Random Thoughts

Last week at lunch I overheard some of my students talking during lunch.  They were in the classroom to take advantage of the time to complete work and get help when they need it.  Of course, as middle schoolers, they were talking the whole time and may have only gotten about two words written.  Instead, they were talking about many things that children these ages talk about – facebook and who like who.  I laughed to myself as I heard the students go on and on about who posted a picture of who and how they were tagged.  I was thinking that these students seemed too young to have a facebook page and the statement, “I was tagged as Snow White, but I think I look more like Tinkerbell, “ only confirmed this.

Another thing that was brought up during this lunch conversation was the going rate to pay someone to do your homework.  Apparently, for $20 you can get your homework done for you.  This is definitely something that teachers need to be aware of.

Later on during the day, one student came up to me and said, “I stayed up until 1 in the morning last night.”  I asked him why and he told me it was because he was texting.  I was not too surprised, yet surprised at the same time.  As I learned in the Spring, children in this age group need to have more sleep because they are growing at such a rapid rate.  The increase in technology, and accessibility by children this age, may be interfering with students being able to get enough sleep that will keep them functioning in school.  Yet another thing that teachers need to be aware of.

After class that day, my dyad teacher began talking about random factors that are affect the teacher’s ability to ensure that all students succeed – most of which are out of the teacher’s control.  This conversation evolved from important changes in a child’s home life, like moving in with grandparents from their parents’ house because their parents couldn’t handle taking care of them anymore, to the child suffering the loss of a loved one, especially a parent.  In thinking about it, I started to wonder about how I would handle this and being a caring teacher that the students can come to for support.  Then, the kicker, something that had never crossed my mind – the loss of a student.  How will I deal with this as a teacher?  As much as I hope that I will never experience this, I know that is a real possibility and should prepare myself accordingly (as much as that is humanly possible).

Random classroom ideas:

I was at a craft bazar earlier in the quarter and saw that some people had created magnets out of scrabble pieces.  I really liked this idea, especially for the classroom, so people could play with letters and create words.  At the time I was not willing to pay $2 per magnet, but thought I could easily make these magnets myself.  Instead, I headed to a thrift shop and bought 2 scrabble games for $2, giving me almost 200 letters, then went to a craft store to buy a 10 foot long roll of magnets for $3.  With a little hot glue and these materials, I should have almost 200 magnets for about $5 and a couple hours of work.  I’m excited about getting everything made.

School and Curriculum Concerns

This quarter has been interesting.  The content and the lessons have been great, but we experienced something that has a tremendous impact on students’ learning – school schedule conflicts.  It seems like it is a rare occurrence when students have a full week of school without interruptions, like assemblies, early release, or modified schedules.  This has troubled me because it seems to affect their learning and their learning potential.  With all of the interruptions, how can teachers fulfill the requirements of the curriculum?  As it is, teachers are working against the clock to teach all of the material that the district is mandating. Then, and most importantly, the students are forgetting information and do not have the adequate exposure to material before it’s being tested on, so they are end up either not succeeding to their full potential, or failing all together.  In a day when teachers are evaluated upon test scores and achievement, schools need to consider the impact of scheduling assemblies and the like.  Can a teacher adequately teach or can the student learn in just 35 minutes?  I would think not.

Another problem that I’ve had is the lack of textbooks or text material supplied to students for the units they are learning.  Students have been relying on worksheets and teacher instruction to learn, but what about the students that need to read information in order to process it?  What about the students that miss a day of instruction?  They simply aren’t able to access the lesson.  Sure, the students can go online and watch a video tutorial, but does that replace the textbook?  Is the district overlooking this need when supplying curriculum material?  When I was a student, I always knew where I could find help, information, or explanations, and that was in my textbook.

