Moving to Assessment

In the past couple of weeks I have been able to see C as both a writer and a reader.  As mentioned in my analysis of C’s writing, she has shown strengths in her interest and ability to write (both from the creative and conventions aspects).  As a reader C has demonstrated that she is at the instructional level for a 4^th grader.  Though she makes some mistakes in her reading, most of those mistakes insertions (adding either “a” or “the”) or substitutions and retains meaning in the text.  C has demonstrated that she is able to summarize the text, and usually points out main characters and major details in the retelling, in her personal reading, classroom assigned reading, and in the readings that I bring to our meetings.  In comprehension, though, C seems to struggle a little with some of the implicit or inferred questions even though she can summarize the passage and answer explicit questions with ease

Taking all of these factors into consideration, I believe that C would benefit from practice and lessons that revolved around reading comprehension.  Since C has expressed interest in reading and writing about animals and fantasy situations, using this as a basis of a lesson on comprehension would be ideal.  Finding a passage about any or all of these subjects will engage C in the lesson and the personal interest may help show her true potential to comprehend reading and ability to answer implicit questions.  As part of the lesson, C could be shown strategies of writing in the text (or making notes) to remember main point or questions that she had while reading.  If the lesson goes better than planned and C demonstrates the ability to answer implicit questions, slowly transitioning to passages that do not involve these subjects may show true improvement in these skills.

Analysis of Student Writing/Lesson Plan Rough Draft

Meaning

“Talking Dog” is a writing piece that was a result of a teacher prompt, though, in discussion, C has expressed interest in writing fantasy stories that include animals.  In the story, C incorporates her real life pets and puts them in a fantasy setting, in this case, where they talk to each other for a day.  Being able to engage these animals, which C is so fond of, makes here enjoy the writing process and take pride in her work, because of the personal interest that C has. 

Six Traits

Ideas & Content

Though C’s story about a talking dog does include her dog, which talks, the story tends to be focused more on the talking squirrel.  Since the title of the story is “Talking Dog,” I would believe that the story would focus on the talking dog.  Even during the planning process of the story, C includes more details that entail the squirrel as a main character, instead of the dog.  Instead, the squirrel’s dialogue is present in more of the story.  Then, at the end, C closes the story by saying, “I still remember the day animals talked.”  These lead me to believe that C has a hard time staying focused on the main idea and gets pulled into the details. 

Another example of this was when I first met C and was helping her brainstorm ideas on ways to make Juanita Elementary better.  She had said that adding an indoor swimming pool would make the students happier because students could exercise and a school team could form, similar to the team at the local junior high.  When talking more about making students happier, C seemed to focus on the detail of creating a school swimming team and seemed to leave the other ideas behind.

Organization

C includes a recognizable beginning and conclusion to her story, but both the beginning and the end of the story tend to cause some confusion to the reader.  The story beginning with C’s dog, Guy, waking her up in the middle of the night by saying that he has to “go” (to the bathroom, I presume).  Since this is the first time that the dog talked, and it takes place in the middle of the night, the reader is lead to believe that this story is about a dream, instead of believing that it was a real occurrence.  The last event of the story also takes place at the same time (in the middle of the night), but then it was suddenly the following day and the animals didn’t talk anymore.  Having both the beginning and the ending events of the talking animals occur in the middle of the night, the reader is still left to believe that this was a dream, but at the end of the story C says that was the day the animals talked (coincidently, she never mentioned the animals talking during day hours).

Voice

Knowing her audience, her teacher, and the purpose of the writing was in response to a teacher prompt, C does a good job at writing an engaging story because the purpose is of personal interest to her.  The narrative does come across as C’s perspective of how animals would interact if they were able to do so through talking.  In other points throughout the story C inserts her voice, or something the sounds typical of a fourth grader, by saying things like, “go figure.”

Word Choice

Few striking phrases are used in “Talking Dog”, but the one that stands out the most is when C says, “Guy was acting like he was in a Mexican cha cha dance.”  This descriptive phase gives the reader a clear understanding of the image that she is trying to convey.  There are many opportunities that C has to add more descriptive phrases that will paint a picture in the reader’s head if that were the focus of the writing.

