Readings aboout writing

         Something that stood out to me in these readings was when it said "good writing doesn't result from any particular methodology" because it's something that we as future educators need to live by. A big part of teaching is being flexible, sometimes things work and sometimes they need improvement. We also have to realize that what worked with one student may not work with another, every child is different. I liked how the reading talked about the importance of the teaching writing with her students and sharing her writing. Kids need to see the teacher demonstrate something so they have an idea of how to do it on their own. I remember in a class that I cadet taught for the teacher had her students write "I am from" poems to talk about things that make up parts of who they are. The teacher made her own poem to give her students an idea of what she expected from them. Sometimes it's easier for kids to have a visual representation as an example then for it to be verbally explained.
         At my work the kindergarteners are expected to do their ABC's before they can draw or color during homework time. The older kids are expected to write 5 sentences and we then look over them. Multiple times I have had kindergarteners come up to me and ask me to help them write sentences instead of doing their ABC's. They see that the older kids are doing and they want to do it too. They love to experiment with words and sound things out to see if they can do it. And they are so proud once they do. Younger kids make a lot of mistakes so it's discouraging if we try to correct them all in one sitting. The reading talked about how correcting errors isn't teaching. It doesn't do the student any good unless you explain to them how they made the error and what they can do to fix it.

Every Mark on the Page

I thought this article was very interesting and I like how it brought up the point that parents often worry about their child's writing because they aren't comparing it with other children of the same age. Parents might think that their child is making too many spelling mistakes or not having good punctuation when in actuality they are right at the level they should be. I found it interesting that parents have a pretty good idea about how to help their children with reading but not with writing. The reading said that parents often took the fun out of writing by correcting all their mistakes and having them redo their work. And I do think that it's true that we usually notice the weaknesses in writing before we notice the strengths which isn't beneficial to the child. I remember when we were doing field work at University one of my classmates said that their kindergartener case study student was using commas, they weren't in the right place but still! Sharon told us to praise the student for it instead of telling them where the commas are supposed to go. Sometimes we have to let things go because if we tell the student all of their errors at once then they will be discouraged.
    At the elementary school I work at we do power half hour where the kids have to do homework for 30 minutes, if they don't have homework they can either write sentences or read a book. Whenever a student brings me up their paper and I see a handful of mistakes I usually just pick one for them to work on. If its spelling then I write down the correct way to spell a word and have them copy it 3 times. Then if it's an older student they will come back and I will take the paper and ask them how to spell the word just to see if copying it helped them any. We do need to take things slowly with children when they are learning how to write, like the reading said, writing is more than good handwriting and spelling. Writing is a form of communication.

Phonemic awarness

       We have been learning about how to record a running record and were told that is wasn't a very exciting thing to do. However, I was talking to a few of my classmates and we all loved and were excited to learn how to record a running record. We are aspiring to be future teachers so whenever we are learning things that we are going to directly use in our new future, we enjoy it. I know for a fact that I am going to use running records in my class in the future. I hadn't even heard of running records until we learned about them in this class but I am looking forward to conducting one on an actual student instead of practicing from a video.
       We have also been learning about phonemic awareness. A few weeks ago I was helping a kindergartener at work do her homework, she was given two different pictures and then had to tell if the pictures had the same middle sound. So there would be a picture of a bat and a picture of a cat and she would color in the picture because those words had the same middle sound. She was struggling with this assignment and would often guess if the answer was yes or no. Even when I sounded out C-A-T and B-A-T she would struggle. Finally when I wrote down the words and underlined the letter as I was sounding it out, she understood a lot better. It was just crazy to me because this stuff comes naturally to me now, sometimes it's hard to wrap your head around that these things have to be taught and they aren't just common knowledge. I love how fun teaching phonics can be, we can incorporate poetry, music and so many different games.
      I love to read younger children's writing and how they form words at that young of an age. They spell a lot of the words incorrectly but the way they spell them makes perfect sense. The English language is tricky that way, it doesn't always follow the rules which is why we can't rely on telling the kids to simply sound out the word. Phonemic awareness is so important because it directly correlates with spelling and reading success which makes a lot of sense. You won't be able to spell words or read fluently if you don't understand that words are made up of sounds.