I’ve had mixed feelings about the integration of students with special needs in the general classroom.  Yes, I see the benefits of doing this, but I am now seeing many drawbacks.  Especially in my dyad placement, we have many students that need special accommodations, but as a teacher with only a 45 or 50 minute class period, can you accommodate all of these students while also fulfilling the needs of the rest of the class?  There are certain students that need one-on-one teaching, but I don’t see that they will necessarily be receiving this when there is only 1 teacher.  I understand that the students are also supposed to be receiving assistance from the special ed teacher, but there’s another resources that the students are not receiving.  If the students continue on to this path, their grade level will increase, but their learning level may not be increasing at the same rate, and they may not be able to fill the difference gap.  Then, there’s the case of MSP, because the students are tested at actual grade level, not developmental grade level.  This is unfortunate for those students academically, but also personally, since their confidence may be squashed because they are constantly receiving failing grades or test scores.

There is one student in particular that worries me.  He is a very good kid that tries hard in math, and works much better when I work with him one-on-one.  By the end of these lessons, he leaves with confidence and a smile on his face.  On the last unit test, he received a failing grade, but I was so proud of him for getting as many correct as he did.  He was so close to getting half of his test correct, something that he was not doing before.  Unfortunately, this is not seen by administration.  Then, when the student is in the general classroom, he seems more disengaged.  So, he really needs the individualized attention in order to succeed, but it is rarely provided.  This story will stick with me as I become a teacher and thinking about how I can differentiate instruction and activities, and manage my time, so I can work with the students that need this individualized help and instruction.

Literacy Blog 5

I’m a bit late with this posting, but better late than never.

Part of the week’s readings dealt with writing conferences with students.  One of the suggestions that Routman makes in Writing Essentials was about whole class conferences.  My automatic reaction to this reading was mixed.  While I can see the benefit of conducting whole class writing conferences, I automatically was hesitant because we have read so many articles about keeping grades and student progress anonymous.  Would conducting these kinds of conferences be complying with that idea?  I have a hard time thinking so. 

Personally, I have felt pressure and shame with my own writing after hearing others’ writing, but that was in high school more than elementary school.  One of my peers, in particular, was a very good writer and after hearing her read her writing, or while peer editing her work, I felt that my work was not as good and could never measure up.  Then, I would wonder if my writing ability and work was worse than my peers overall.  In this case, I pushed myself to be a better writer, but still felt anxiety with writing, of which I still hold today.  I still compare my writing with that student, years later, thinking if it would ever sound as good as hers.

Considering this experience, would having whole class or peer conferences cause students anxiety with writing, a concept that we’ve been learning how to overcome through our teaching practices?  On the opposite side, will implementing these forms of conferences push students to work harder?  It seems like a fine balance for the teacher and will take a lot of preparation by the teacher in building a safe community within the classroom (as we’ve been learning about for the past two quarters).

Another reading, in Fox’s Word Identification Strategies, talks about working on literacy with ELL students.  This is another subject that I’ve been thinking a lot about because it is one that I know I will face in a near future.  I know that it will be up to the teacher to provide many ELL students with the opportunity to learn English, since many of them will only have English exposure at school (it seems like many students speak their native language with their families when they are at home).  Phonemic awareness is key to helping students because their pronunciation of words may be different, therefore making it hard to sound out words.

Many languages, especially the romantic languages, have similar words between languages and with English.  For example, the months in French are very similar to the months in English, so building off the commonalities will help students’ progress.  In regards to reading, finding books that can relate to students’ lives or incorporate both languages may help the student engage in the book and learn a little bit more.  Though I had mix reviews of Gary Soto’s My Little Car during my book review, the book was good at incorporating Spanish words into the mainly English book.

This class has made me think of literacy in a whole different way.  I’ve mainly been exposed to older students, so I had not really thought about how I would teach the basic literacy skills, though I will most likely find myself needing to teach these skills to students of higher grades.  Even if I end up teaching middle school math, I will run across literacy issues when it comes to reading or writing story problems, no matter whether the student is in the general population, a student with an IEP or 504, or an ELL student.

Math IS Everywhere!

Math has always been a big part of my life, but looking back on it, it was probably only because I excelled in it.  In the working world, most of my jobs involved math, especially as an accountant.  It was during my last job that I really noticed just how much basic math and algebra I was using on a daily basis.

