Looking inside classrooms

This week I am a discussion leader and read the article "Looking inside classrooms: Reflecting on the "how"as well as "what" in effective reading instruction by Taylor, Peterson, Pearson, and Rodriguez.  In this article they described a study they conducted about reading reforms.  Within the study they found that the most effective reading teachers were using more small-groups, used high levels of student engagement, and engaged students in higher leveled thinking.  Teacher need to be careful about their interaction styles.  In this study more teachers were just telling students great amount of information rather then coaching and letting children take responsibility for their own skills and strategies.  Using a more student-support way of teaching leads to a better understanding and greater reading achievement in the classroom.  It was found that whole group instruction was used more often than small-group reading instruction.  This type of teaching for reading showed that small-group instruction was found in the most effective schools for primary-reading.  When a child is just learning how to read they need more instruction catered just for them because the whole class is not struggling with the same skills.  Whole-group instruction could be a lesson for everyone in general but there needs to be a time when a teacher can talk to his or her students individually.  A great time for small-group reading instruction is during center time.  Everyone in the class is occupied with other educational activities while the teacher is helping a small group in reading instruction.

Leveling for Reading

In the Rog and Burton article, "Matching texts and readers: Leveling early reading materials for assessment and instruction," they talk about the "just-right" text level for readers.  I thought it was interesting that the correct level of text for children is material that 90-95% of the words can be read easily.  I thought that the level would be a little more challenging than this percentage but in the article it says that more difficult text is on a frustration level and not appropriate for reading instruction.  While reading this article, I also didn't realize how many different areas are considered in determining a child's reading level.  Several important factors to consider when deciding an appropriate reading level include the following: vocabulary, size and layout of print, predictability, illustration support, and complexity of concepts.  This article has great strategies for categorizing each of the ten different reading levels.  Being able to recognize a child's correct reading level is important to their confidence and growth as a reader.  A proper reading level is also essential for teacher to be able to give appropriate reading instruction to his or her students.

Here is a great website for level readers

This is a game website for different leveled readers

Guided Reading for Diverse needs

The article that I read for guided reading this week was called The Guided reading approach: a practical method to address diverse needs in the classroom, by Laura Schaffer and Barbara Schirmer.  In this article they talk about using guided reading to address diversity in the classroom.  The authors of the article are from the Michigan School for the Deaf.  The way they modified guided reading was to ask their students to read using story signs, pre-teaching vocabulary, and retelling in American Sign Language.  This school was also an English bilingual school, so they used guided reading lessons to help students know the differences between the two languages.  Small group instruction was really emphasized in this article.  When working in a small group teachers are able to select the appropriate text for the students to read.  In the first year of using guided reading the school focused on building word recognition skills and later moved on to focusing on comprehension and fluency.  This school used running records as a way to determine a child's instructional reading level.  I thought that this article was helpful because as a future teacher I will have children in my classroom with different needs.  This article shows ways that you can help students with disabilities using guided reading.

Words Words & More Words

In the article by Yopp and Yopp it said, "The literature on vocabulary development emphasizes three primary means of enhancing students' vocabulary: wide reading, explicit instruction of words and word-learning strategies, and the establishment of an environment that promotes word consciousness."  All three of these areas are equally important in promoting word knowledge.  Within those sections, I thought the explicit instruction of teaching word parts was very valuable.  Instruction on affixes, roots, prefixes, etc. are aids students in decoding the meaning of an unfamiliar word.  Just knowing what a part of the word means gives the student a clue to figuring out what the entire word means.  Here are some activities to do using word parts:  

This is a Rap Song I found about Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots

Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots Rap

This is a website with activities to do

Vocabulary-expanding activities

Teaching Comprehension Skills

Teaching comprehension skills are an essential part of reading and understanding what you read. Do you remember being taught ways of thinking about the text while you read? Some teachers assume that children will understand what they are reading without having been taught how to be a "critical thinker." This is not always the case.  Students need some sort of guidance to help them understand what they are reading and how to think about what they are reading in different ways.  I really enjoyed the article by Gregory and Cahill because it showed great ways of teaching young children how to think about and recognize the different thought processes that are brought out while reading a story. Some of the strategies used were "clicking” on their schema, making connections and categorizing them, making mind movies, and using the questioning strategy. Can you think of any useful activities to do using these strategies?

Voicing Vocabulary

After reading this weeks assigned articles, the main idea that was emphasized in each was that vocabulary knowledge supports a child's comprehension.  I believe strongly in exposing children to a wide variety of vocabulary words.  I personally did not develop a wide vocabulary range until my later years as a student, solely because I was not exposed to it in earlier years.  My teachers did have assigned vocabulary words that the students were to find the definitions for homework but this was not beneficial in my learning.  I think that this type of vocabulary strategy had some negative effects on my learning later in life because teachers in higher grades expect you to know what they are talking about.  If a teacher was explaining something using a word I had never heard of, I would be thinking about what the word meant the whole time and completely miss what she was explaining. 
I think that some teachers think that they should not use larger words because they believe the children will not understand them.  I thought that the Lane & Allen article explained ways to help enhance studnets vocabulary growth beautifully. If a teacher is going to try and expand a child's vocabulary, he/she should make sure the child knows the concept of the simple word first and then transition to using a larger word in place of the simple word.  I know that if my teachers in elementary school had used these types teaching methods, it would have really helped in vocabulary growth.

Vocabulary Building Games

Promoting Phonemic Awareness

I thought this weeks readings were really interesting.  Its been so long since I have learned how to read, I have forgotten some of the rules and activities that were helpful in understanding the formation of words.  I think that it's important as future teachers that we are knowledgeable about these rules, so that we may be successful coaches when we are choosing the correct cues to guide them.  Both of these articles show great examples of how teachers use cueing in the classroom.  In the Yopp Yopp article, it said that phonemic awareness can be supported though having linguistically rich environments.  I loved all of the activities they used to show for each size of linguistic unit that was emphasised.

Phonemic Awareness Activities