Fountas and Pinnel

          My mom always tells me this story when I was pretty little, we were in the car and a Lays semi truck was driving next to us. The truck said Lays and had chips on it. I said "L-A-Y-S, L-A-Y-S" and my mom asked me what that spelled, I replied and said chips! This is just an example of how I depended too much on the picture for support. I knew the letters but I didn't take the time to actually figure out what the word said, I simply just guessed based on the picture. I have also seen a lot of kids that I work with do the same thing. I was reading with a first grader and she would stop mid-sentence and look at the picture to help her with the word she was stuck on. I steered her away from this strategy because pictures don't always match up with the words, this strategy is unreliable. The Fountas and Pinnel article talked about how students need to use strategies "on the run." No matter what they reading and where they are they can always rely on these strategies.
         I liked how the reading started off by stating that all kids have the capability to become literate, teachers just have to help kids get there. It should be our goal to prove that every kid is capable of reading. Students should be capable of reading for meaning. In my field work I'm in a 5/6th split class and whenever they are doing social studies they take turns reading aloud from the book. Once they read a paragraph or so Ms. Davis will stop them and ask a question about what had just been read. This ensure that they were paying attention and they understand what is being said in the text. She also asks questions that allows them to make inferences about the information.

Webcast

I found this podcast to be very beneficial because reading is one of the most important things taught in school.  Reading is so valuable to me and I am anxious to learn ways to help students become successful readers. I consider reading to be a privilege and I can’t wait to use the techniques taught in this podcast to help my future students.

One of the speakers talked a lot about the importance of self-correction and I think this is one of the most important things that I have learned about teaching reading. We have to provide students with strategies that allow them to solve problems on their own. If students get stuck on a word and we always just provide them with the words, this isn’t beneficial. Teaching them strategies to figure out words and problems on their own is the key to successful reading. It is our job to help them build a reading process system and teach them how to monitor their own reading and understanding. Learning how to read isn’t about memorizing certain words and how to pronounce them, this is setting your students up for failure.

In the podcast they also focused on the importance of knowing your students. How can you possibly help them if you don’t know what they need? Teachers have to pay attention and monitor their students so they are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to assess their work, progress and help them come up with short and long term goals. We need to know our students passions and interests to get them excited about learning. I know a special education teacher and she was having a lot of difficultly with one of her students. She knew that he loved a specific character on a show so she printed out a picture of that character and told her student that if he cooperated then he could keep the picture. She said he hadn’t seen him behave that well the whole year. This just shows the power behind knowing what your students are interested in, especially when it comes to books.

 We have to understand reading is a hard process. I always try to go back to the day where we read an article that was way over our heads, we never want our students to feel like that. Reading comes easily to me now and I would like to think of myself as a fast reader, however, I can’t assume that just because reading comes easy to me it is easy for everyone. Reading isn’t simply about knowing how to pronounce all the words on a page, it’s about meaning and comprehension. It’s a long and hard process and it is our responsibility to teach students no matter what level they are on when they enter our classroom.

All readers, Ch.5, Ch. 10

        In class last week we modeled strategies with Big books and I really enjoyed it. I think it's a great way to teach kids to remember the strategies and eventually be able to use them on their own. It's definitely a good way to make things fun but a learning experience at the same time. It was kind of like a game guessing what words were behind the tape and children always enjoy games. I will for sure use this in my future classroom.
       The reading talked about how we need both traditional read-aloud and interactive read-aloud in our classrooms. A traditional read-aloud is just for fun which kids always need in a busy school day. And interactive is for modeling a strategy and engaging the reader before, after and during the story. I think teaching kids that reading can be for fun and for learning purposes will be beneficial to them, we have to teach them to love to read. I also loved how the reading suggested that kids had their own book boxes or bags that were filled with books that were of the appropriate level. This will maximize the amount of reading the kids can do because they aren't wasting time choosing a book. And it will allow the teacher to keep track of what level each of her students are.
       All teachers need to realize that students come into the classroom at all different reading levels. Some children don't even get read to prior to schooling and some get read to every night. It all depends on how involved the parents were in teaching their children the basics before going to school. Whenever I am babysitting it always makes me happy to hear the kids ask to read a book before bed like mommy always does. They even often argue about what book they want to read, then they climb onto my lap and listen intently. I love it because books are wonderful and these kids know that prior to going to school. I was always read to at night and during the day too, I think it's a sign of great parenting.