One use of algebra sticks out in my mind the most.  At the time I needed to find the base cost of a contract, before fee was applied, and was given the fee percentage and the net contract amount.  After working on it on paper, I came up with the equation:

(gross contract amount) x (fee) = (final contract amount)

1.065X = 1,523,000

*I divided both sides by 1.065

X = 1,430,047 where X is the cost before fee

Fee = 6.5%

Final contract amount = 1,523,000

I use this knowledge in many ways for things in my post-accountant life.  For example, if there is an item that is $15 after tax, I can find the cost before tax.

It was just last week when my mom and I had a conversation about how some people’s lack of math knowledge makes them less efficient in many everyday tasks.  This conversation stemmed from a trip to a store, where the computers were down and they had to figure out prices without the help of their computer.  I had heard the cashier tell the customer in front of me that the tax rate was 9.9%.  In an effort to help out the somewhat stressed looking cashier, I quickly found out the total of my purchase by taking my total purchase and multiplying it by 1.099, giving me the grand total for the sale (I did use the help of a calculator function on my phone). Here is my equation:

5.98 (I did this math in my head because I had two items, one was $1.98 and the other was $4.00)

5.98 x 1.099 = 6.57202

Though I thought I was helping out, the cashier still decided to find the total on his own.  He pulled out a calculator and did the following:

1 + 4.98 = 5.98

5.98 x 9.9 % (used the percentage button) = 0.59202 (wrote down 0.59)

1 + 4.98 + 0.59 = 6.57

Sure, he got to the same answer as I did, but it pained me to see all of the unnecessary steps that he had to take to get to the final answer.  The most surprising point was that he had to add the two items up to get 5.98.  This is a prime example of why I want to become a math teacher.

There are so many other ways in which math is present in everyday life.  I know that I use math when following a recipe, but changing the serving size.  I also use math to figure out how many miles per gallon I am getting on a tank of gas by taking the total number of miles driven on that tank and dividing it by the number of gallons it took to fill up.  Math is also needed to figure out how to give change to a customer, and also in counting it back (which is an increasingly foreign concept).

Throughout my time in the teaching program, knowing that my end goal is to become a middle school math teacher, I have been thinking up ways to engage students and make them realize that math is relevant and will actually be used in their life.  It seems like so many students lose interest in school because they don’t believe they will need to use it after they have completed school. This is simply not true, so I would like to have students tie in math to their world.  One way I have thought about doing this, is to have students find articles on math, think of ways that they use it in everyday, then have class discussion based upon the students’ findings bi-monthly.

My mind was running on overdrive, as I was driving, thinking about all of the school stuff that I had to compete, but specifically about how I use math in everyday situation.  For a split second, my mind followed a song on the radio and I happed to hear the following lyrics from a new song by Rihanna and Drake, called “What’s My Name”:

The square root of 69 is 8 somethin’, right?

‘Cause I’ve been tryin’ to work it out, oh

As soon as I heard these lyrics I started laughing, just realizing just how much that math IS all around us.

Blog 6 - Pfew!

The other week when we had conferences, my dyad teacher told me about one of our students that told his parents that he wanted to drop out of school because it was too hard for him.  He is a 6^th grader.  I was shocked to find out about his dislike for and struggles in school because he never asks questions, for help, and seems to do fairly well on homework and assessments.  This issue makes me think of ways to reach out to all students, to make them succeed, but how can you realistically do this with 150+ students that you see each day?  When they don’t ask for help or raise their concerns with you?  As I’m noticing, especially in middle school, this is idealistic and there are not enough hours in the day to help 150 students with every question they may have.  How do we get a system into place to help all students succeed?  Time will help me discover potential solutions, but until then I feel like my only option is to wing it and just do what I can.

