write a summary on the chapters they read. I was so impressed with the student’s discussion and how on topic they were. There were a few groups without parent volunteers and they had such meaningful discussions. This made me excited to hopefully implement this in my future classroom. I think if it is set up properly and time is spent developing it, then it can be a huge success.

Sarah's New Literacies Entry

I thought that the new types of technology we talked about in class were really interesting.  In particular I thought the I/O brush seemed really cool.  Who would of though we would be able to "paint" with blinking eyes or the colors of fruit or patterns on a shirt.  Painting with the moving images really caught my attention.  I liked how they had the ladybug move across the screen and the eye of a child blinking.  It was also neat how you could go back and use your fingers to smear the "paint."  Imagine all the possibilities for using a tool like this in the classroom.  It would be very cool to paint things students collected on a nature walk, or to paint with text when doing literacy activities.  

For my New Literacies project I am going to focus on visual literacy and I am going to use the technology of interactive maps to help demonstrate this literacy.  Visual literacy includes things like art, magazines, videos, films, photo graphs, and so on. Visuals can communicate meaning and  can often be used to convey a stronger message than text can.  In our society it is crucial for people to be able to interpret visuals as well as text.  I think that interactive maps really tie into visual literacy because interactive maps can be used to focus on being able to read and understand the images the information that is visually displayed on the maps.

Emily's New Literacies Entry

I took CEP 416 last semester and enjoyed it. It was more directed toward online programs to use for classroom organization and how they can be implemented but nonetheless it was helpful learning about blogs, wikis, and all the tools that Goggle offers. So on Thursday, it was exciting to learn about specific programs or websites to use. One of them being the PowerPoint templates. I know it can be redundant, but students seem to love playing Jeopardy to review for a test. The website that was on the sheet had many different templates to use for this. I know I will use the msugrad page to reference and look to for ideas. I am glad that Cherice made that available to us.

The new and upcoming technologies that Cherice showed us at the beginning of her presentation are exciting but scary at the same time. If we think about the new technologies that have been introduced to our generation and how life changing some of them are. For example, the internet. Seriously, I cannot imagine life without the internet For some of our parents or grandparents it still seems so foreign. I hope that I stay up with the new technologies being introduced so I can identify with my students and know what their generation is being exposed to. I also hope to implement some of the new technologies in my classroom.

Sarah's Entry 2/12

I have learned a lot about No Child Left Behind in my CEP classes and i definitely think some changes need to be made to its policies.  First of all every school is supposed to be at 100% proficiency by the year 2013-2014.  Is it really possible to reach 100% proficiency? And even if 100% proficiency is met, what happens next?  Also the schools are required to report the test scores for subgroups, like special needs students, ELL students, and so on.  These subgroups are also expected to meet 100% proficiency but the problem is once a child meets 100% proficiency they are usually no longer counted as part of that subgroup.  For example, if an ELL student meets 100% proficiency they are probably pretty good at english and will no longer be considered an ELL student.  NCLB also forces teachers to teach for the tests.  Since school funding and success is based on their test scores and proficiency percentages, teachers must make sure their students do well on these tests.  This prevents teachers from being creative, and teaching what they feel is important.  It can also cause learning to be more shallow and based on memorization, when teachers do not have the time or capabilities to build deeper understandings.  I also think it is a problem that teachers have no input or say in NCLB and those making decisions on NCLB policies often have little or no experience working with students and educators.  It seems like if anyone should design policies for our schools it should be educators, school administration, and students in the schools.

Emily's Week 5 Entry

While I do not know great detail about NCLB, I do believe that standarized test are becoming way too prevalent and stressed in the classroom. I was talking with my CT and they have a total of 3 standarized tests in one year for second grade. Second grade! Standarized tests are not always an efficient way to assess student's knowledge or comprehension because many factors play into testing such as stress, pressure of time, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of info, etc. Not all students are good test takers and I don't think they should be the underlying factor that determines students academic capabilities.

On a different note, the video we watched in class this past week was really interesting, I thought. While I do not want to teach the early grades, I still found myself trying to imagine implementing a similar system in my own classroom. I liked her word identification system with the words on the wall. I think it would take time to develop though. Also, a huge factor with this is that she only had 11 students. That is much more manageable to implement this type of system than in a classroom of 25 - 30 students. It almost seemed too idealistic instead of realistic. I also liked her process approach to writing. She was writing with them and sharing her own writing. She then asked them if they had any suggestions to fix her writing. By including students in her own work I think can give them the confidence to do the same in their own writing.

Liz's Post on Digital Natives

After taking the Digital Natives quiz, I find that I'm halfway between a native and an immigrant. I knew three technology definitions out of six. Like Sarah said, I would say my digital literacy is emerging. I feel as if I'm new to a lot of technological advances, but once I gain confidence in using them I can excel and use them to my benefit. I can't imagine how people wrote research papers without the Internet as a main resource, and I can't imagine how people distracted themselves from homework without the help of Instant Messenger or Facebook!

