Lauren's Literacy Blog
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Class reading--August 2
I read chapter 11 in our book Classrooms that Work and found it very helpful in providing some instruction on differentiated instruction. Differentiated instruction is a very important concept that has to be present in almost all aspects of teaching. It involves knowing your students in order to provide activities and lessons that are tailored to their individual needs. I really liked the Garfield quiz that Monica passed out in class the other day because this is a great way to provide your students with differentiated instruction. After you know what your students interest are, you can better provide things for them that will help them learn to their full potential. One of the activities that I enjoyed reading about in the chapter were the literature circles. I used to really enjoy these when I was younger and I think they can be really helpful for students now, too. I think they can be useful to students who are more advanced because they can "teach" the rest of the group what they see that the rest of the students might not and then also for the lower students to hear what the rest of the group has to say. I think they are a great way to provide differentiated instruction and group work at the same time. Click here for TIPS
Real Life Inquiry Project
For my real life inquiry project I spent time reading with a little girl who is 5 and about to start Kindergarten. She knows her letter really well and can read some words but not many. I wanted to see how well she read a book that she had had and enjoyed for some time versus a book that I brought to her that she had never read before. In the first book we read she did very good because it was a book that she and her mother had read many times. She new exactly what each page said and if she didn't, she relied on the pictures to spark her memory. If I hadn't known that she had read this book many times, I would have thought she was reading at a very high level for her age. I brought her another book that was on the same level of reading difficulty and we read it together. She knew only a few words and she knew them from their similarities to words in the other book or by looking at the pictures. She also knew the sounds that letters made because they started with the same letter as her name or her mom's name. She would also correlate a certain letter with another word that started with that letter. This being said though, she could not "read" the second book near as well as she did the first that she had memorized. The way in which she read related to the article by Bell and Jarvis that states that children can learn to read by correlating what they know, like the letters in her first name and her mothers that she sees often, to things that they don't know and making sense out of them. The students in the article, "Letting go of 'letter of the week'" did this too with common things like McDonald's bags and the letter of the first name of the kids in their class. After seeing the little girl "read" so much of what we have learned in class came to light. She relied heavily on the pictures and the first letter of each word to try and sound out the rest of the word. She hasn't been in school yet though, so unless she has memorized the word, she doesn't read it really well. I think this shows the importance of first letter sounds and how much kids really do relate certain concepts that they know to new concepts. Like in the article, I will definitely be implementing a word wall with pictures on my wall if I teach young students. By providing them with this scaffolding you are providing them with independence and a better opportunity to learn which letters make which sounds. I think it's so important to remember things like this because it provides us with tool to help struggling readers. Also, in my time spent with the little girl I realized how, as we have talked about in class, so much of a child's reading is memorization at that age. I got to thinking on it after I left and I thought, maybe it isn't such a good idea to expose kids to the same book over and over. I thought it might limit the words that they know as well as prompt them to memorize, not actually learn to read. But after thinking on it a little longer I thought about how the little girl used her knowledge from the book she memorized and applied it to the brand new book I brought her. Although it may seem counterproductive, memorization is also a really good tool for young readers to learn. After my time spent reading with the little girl I have learned that there are many things as teachers we must consider when teaching a child to read. Memorization and letter correspondence are both very important tools to keep in mind.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Class Reading--July 31

Thursday, July 26, 2012
Class Reading--July 26
After reading the book chapter on Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders in Classrooms that work, I have really thought about some aspects of reading instruction that I would like to use in the future. The first thing I really liked was the concept of a "think-aloud." I think this works best with really young learners, but can also be used at aid older learners. I would like to teach 4th or 5th grade, and when you think of "think-aloud" or "read-aloud" you normally think of children that are younger. This being said, I do think that it can be beneficial for older students as well.Relating to what we had
learned earlier in the semester, allowing students to see what you think, read,
and write is a great way to encourage them to do the same. Another thing I
liked about the article is the concept of a KWL chart. I think these are great
for almost anything and can be applied to almost all subject matter. I was even
thinking about using this in a math lesson. I have always struggled with math
and I think this would fit in great with a lesson on any type of math. This
also aids in the process of comprehension when reading, which is so very
important.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Fluency Activity--Choral Reading
Choral Reading is one way to promote fluency through reading aloud in groups.
"Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. Because students are reading aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support."
One way we would like to implement this in the classroom is through short, daily choral reading. We would like to use choral reading throught the use of song lyrics. This activity would be done once a day before they leave school for the day. We would a six week grading period with a popular and appropirate song. Each child will be given a copy of the lyrics to read along with the class. On the first Friday of the six weeks the class will be split into five groups. Each group will be instructed to write their own song about a topic given by the teacher to the beat of the popular song that was used that week. After doing so, each of the following 5 weeks, one of the groups songs will be used as the daily fluency activity.
An example to start with might be a popular Justin Beiber song like the one below.
Baby, baby, baby, oh
Like baby, baby, baby, no
Like baby, baby, baby, oh
I thought you'd always be mine, mine
For you, I would have done whatever
And I just can't believe we're here together
And I wanna play it cool, but I'm losin' you
I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring
And I'm in pieces, baby fix me
And just shake me 'til you wake me from this bad dream
I'm goin' down, down, down, down
And I just can't believe my first love won't be around
Like baby, baby, baby, no
Like baby, baby, baby, oh
I thought you'd always be mine, mine
For you, I would have done whatever
And I just can't believe we're here together
And I wanna play it cool, but I'm losin' you
I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring
And I'm in pieces, baby fix me
And just shake me 'til you wake me from this bad dream
I'm goin' down, down, down, down
And I just can't believe my first love won't be around
Class Reading--July 24
After reading the article about one-minute fluency measures by Deeney, I have to agree that I don't think the one-minute measures are a teachers best option. This being said, I think time is of the essence in the classroom and it's sometimes hard to fit in more than that with each student. I think it can be done though. The article suggests:
- Increasing automaticity
- Decrease readability levels
- Read interesting texts
- Increase reading volume
- Increase expectations
- Reread books
- Engage parents and caregivers
These are all really good things to keep in mind when you want to increase both fluency AND endurance for reading. These ideas are all really important in helping students to become better readers. I think one of the most important ones would be reading interesting texts. When I was in middle school, we started reading books as a class that really turned me off from reading. Although they were probably really good books, I didn't always enjoy them. In elementary school the books we read that were really interesting and my teachers always had great activities to go along with them. One book I remember reading that I enjoyed was The Chocolate Touch. My teacher related this to all of the things we were doing in class like social studies and math. It was a fun way to be actually interested in the book we were reading. I think it's important to remember that even though students may be older, it is still vital to make things interesting and fun so that learning is more meaningful. I will be certified through 12th grade and although elementary activities aren't appropriate if I was to teach upper grades, I would like to still be able to make lessons fun and interesting.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Class Reading--July 19

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