In a recent week, we had a substitute teacher in our dyad placement that was beyond terrible at his job.  The substitute teacher that didn’t introduce himself, didn’t want to be there, had students pass out the unit tests, and didn’t model anything.  He was essentially a babysitter, but not a good one.  During the last period of the day, the teacher was packed up and walked out the door behind the students, even though there still were two students in the classroom.  A conflict between these students had risen and we did not have the substitute there to handle it.  Instead, I had to step in and help resolve this situation to the best of my abilities, but wasn’t confident in how to handle the specific issue.  Instead of disciplining the students at that moment, because I didn’t know the school’s protocol, I took note of the issue and told the students that I would tell the regular teacher about it in the morning and she would help me handle it.  The next morning the teacher was furious with the sub because of his lack of leadership (and essentially doing his job) and she helped me resolve the conflict in the appropriate manner.  This experience made me realize how possessive I will be with “my” classes and how I will have a hard time trusting the substitute doing a good job in teaching my class as per the plan.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I will be doing once I graduate with my Teaching Certificate.  I know that it’s over six months in the future, but I can’t help to think about what my next step will be.  Will I be able to find a job in Washington?  I’ve been preparing myself for not finding a job in Washington, so I’m trying to figure out some backup plans.  First, I thought about teaching abroad, but after doing some research I discovered that most of the programs in the countries that I would want to live and teach require at least two years of experience.  Since discovering that, I have kind of brushed that idea aside.  My next idea was joining Teach for America after becoming inspired by a TV show that featured TFA teachers.  I’ve been doing some research since then and think the opportunity would be wonderful, but still have plenty of questions about it.  What would I do if I could not live where they wanted to send me?  Would I be able to be away from home for the two year commitment that is required from me?  I took some of my research to YouTube, but most of those videos were created from TFA, so I needed to see some unbiased opinions.  After seeing these “I’m changing the world and love it” type of videos, I ran across some videos from Learning Matters that follows 7 Teach For America teachers in New Orleans:

This video is made by many people that support education, so is this the true view of TFA or is it an extreme example?  Would I have a similar experience or would I have the “I changed the world” feeling like the other videos? For example, this video is a promotional video by TFA:

Then, if figuring this out wasn’t hard enough, my parents offered to let me live in their house in Eastern Washington if I couldn’t get a job in Western Washington and I could work over there.  This just opens up another slew of questions that I have about my future.  Sheesh!  Good thing I have at least 7 months to figure this all out!

This week I went to A Christmas Story preview and during the preview one of the musical producers was talking about Jean Shepherd.  Stories said that he would just go on the radio and make up these fictional stories as he thought of them.  As he talked about it, I thought that this idea may be a good one to use in the classroom, in a creative writing unit.  There are many websites that provide audio clips of Jean Shepperd’s broadcasts, so I could find some examples and play them for the class (like the one below).  Playing these broadcasts of the radio shows would give students an example of made up stories that were narrated in first person.  Afterwards, the students will have the opportunity to create a similar narrative fictional story.  I think this would be beneficial and fun for kids, especially because they enjoyed the two truths and a fib.
Jean Shepherd Toy Bedbugs

Blog 5

This week I read on in Bird by Bird from where I left off a couple of weeks ago.  Though it wasn’t assigned, I was glad that I read those extra 50 pages because there were some ideas that were presented that I would use in an elementary classroom.  The main area of interest for me was the chapter on building characters.  On page 45 Lamott says that the author needs to know everything about the character and lists some questions that the author needs to have answered when considering the character.  This idea can easily transfer to the classroom, having the students fill out a worksheet that asks questions about their character, so we can get to know them.  Taking this idea on step further, I thought I could use the idea of getting to know your character in a setting where the students have to think through the eyes of a Native American.  Though students will be researching people of certain tribes throughout the US, having them give specific traits to the person may engage them in the activity, resulting in them enjoying and learning more during the lesson.

There was one thing that Lammott said in the week’s reading that I thought contradicted what we have learned in Routman’s reading.  On page 108, Lammott says, “Maybe what you care most passionately about are fasting and high colonics – cappuccino enemas, say.  This is fine,, but we do not want to write about them, “ which tells me that she wants writers to write about what she thinks is appropriate.  This idea is completely different than Routman’s encouragement to let students free write, giving them no limits on their writing because it will get them to write more.  I know that this is an extreme example, but are there times when it’s important to influence students’ writing during free write?  I would think not.