Sentence Fluency

Each sentence that C uses is well thought out and each of them flow well with the use of transitional phrases.  Considering the topic of the story and the perspective of the author, the dialogue sounds natural between the dog and the squirrel.  Though completely unnatural, I could imagine that a dog would say, “hurry, hurry, hurry,” and repeating short words to convey what they want, just like I would imagine them saying things like “ball, ball, ball” or “Leash? Walk. Leash?  Walk.”   In addition to allowing the reader to hear the dialogue in their own head, C’s dialogue gives the reader to give good expressions if being read aloud.

Conventions

The rough draft of “Talking Dog” has some conventional problems, but she has also self-corrected some as she has gone along in her writing.  In the beginning, C did not capitalize her dog’s name and wrote “guy”, but then had the correction marks on the page (though it’s hard to tell if that was the correction of C or her teacher), but later on the name was capitalized.  Another convention problem that C seems to have is having the dialogue flow into the paragraphs, instead of separating them out into individual paragraphs that are indented (I’m not sure if that has been taught at C’s grade level).  Overall, though, C’s use of spelling, punctuation, and grammar is correct and does not distract from the readability of the story.  As stated before, it is hard to tell which corrections have been made by C herself or the teacher.

Ownership

Though this story was written based upon a teacher prompt, C has expressed interest in writing fantasy stories.  Equally, C mentions her love of her animals, including her dog Guy and a “pet” squirrel that she has at home.  These two things, in addition to the way that C introduced the piece of writing to me, makes me believe that she took a lot of pride in this piece of writing in particular.

In general, C has mentioned that writing is one of her favorite subject in school, along with math.  In further questions about her interests, C mentions that she enjoys writing fantasy, specifically something that could possibly happen.  If given her choice in starting a writing prompt, C would begin a story with, “One day on a cold day in January” and would substitute the weather and month depending on the time of year that the prompt would occur.

Spelling Development

In her writing sample, C does a good job at spelling, though misspells squirrel as squiral and lying as lieing.  The misspelling of these two words is understandable, since they are uncommon to a forth grader’s written language and lying, in particular, does not follow most of the –ing rules that would have been taught up to this grade level.

During the spelling inventory, C made only two errors within the first 17 words, and one had to do with using the incorrect tense of a word.  During this time of the spelling inventory, I only said the words and did not use them in the sentence.  Then, as I progressed through the word list, I started using the words in sentences, since they were words may be uncommon to fourth graders.  In this process I was having a hard time using the word, and the correct tense, in a sentence, which may have contributed to some of the misspellings.  Anyways, I would C needs help with syllable junctures or inflected endings, specifically at the early stage of syllables and affixes.

Conclusion

Based upon the finding in the six traits, I believe that C would benefit from working on focusing on a main idea and supporting it throughout the story.  Especially because C enjoys writing, and assuming that she will want to continue writing in her free time, C would benefit on focusing her ideas and supporting them.

Lesson Plan

Objective

To analyze the student’s main idea and support it by including details to support the main idea of the story “Talking Dog” and re-writing the existing sentences.

Standards –

GLE 1.1.1 – Applies more than one strategy for generating ideas and planning writing.

GLE 3.1.1. Analyzes ideas, selects a narrow topic, and elaborates using specific details and/or examples.

Material – Pencil, lined notebook paper, and worksheet (provided by teacher).

Instructional Strategies – I will be working with C in writing conference format with her rough draft of “Talking Dog.”

I will introduce a worksheet with C that will ask her to write out the main idea of the story and the three events that occurred that support the main idea.  After each event, C will write in how the event supports the main idea.  If C struggles with finding the events, or expressing how the events support the main idea, I will assist her by asking her leading questions in hopes that she will come to the conclusion on her own.

After this part of the worksheet is completed,  I will ask C if she can find a way that she can use the ideas that she has and turn them into sentences that support the main idea.  If she is unable to do so, I will ask her to write new sentences that will replace the existing sentences.

The last step would be to have C rewrite her draft by including the revisions that were made as a result of completing the worksheet and working with her.  In addition to seeing how she has progressed in her writing, it will also give me a better understanding of which conventions corrections were made by her and which ones were made by the teacher in the original rough draft.

Assessment

I will assess C’s new draft with her original rough draft to see if the ideas and events support the main idea.  Additionally, I will ask her questions, after reviewing the new draft, about her events and why they support her main idea, to make sure that the written words convey the ideas she had in her head.

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.

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.

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.