Schemas- October 28th

One of the readings this week by Gregory and Cahill was really easy for me to relate to. When I first started reading this article, I really didn't understand what schemas were and I didn't know how a kindergartner could possibly understand it either. However, as I read and reached the visualization paragraph I realized that my third grade English teacher used the same exercises with my class. We were required every morning when we came into class to jot down a poem into our journal and then draw a picture to go with the poem. I firmly believe that lesson made me appreciate and read poetry so much easier from then on. Gregory and Cahill discuss the children reading and writing poems for half a page and drawing what they thought it meant on the second half of the page. This was one of my favorite lessons my teacher did with me in school, and a lesson I definitely want to incorporate into my teaching one day. However, on the subject of schemas, how does the teacher explain schemas to kindergartners along with the three categories so it doesn't confuse them? Does the teacher use simpler terms or create easy words that mean the same thing as connecter, visualization, and constructing meaning?

Sources:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/12807180162980024/
Gregory. Cahill. Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers. 
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/221169031670093844/

Fluency October 21st

Chapter Four of Classrooms That Work was extremely helpful because I have never really understood what fluency means. I had a general idea, but by forcing me to decipher the paragraph at the beginning of the chapter I now under the frustration of students who struggle with fluency. Being a theatre geek, I loved the idea of choosing simple or easy plays for the students to act out such as Robin Hood, this is a great way to teach teamwork as well as mixing students with higher levels of frequency with students who are struggling. I also loved the idea of echo reading since this is a very active and hands on approach to teaching. This encourages children to explore different methods of learning while also providing them with the opportunity to hear themselves as they read and speak. However, in respect to all of the children reading one universal book that is easy, how does the teacher go about picking a book that interests instead of frustrates every child? Also, how do you make sure the book isn't so easy it bores some students into not paying attention?

Here's a fun game to play in the classroom!:
Links:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/100557004152564858/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/204210164325290779/

Making Words: October 7th

I loved the idea of giving children letters and then standing at the front of the classroom and asking them to hold up the letters to make words such as "CAT". I could see this working very well in a first grade classroom or with a struggling second grade reader. This teaching method of making words encourages children to become active and it provides a hands on activity that allows them to interact within the classroom. Also, allowing the whole classroom to participate at once encourages children to interact with each other. The children who may excel at reading and inventing words could help the students who struggle to spell simple words. The great thing about this lesson is that you can make it as simplistic or challenging as you want, depending on the development of your classroom's reading skills. It is also possible to break off into groups based on the reading and spelling level of the children in the classroom. However, is there a way to encourage inventing words while also encouraging students to use practical means to come up with the spelling of words?

Sources:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/104286547593635430/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/25543922857160816/

Below is a video of a teacher using this lesson with her classroom:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nxljktf-Hw

Phonics and Spelling 101 September 30th

In Chapter 5 of Classrooms That Work, the focus lies on helping children learn to read words that they may know spoken, but not know in print. By using phonics and spelling games, the students can gain a better understanding on how to use familiar words and spelling techniques to figure out how to spell or say a word. When I was in third grade, I competed in the school wide spelling bee. I remember that it came to the words ceiling and aversion, both words which I had heard but had never seen spelled before. For ceiling, I remembered my previous knowledge of the rules "I before E except after C" and "-ing" so I was able to put together the whole word and make it to the spelling finals. My final word was aversion which I had heard spoken, but never saw written. I knew how to spell version from different video and Gameboy games I played with my brother, but I didn't know if it began with an -a or an -o. I thought about spelling it both ways, but (like with the student in the Chapter 5 example trying to pronounce "bow" both ways") I decided to stick with the letter -a and I won the Spelling Bee! I used previous knowledge and sounding out the words in order to develop the correct spelling of a word that I had never seen in print. I also liked the Guess the Covered Words game in Chapter 5, however, my question would be as to how you would keep it educated and less of a competition where students were just shouting out the first words that came to their mind in order to win and be the fastest? I also wondered how you would single out those students who continued to struggle with the game from the students who seemed to understand it right away?

Sources:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/145944844148119352/
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/145944844148119337/
Cunningham, Patrica M. Classrooms That Work.