Word Identification Strategies made me think, but in a way where I knew I was over thinking things, specifically, on page 94, when Fox mentioned the word find.  I understand that the onset is f and the rime is ind, but I thought that when students later notice the /ind/ when trying to read a different word, like independent, they will be making a different sounds.  Will the students know the different because, by the time the reach the level of learning these more difficult words, they will be more exposed to words like that or recognize the word?  Is this something that we will be learning more about, as we learn the progression of word identification strategies through the later grades?

I also started wondering if the current trend of parents spelling their children’s names in odd ways could have an impact on the way that students learn word identification strategies.  It seems like students will be learning the names of their peers early on, but may have a hard time using strategies when seeing oddly spelled names like Haydyn or Mikaylyah (just made up names – it seems like a lot of people are using ys in names a lot lately).  Could this be a problem for children when they try to figure out names while they are reading?

Blog, Week 4

This week has been an interesting week, between the classes with student interaction (literacy and math) and in our dyad placement where it was conference week.

Tuesday was full of interesting events, from meeting with our Kindergarten buddy to interviewing first and fifth graders about math.  Our kindergarten buddy literacy session had seemed to go much more smoothly than it had in the past, since we used one of our buddy’s favorite things to approach our literacy activity – Spongebob.  After reading him part of a Spongebob book, we asked him to write in a booklet that we created for him, filling in the blanks “Spongebob is…” and “Patrick is…”  When he thought of a word, we had him stretch the word and write down the sounds that he heard.  He was very open to this approach and worked well stretching out his words, and would write down the sounds that he heard.  We didn’t correct him too much, even when he wanted to write “Spongebob is a cleaning utinsle” as long as he stretched his words and wrote the letters he heard.  Our objective of having him stretch out his words and come up with beginning sounds was successful.

Then, we were on to our math interviews with first and fifth graders.  As soon as my partner and I walked into the first grade classroom we were drawn to a student that was saying, “oh my gosh!” and dropping his jaw as the number of adults in his classroom quickly grew.  Seeing him react this way made my partner and I want to work with him.  When we were told to find a student to work with, we rushed to his side before anyone else could choose him to work with.  Choosing him was an interesting choice, especially once we got into our interview.  At first, when we asked him an addition problem, then asked why he knew that, he said “because my brain knows the answer.”  Then, after asking another problem and getting an incorrect response, he said that his brain wasn’t working right.  After the third problem and receiving a correct response, the student proceeded to tell us that he knew the answer because there was a little guy living in his brain and when his brain wasn’t working correctly, the guy would fix it.  That was not the explanation we were expecting, but it sure was amusing!  The rest of the interview continued to be interesting, as the student talked more and more about video games that he like to play, but most of them were violent and he would say things like, “you want to shoot them in the spine with a sniper rifle, so it’ll be more painful.”  This kind of talk, especially for a first grader, was quite disturbing, but gave us insight to the kinds of things that our potential students will likely be exposed to in their early lives.

Our next interview was with a fifth grader that had mastered the concepts that we were asking him about.  Because these multiplication and division problems were so easy for him, he had a hard time articulating the reasons that he knew them.  I was quickly running out of questions to ask him, and he was becoming rather bored with them, so I had to think of new types of questions to ask him.  I used visual clues around the classroom, to see what they were working on, and then proceeded with new questions about inch to foot conversions and areas and perimeters of shapes.  I was finally able to think of some questions that would make the student think harder and had him explain the thought processes he was going through as he was trying to solve the problems.  Though the student said that he liked to come up with math problems to solve on his own, he seemed to give up quite quickly on the problems that challenged him.