As a teacher in the near future I feel like it will benefit me to keep up with the technologies in the world today. As seen in some of the classrooms I've been in, there are a lot of neat ways to bring technology into the classroom in order to enhance learning. Last semester our TE401 class took a field trip to Bennett Woods Elementary to watch a science discussion in a classroom. The teacher was able to give directions to a craft activity by using an overhead-style machine so the students could all see and follow along better. The digital immigrant in me doesn't know the name of that machine, but I feel like I would be confident enough to learn how to incorporate one in my classroom because of my generation's quick learning when it comes to technology.

Emily's Entry on Learning to Read

We have all heard of the term emergent literacy used in our TE courses multiple times. We also are well aware that learning to read and write is a continuing process and is not something that will be learned at once or even in a short period of time. There are so many strategies to teach children to read and write. In the Tompkins text on page 97 there is a chart for instructional ideas to teach readers and writers in the three developmental stages. After looking at them, there are many great recommendations that I think would be successful. One issue I have with this concept is that in a classroom all students may not be at the same level and to try to instruct students together is difficult. Either the teacher has to have range of difficulty for one lesson or almost has to create multiple lessons to meet the needs of all the students. I wouldn't want to create status in the room by having students work on different things but at the same time some students will be bored with certain material while other children find it challenging. I know there is a balance and with everything, we just have to find it!

Sarah's "Digital Native" Entry

After looking over the website about "digital natives" I have decided that I actually am a digital native.  I would definitely consider myself part of the Nintendo or MTV generation.  Although I do think of myself as a digital native, I am still learning about new technology everyday.  So, I would have say that my digital literacy is still emerging.  I am continuously acquiring new information and knowledge about the technologies that are available to me.  I think it is important for us as teachers to try and keep up with the technologies available to us and our students.  It is crucial that we understand what our students are doing with their free time and which types of technologies they have available to them.  This can help us to better relate to our students.  We can do this by incorporating technologies our students like using into our lessons.  For instance if many of our students like using blogs, we could have a reading blog where the whole class addresses questions or topics that come up in their reading.  Also, if we are aware of new types of technology we can introduce them to our students.  By using a variety of types of technology in our lessons and activities, we can keep students interested and motivated to learn.

 

Sarah's Choral Reeding Entry

In class last week we practiced choral reading by dividing the class in half and reading a poem together.  In this case we were able to put emphasis on the poem through choral reading.  Choral reading can be used for a variety of purposes, for example to emphasize the meaning of a passage or poem or to get everyone in the class to participate in reading aloud.  I think that choral reading can be a beneficial way to get students to feel comfortable reading aloud since they are not reading by themselves but rather as a group.  Many students are not confident with their ability to read aloud and are shy when speaking in front of the class.  Choral reading provides a way for these students to participate in reading aloud without getting nervous or feeling singled out.  The difficult thing about choral reading is that it can be hard for the teacher to tell which students are actually reading aloud and which students are just mouthing the words and following their peers.  Also, some students may not put as much effort into doing the actual reading if they can just follow along with their peers.  Overall, I think choral reading is most effective when trying to emphasize meaning or when used with beginning readers.  

Emily's Entry 1/28

After reflecting on our readings and class discussion from last week, I wanted to address one topic in particular. In the Almasi article, it is suggested that students have specific roles when partaking in a discussion or literature group. These roles are inquisitor, facilitator of interaction, facilitator of interpretation, respondent and evaluator (37). At first, I wasn't quite sure whether to fully believe this was best. However, after thinking about our discussion in math class about status, I came to the conclusion that it is probably best to have students have roles for literature discussions. I think there are a couple of benefits actually. The main one is to not give in to status. If there is one student in the group who does all the talking then they have the status of being the leader, being prepared, on task, right all the time, etc. Even though other students may have ideas, they cannot vocalize them because the dominant student is taking over. Another reason to have roles is so students stay on task. With everyone having a specific duty or responsibility they are more likely to stay on topic and work their way through a discussion. Lastly, each student feels valued and important to the discussion with roles. If they successfully do their job, then they feel as though they were represented and made contributions to the group. I think it is important to note that these roles should be rotated with each discussion. This way it allows students multiple perspectives of participating in a group. I am anxious to try this with my second grade students!