"Beyond Sound it out" Ch. 4 Catching readers

         I often get the opportunity to work with children on their reading while I am at work. We have what's called power half our where they do thirty minutes of homework, reading or writing. Whenever I am reading with a student and they get stuck on a word my initial response is always "sound it out." After reading this chapter I was worried that I had been steering these children in the wrong direction because the reading said that isn't the best response. Sometimes words don't follow the phonetic rules so sounding the words out isn't always an option, this is true for words such as knight, said and know. I don't necessarily think that sounding words out is a bad strategy, however, it can't be the only one that children are taught. The English language would be a lot easier if all words followed the common phonetic rules, however, that's just not the case.
       This chapter talked about how kids sometimes relied too heavily on phonetic knowledge and I see this in a lot of kids that I work with. They look at a word and sound out the first few letters and they guess what the rest of the word is. Majority of the time the word that they guess isn't correct and it doesn't fit with the context of the sentence. I usually tell the child to go back and see if the word makes sense. I am also a big fan of telling beginner readers to read with their fingers. It does slow down the process but it helps them until they become stronger readers. I love that the book said that we don't want to get students through a certain book, we want to teach them skills that they can use on any book.
       I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I know the information is beneficial to not only my future teaching career but right now with the kids I work with. Reading is such an important skill to have and I want to be confident that I can successfully transform my students into really strong readers.

Catching readers Ch.1-3

           In class we were given an article to read and were asked to take notes in the margins about what we were reading. I read the article the first time and had no idea what I was reading about and there was nothing written in my margins. I read it a second time and still had no idea what the article was about. I started glancing around the room to see if my classmates had written in the margins or had a confused look on their faces. Finally our professor told us to stop reading and discuss the article with the people sitting around us. Man, was I relieved when they told me they had no idea what the article said either. Turns out we were purposely given an article that was way over our heads. In that moment I found out what it meant to be a struggling reader.
           Struggling readers don't always have the same experience that I had. They are constantly comparing themselves with their classmates and wondering why they can't read at the same level. They don't always get the satisfaction that I did when I found out that no one else understood the article either. I loved this exercise because I got a chance to put myself into a struggling readers shoes and know exactly how they feel on a daily basis. I did an exercise similar to this in a math class that I took, we had to learn base 7 instead of base 10. We had to relearn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide all over again in a different way. I think exercises like this are very important for teachers because we have been doing this tasks for year, they have become simple to us. We don't think twice about adding simple digits together or having to read a paragraph in our favorite book. Since these tasks are so simple to us sometimes we think they are simple for everyone and that is most definitely not the case.
          I really enjoyed reading about Vygotskiah's Zone of Proximal Development because I think it's a wonderful theory. I agree with him when he says students learn best when they are in their ZPD. Giving students assignments that are too easy for them aren't beneficial and neither are assignments that are way too challenging. Providing students with something in between is a great way for them to learn without being discouraged.
          

Allington readings Ch.2-3

       I have personally always loved to read and I was never opposed to doing it in the classroom, however, not all elementary aged students have this in common with me. I strongly believe that reading is for everyone; there are so many different genres, plotlines and levels of books that there is surely books out there that fit every child. We have to give students the opportunities, resources and chances to fall in love with reading. There are many ways that we can accomplish this goal that the reading talked about.
        Reading is such an important skill especially now that standardized tests are required in a lot of schools. Whenever I was in elementary school the teacher would pick out a book for the entire class to read and you had to read it regardless of whether you liked it or not. I don't see this in schools as much now, instead students have reading logs where they write down the books they have read along with the date, length of time they spent reading and a short summary. I think this is a great way to get children to love reading, giving them the opportunity to pick a book that they are interested in can be very powering to them. When I was younger we had DEAR day, (drop everything and read) where we brought in our sleeping bags, stuffed animals and as many books as we wanted. We spent the whole day sprawled out on the floor reading. It's something everyone looked forward and it's a great way for kids to get many hours of reading in.
       Another way to get students to love reading the article suggested was by leveling the books in your classroom so they know they are reading an appropriate book for their level. I liked how the article suggested the 3 finger rule, if you can find 3 words that you don't know in the text then a student should think about choosing something else. It's a good thing to suggest to students so they won't get frustrated with the reading and become discouraged. I also love the idea of reading magazines, when I was in elementary school we got to read Time for Kids. This magazine is wonderful, it's very informational with things that are happening around the world and it changes things up from what they are used to reading.