During my dyad placement we had short days because it was conference week.  The conferences were an interesting experience, especially because they were all student lead.  Each student had created a portfolio with examples of their work and also set goals for themselves.  The students had practiced the steps of conducting their conference, but most students did not take it seriously.  This lack of preparation was shown during their conference when they would rush through the material and skip over parts.  When the student led part of the conference was over, we would step in and help them develop S.M.A.R.T. goals for themselves – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevent, Timely.  Many students struggled with this on their only, coming up with goals that did not fit these requirements.  After asking questions about their original goal (using their planner, for example), we mainly found that their overall goal was to get good grades.  We were able to take these new goals and turn them into S.M.A.R.T. goals and use their previous goals as stepping stones in order to reach their goals.

Meeting parents, and seeing their interaction with the students, was an interesting experience.  One example was of a parent that had talked about a student setting their goals now, so they could get into Julliard later on.  The way she said it made me questions whether this was a goal of the student or of the parent.  In further discussions, I learned that it was the student’s goal to go to this prestigious school and her mom was simply encouraging her towards her goal.  Later, there was a mom that kept on correcting her son’s spelling and telling him that he can do better than that.  I was appalled when parents would flat out say that their child was simply being lazy.  If I were that student, I would quickly become discouraged by my parents’ description of my and feel that I should live up to their “lazy” expectations and would then stop trying.  Though this was hard to see, it made me realize how important it is for the teacher to be encouraging in everything that the students do because they may not be getting that positive encouragement elsewhere.

Literacy Blog, Week 3

This week’s readings focused on writing in the classroom and it was hard for me to mentally switch gears from a reading focus.  I am fully aware that literacy has to do with both reading and writing, but I have had so many reading ideas floating in my head that I found it hard to think of the writing aspect of literacy.

I first read from Bird by Bird about writing from the adult writer’s aspect, though I know that most of her ideas will be applicable to younger students, though the phrasing will definitely be cleaned up.  While I was reading about Lamott’s experience as being a writer, and her suggestions for becoming a better writer, I was thinking of the capacity that writing has in my life.  I have to admit that I rarely write for pleasure because I don’t hold it as a high priority when I do have free time.  The only time that I do write for pleasure, for the past 10 years, has been while traveling.  It is only during that this time that I keep any sort of a journal (or now a blog) and that is even inconsistent.  My main thoughts in keeping a journal during this time is because I’m afraid that I will eventually forget some important things that I’ve experienced, and because I would like my friends and family at home to be able to feel like they are somewhat experiencing the same things that I am.  While journaling, since I am doing it for more personal reasons (taking into consideration the audience), I never find myself going back over the first draft and editing it for perfection, but I never feel the anxiety that Lamott expresses about first drafts and the way that others may perceive the writing.

Being able to take the ideas of writing and applying it to the classroom setting was laid out by Regie Routman in Writing Essentials.  Routman talks about the importance of writing and states that it can be successful when approached in the appropriate manner.  I noticed that Routman’s book has a copyright date of 2005 and I wonder how much of an impact that the strict state and district requirements have on her ideas of teaching.  I could not help to think that Routman’s ideas were good, but are they too idealistic?  Is it possible to approach reading in an individualized, personal way when it’s hard to find time to fit social studies and science into the curriculum?  It seems that now days teachers are dictated what they will teach and how long they will teach it, almost to the point where their whole day is scheduled for them.  These ideas, as well as many of the other ideas that we’ve learned about in the program, seem like they are ways to supplement the district mandated curriculum, but we don’t have time to supplement EVERY lesson with alternative activities and approaches.  I know that one of the ways to work around this is to integrate writing with other subjects, but then doesn’t that take away with what Routman is saying about writing for pleasure?

In reading Writing Essentials, I was thinking about ways to incorporate individual writing into the day.  There were a few ways that I thought of helping students with their writing: helping them outline and organize their thoughts, give them time to independently write (free writing), and showcase their work.  When it comes to helping students outline and organize their work, I was thinking about a worksheet that they could fill out before they started their writing (and it could be used for assigned/project based writing and for personal writing).  On a worksheet, students could write down their ideas, state their audience, topic, and fill out an outline.  This could help streamline students’ thoughts when it comes to writing that is not for pleasure/independent.  With this approach students can organize their thoughts, help get them on track, and hopefully ease some of their writing anxiety. 