Liz's Blog 1/23

My field placement is at Bath Elementary in a Kindergarten classroom. The students have been learning letter identification all year long and are now being introduced to inventive spelling. The teacher begins the mini lesson by reading a book to the whole class. From this point, the teacher engages in recitation with the students. The recitation is led by the teacher who asks questions about the book and the students answer them. If there is opportunity for small group discussion, such as "Name a time when you did something really nice for someone", the teacher will ask the students to share with their neighbor and then bring the focus back to the whole group. The teacher-led recitation allows the students a chance to answer questions about the book and share their opinions. Also, the teacher-led discussion provides opportunities for the students to make meaningful connections from the text to their lives. Additionally, the students are able to enhance their social skills by listening to their peers and taking turns providing answers. After the recitation, the teacher introduces what the centers will be for the day, and then the students disperse to their centers. After the winter break I've noticed the literacy center becoming more prominent and demanding. The students were given journals and each day they write in them. They either practice writing words from a word list the teacher has provided, or they respond to a prompt the teacher gave during the whole group discussion, such as "Write about one exciting thing that happened to you this morning." The students are encouraged to use inventive spelling to write as many sentences as possible. I find that the literacy center is the center that generates the most student discussions as well as the most frustrations. If the teacher has to unexpectedly cut her centers short, the literacy center is the first one to either be eliminated or simplified because of its time demand.

I find that the librarian in the school also does a great job of leading recitations with the class. Before reading a story, she announces, "After I read this book, I'm going to be asking you a few questions about it, so keep your ears open." The students are encouraged to raise their hands and answer her questions as well as bring in meaningful connections from their own lives.

I am looking forward to seeing these students develop in their literacy skills as the semester carries on. They have already come a long way from the beginning of the year. Even though they still have a long way to go when it comes to their confidence in literacy, they definitely have the motivation and desire to learn.

Sarah's Entry 1/22

I am currently placed in a Kindergarten classroom in Lansing.  The students have been working hard at really understanding letter identification and letter sounds.  The students read a lot of short stories in the classroom and each week have a short booklet to take home and read about a different letter.  When not working in literacy centers the children are primarily learning literacy through worksheets and journals.  After doing the readings for this week I have discovered that the talking in my classroom are more guided by the teacher rather than response-centered talk.  The teacher uses more recitation talk where students are expected to restate facts and information about stories that are read to them.  I feel that the students in my classroom could benefit from response-centered talk focuses more on discovery and constructing a new understanding of literature.  Many students in my classroom have a good grasp on the literacy skills they are being taught but those who are struggling seem to keep falling further and further behind.  These students may be having difficult because they cannot make meaningful connections to their prior knowledge or even to current concepts they are learning.  Response-centered talk may help students to explore these connections and construct a deeper understanding of the literacy skills and concepts they are being taught.  

I feel that there are a few students in my classroom who could really benefit from some extra help in literature.  In particular, these students need help learning all their letter names and sounds.  It would be best if they could have some one-on-one help or even small group help during literacy centers because without knowing these basic skills these students are getting lost as the class moves onto new skills like spelling, using punctuation, and writing sentences.  These students also seem to have low self-confidence when it comes to literacy, but maybe with the extra help and some positive reinforcement one could change their attitudes about literacy.  In the future I hope to be given the chance to work with those students who are struggling with literacy and try and help them to become successful in learning basic literacy skills and concepts.

Emily's Entry 1/22: Literacy in my Placement

Okay, let’s get this blog started!

I am in a second grade classroom, and after doing the readings this week I am a little concerned about the lack of literacy taking place in my field placement. At previous local schools that I have been to, they have devoted three hours of their school day to literacy and where I am there is maybe an hour each day spent on literacy activities. I am not implying that this is the case in all classrooms at the school but it is generally what I have noticed. Typically what I see for literacy is students silently reading while my CT and myself work with reading groups. We will pull a group of 4 or 5 students based on reading level and read together as a group. I will ask them comprehension questions before, during and after reading but in all it probably takes 10-15 minutes per group. While we are working with the groups, the rest of the students are usually off task and not reading silently but talking with their peers instead. I have not seen anything like the readings describe such as response-centered talk because they do not work in groups or read a story as a class and have a discussion. I can’t say that they do not do this at all, but I have not seen it. The student’s desks are arranged in groups and yet they do not work in groups at all! The classroom setup would be great for literature circles and small groups discussions where students can have a specific role to contribute. The readings offer great suggestions for all students to feel included in the group by each of them having a responsibility such as facilitator or evaluator.

One aspect of literacy that I have been in charge of the past few weeks is conducting a read aloud with the class. Towards the end of the day, I read a chapter book for 15-30 minutes to the class. They love it! We just started a new book today called Double Fudge by Judy Blume. Although there are no pictures, I still hold the book so the students can see the text. The few students in the front actually do follow along with where I am. This may be a stretch, but I kind of view this as scaffolding in a way. Maybe I am more modeling for them by showing how to hold the book and set an appropriate pace to read. I also will stop occasionally and ask questions to make the students predict what will happen or to see if they understood the events that just occurred.

I hope to see more literacy in the future and to make more connections with what we are talking about in class!