Blog Post for September 23rd: Learning to Read with What You Already Know

The article this week that struck me the most was the article "Letting Go of Letter of the Week". I remember when I was in kindergarten, and I struggled with our "letter of the week" workbooks. My mother read to me outside of class and let me look at pictures which I loved, but I found looking at a workbook dedicated to the letter "P" boring, time consuming, and not very helpful. Reading how Bell and Jarvis understood that some kids learn differently was a breath of fresh air. I admired their abstract way of teaching such as when they used their students names and linked them to letters of the alphabet. Not only is that an excellent way to teach words, but also a way to interact their students with each other. The only question I had is, what if students had the same beginning letters of their name? Or what if no students in her class started with the letter "Q"? How would she handle that?

I also admired Bell and Jarvis' approach to teaching children how to write. My third grade teacher Mrs. Plummer took a similar approach allowing us to write down poems she wrote on the board any way we wanted, whether through drawing out what we thought the poem meant, writing it word for word, or basically interpreting the poem however we thought we would remember the poem best. Donna taught her students that scribbling, doodling, writing, and drawing are all perfectly acceptable ways to write in their journals. My question to her would be, how do you know if your students were really challenging themselves? Or how would you grade fairly with the students who were really trying to write?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLJe7IQtoeM  - here is a really interesting video a learning disability specialist made on teaching her students to put words together!

Bell and Jarvis. "Letting Go of Letter of the Week".
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/145944844148070279/

For me, learning to read and write wasn't something I learned from one of those big flimsy workbooks they hand out in kindergarten. I always had trouble losing those, or I never finished them because I found them boring or tedious. I would definitely say my preschool teacher and my third grade teacher had the biggest impact on how I read and write today. Instead of doing activities on paper or constantly sounding out words in class, they chose abstract approaches that were fun and didn't feel like learning at all. In Chapter 3 of Classrooms That Work, the book stresses to provide a variety of things to write with or on. In my preschool class, I remember one day a teacher brought in shaving cream, which I had thought was whipped cream at the time- I quickly discovered it WASN'T after eating some. She put us at a table, each child getting his or her own section and squirted two mounds of shaving cream in front of each student. Then she told us to smear the shaving cream across the table- what preschooler wouldn't want to make a mess? At first she let us draw animals and flowers and whatever we wanted. Then she asked us to think of stories for these characters and try to write one word from our story. To this day, this is still one of my favorite learning activities I've ever participated in.

My third grade teacher was sly when it came to reading, and I think she managed to read to us three times a day every day for the entire year. That did NOT count us coming in first thing in the morning, reading whatever poem was on the board, copying the poem down, and drawing a picture. I loved this activity. My teacher was wonderful about always giving positive feedback about my drawings, and how creative they were, and how they related to the poem. She also managed to take out a section of the day in which she read us a book (usually Wayside School books since our class was obsessed with every single book of that series). Instead of making us sit and listen, she allowed us to quietly draw whatever came to our minds while we listened. I truly believe third grade was the year I became truly obsessed with reading and I learned so much about making connections between imagery and reading.





Sources:
http://www.pinterest.com/staceymichelle6/books/
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/be/66/d2/be66d215e71a0228785391a28c04dec3.jpg
Cunnigham, Patricia M. Classrooms That Work: They Can All Read and Write.

Blog Post for Monday September 9th

The two chapters we read this past week from Cunningham and Allington's text Classrooms That Work incorporating the importance of reading and writing into all aspects of teaching. Chapter One surprised me because I didn't realize that many schools were favoring reading over social studies and science, two subjects I had always found to be extremely stressed when I was younger. While I personally have never excelled highly in science, I cannot imagine where a child would be without  learning about the environment or doing scientific experiments. To combine reading and writing with other subjects, such as science, students are learning to combine subjects to think more critically and explain their thoughts on the scientific method or geography. 

I also really liked the idea in Chapter Two to have a few crates of books per classroom and to switch them out every five weeks or so. All of the students have the chance to interact with their friends and look forward to the next few crates of books that will come in. It is important to make sure that books of all types from nonfiction to fiction be provided so that each child can find a book to read and be excited about. Would the teachers all meet together before the school year begins and discuss which books would be in the crates or would they randomly select books of all subjects for the children to read?