In addition to helping students organize and outline their work, students would be given a short amount of time for free writing at the end of each day.  Routman states that students will be more engaged when they can choose what they write about, but then she gives ideas that are all personal stories (nonfiction).  I believe that many students would be interested in writing fictional pieces, so would it be ok to allow students to choose this genre of writing?  I would like students to either think of their own topic to write about or have one student think of a subject for the whole class to write about that day. 

Lastly, I would like students’ work to be showcased.  Many of the examples Routman gave were about showcasing them among teachers, but I would like them to also be showcased in the classroom.  In order to do so, each week one student could read one of the things they wrote about, and then the class could draw a picture to go with that story.  Doing so can help students take pride in their writing, have some fun will illustrating, and also go home with a memento of their work (the other students’ drawings).

Of course, these ideas can be consistently explored and executed when there is enough time in the school day to be able to do so.  It will take careful planning and scheduling to be able to fit these ideas into a typical school day.  It would be most helpful if I was able to integrate these ideas into other lessons/subject areas, but it seems like that would be hard to do in the way that Routman is suggesting.  It would be nice to not have all of the state and district curriculum requirements, but until that day, supplementing the curriculum in the most effective way will be the only option.  Or will it?

Literacy Blog 2

This week’s readings were very interesting and useful, especially after meeting our kindergarten buddies last week.  As I was reading through Word Identification Strategies I kept on thinking of my kindergarten buddy and thinking of approaches that may work for him.  Additionally, I was thinking how some of these strategies may work for older students with a lower than average reading/writing level.

The first chapter, an overview of word identification as a tiered like system, made me think of how children learn how to read and write.  Of course, most of this reflecting was based upon my own learning experience, but I don’t remember too much of it.  I can understand the tiers presented on page 5, figure 1-2, in that a student must have the fundament components of phonemic awareness in order to reach a fluency level of word understanding.  My main concerns, though, is when these levels aren’t reached by an age that is older than 2^nd grade, when the authors state that most of these levels have been (or should have been achieved).  What should we, as teachers of higher grades, do in order to not have our students separated from the rest of the class during language and literature study times, since tracking may not be the best option for students?

Phonemic awareness, as presented in chapter 2, intrigued me the most because this is something that my kindergarten buddy is struggling with the most.  The kindergarten class is on the letter M in their learning of letters, but my buddy is still struggling with the C sounds, thinking that C is present in most words that we had him sound.  Should we be offering assistance to this student in regards of phonetics or just assessing his abilities?  I do know, though, when I am writing things out around him that I plan on sounding out the words as I type them, so he may have extra exposure to the process.

Using pictures to introduce students to language is a very widely accepted practice.  Similarly, I believe that children have an introduction to language through logos.  Is it acceptable to use logos in the classroom as a teaching tool?  Where is the line between teaching and introducing advertising (that can separate a class based upon socioeconomic levels and also influence their influence in family purchases – especially in regards to food)?  I can see the benefit from bringing in familiar logos/words into the classroom, but can see that there could be ethical issues surrounding this practice.

In any case, this week’s readings made me think about two things: how to help young readers (specially our kindergarten and first grade buddies) and how to help older students that may continue to struggle with fundamental principles of language.  I am excited to get more feedback from my peers, experience in the classroom, and further readings that may help me in developing my thoughts and strategies.

Lastly, I attended the WAETAG conference this past weekend and one of the keynote speakers’ presentations was the use of Greek and Latin roots as a tool to teach language.  In his speech, he mentioned that teaching students 100 root words could give a student a 5000 word vocabulary.  Would introducing roots to young readers/students be appropriate?  For example, teaching the smaller, basic roots, like un-, dis-, pre- along with some sight words could extend their vocabulary and show the young learners a pattern within the language.  Or, would this concept be too advanced for primary aged students?  What are your opinions on this matter?  Like my other concerns, the age appropriateness of this concept is something that I am unsure of.

I look forward to another week with my kindergarten buddy, to evaluate him, and see how we can help him succeed with his literacy skills.

Literacy Blog 1

This week’s readings were very interesting and made me look at many aspects of literacy in different ways.  I kept on finding myself resort back to the mind frame that I had to have when I was in a Children’s Literature class last year, so you may notice many references to some of the discussions that we had in that class.

Council of Interracial Books for Children

While I was reading the article, I was torn between views that we have learned about in this program, the concepts of both respecting and celebrating diversity and also equality.  I still come back to some of the same questions that arose in my Children’s Lit class, though, especially when it comes to stereotypes in children’s literature.  I understand that it is the responsibility of teachers to look out for stereotypes in literature, but could some literature be viewed as stereotypical by the teacher, when it is not actually stereotypical?  One prime example of this is in books written by Gary Soto, a Hispanic American author that grew up in barrios of California.  Though he has credibility because of his background, his characters and storyline in both “Chato’s Party” and “My Little Car” show pictures that I, as a non-Hispanic community member, would view as stereotypical.  Could his books be based on the true culture of the community and are not actually stereotypical?  Who is to decide this?  Is it the same as the intended message being interpreted incorrectly by the end reader?

I would also like to bring up the point of stereotypical literature being used to address controversial issues that may be facing students.  Should literature be used to open the lines of communication about these topics?  Nancy Pearl, the author of “Book Crush” puts this into perspective when she says that the inclusion of stereotypical literature a difficult decision, but can be used as tools when the literature is well written and justified.

Emergent Literacy

This article was very informative, though it seems rather common sense.  The authors were able to make more connections between everyday activities and reading and writing than I had though of as being tools of literacy, like morning messages.  Thinking about every class activity makes me more aware of their importance and planning on ways that I can help my students build their literacy skills in every aspect of the classroom.  One of the main questions that popped up for me was about the age range that these concepts would be most effective.  Would some of these concepts only be good for children in primary grades, or should we be practicing similar activities in all grades, just alter them for the appropriate age range?  I can definitely see the benefits of the being incorporated in classrooms of all ages.

Another question that I had about this article stemmed from the idea of having writing centers placed in classrooms.  Specifically, Teale and Sulzby state that one of the benefits of writing centers is to have students share their work and receive a response from others.  This idea is a hard one for me to think about, since we have learned about the importance of not publicizing the abilities and skills of other students, in fear that they will be classified and criticized by their peers.  I can see how writing centers can help students improve and gives them access to further reading, but could it also be negative to the students that are not performing to the level of the rest of their class?

As I was reading this article, especially the beginning, I was thinking about how the authors and researchers in young child literacy view the “My Baby Reads” program that is frequently advertised on TV, either through commercials or infomercials.  I’ve always wondered about that program when the commercials pop up on TV.

Bringing the Ice Maiden to Life

I chose to read this article, since my dyad placement is in a middle school classroom.  Ever since we were assigned the read-aloud at the beginning of the quarter, I’ve been trying to think about how I would be able to incorporate a read-along in a 6^th grade math class.  After reading the article, I still have the same questions, though the example in the article was successful. 

The main problem/question that I have with this idea is purely logistical.  Currently, our math class curriculum is state mandated, where lessons are dictated for 163 out of the 180 school days.  Additionally, there is going to be time used for state testing.  Each lesson is planned for 70-90 minutes even though the school’s class periods are only 45 minutes long.  As it is, middle school math teachers have very little room to supplement their curriculum, so how feasible is it to include a 20+ minutes read-aloud session?  It seems that, at this point, read-alouds in this setting is more of an idea that teachers would implement in their dream worlds.

I was originally skeptical about the way that read-alouds would be perceived by middle school aged students, but the more I read the article and thought deeply about the students’ reactions, I realized that the only thing that is different between middle and elementary students is simply a year.  This could be a beneficial, informative tool to use, but also help students in this transitional period.  At that point in their lives, most students will feel comfortable and familiar with read-alouds, only adding to the benefit that they bring to students’ lessons.