Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tompkins Comprehension Skills
I really found Tompkins' chapter on Facilitating Student's Comprehension very interesting and understandable. I loved how Tompkins discussed how important it is for students to understand the different factors of texts in order to develop better comprehension. These text factors included reading, phonics, strategies, vocabulary, writing, and spelling. For example, by having a good vocabulary and content knowledge students will be able to understand and better comprehend what they are in fact reading. When I work with my focal student, Sarah, in field she understands what she reads because she has acquired a strong vocabulary through extensive reading and writing. In the past I have worked with students who did not read often or write on their own, when they would read they would come to a lot of words they did not understand. They would omit these words and then over time as they read, they would omit so many they could not comprehend what was being said or told. I think by having students develop these skills they will have better overall comprehension. In my field classroom the students read and write everyday. They peer edit stories, read aloud to their peers, are read to, and are constantly practicing these skills.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Week 5 Post
The Tompkins reading, like Michelle mentioned below, was very similar to TE 301 and what I have been witnessing in the classroom. The main issue I have had is that I see all of these levels of literacy comprehension present in the classroom, but I have not seen how my CT has built up to it. I think the only answer here is that he uses a series of literacy activities in order to familiarize his students more and more until they have mastered certain aspect of literacy comprehension. The students master fluency by reading aloud and independently within the classroom, they read with a purpose when they are prompted with specific questions to take into account while reading, they are motivated to read by being able to explore literacy by exploring their imaginations in creating their own stories to share with the class, and they make inferences by being prompted with questions to encourage them to take their thought process one step further. The only thing I wasn't familiar with or even impressed by was they little mention of English Learners in this chapter. I felt as though EL students were only mentioned a few times and that the chapter did not mention much advice on how to differentiate learning for these students. I feel as though my CT does a great job of encouraging his EL to succeed by giving them a lot of one on one instruction. Even if they don't know the background of a topic he will strengthen other core areas related to comprehension like fluency and motivation.
Week 4 Post
I think I covered the wrong reading in my last Week 4 Post so I am posting once again.
I was really impressed by the Gifted and Talented article on Marcus. I did not expect the outcome of the story to be that Marcus would have so much trouble in school from what his mom spoke of in the beginning. It really shows how much an environment and a teacher have on influencing a child. Marcus began to hate school with teachers that did not fully understand him, and this caused him to completely fall behind in certain areas of writing at first. It was interesting to see how well an effective teacher had on Marcus' attitude and eventual success. Mrs. Jenson really encourages me to think about how you really must differentiate the learning of all your students in order to benefit them fully as an educator. Simple things like giving him a heads up before asking him to respond/act or giving a schedule chart with rewards can make all the difference.
I was really impressed by the Gifted and Talented article on Marcus. I did not expect the outcome of the story to be that Marcus would have so much trouble in school from what his mom spoke of in the beginning. It really shows how much an environment and a teacher have on influencing a child. Marcus began to hate school with teachers that did not fully understand him, and this caused him to completely fall behind in certain areas of writing at first. It was interesting to see how well an effective teacher had on Marcus' attitude and eventual success. Mrs. Jenson really encourages me to think about how you really must differentiate the learning of all your students in order to benefit them fully as an educator. Simple things like giving him a heads up before asking him to respond/act or giving a schedule chart with rewards can make all the difference.
Week 5 Post
The Tompkins reading seemed like a huge review of TE 301! It was helpful to see how to teach comprehension in the classroom. My CT does a great job of this, instead of using traditional elementary language arts books (I can't remember the series that the rest of the Okemos teachers use.. I think it's Beacon or something), he has his students read trade books and he forms a huge packet of worksheets for each book for the students to complete as they are reading the books. The worksheets in the book consist of prediction worksheets, text-text/text-self/text-world connections, alternative endings, summarizing etc... This is a great way to assess the students comprehension because they wouldn't be able to complete these worksheets if they weren't understanding what was going on in the book. My CT will also monitor the students' comprehension by pausing after important scenes of the book, and asking the students questions about it. If he comes across a word that may not be in the students' vocabulary, he will stop and ask the students if they know what the word means, and then he'll put the word in a sentence to better help the students understand the word. By pausing to monitor the students' comprehension, he is also modeling how students can monitor their own comprehension while reading silently.
Week 4 Post
I thought that the "Marcus: Gifted and Challenging" and Breitfleder readings were very helpful. The first reading was interesting because the little boy Marcus was placed in a gifted program, but was diagnosed with ADHD. It was helpful to see how Marcus performed in both classes and it showed how much of an effect us teachers have on students abilities to learn. The teacher allowing Marcus to hold onto a squeezy ball during group reading time was interesting, this is something I never would have thought of having a student do. It just shows that you really need to know all of your students and make modifications to each students' learning environment so they are better able to learn.
The Breitfleder article was helpful because it discusses ways to meet specific students with special needs in the classroom. I liked how they provided pictures and directions on how to make inexpensive visuals for the classroom. I really enjoyed the circle time board on page 6 with the weather bear. Students are more likely to pay attention during various lessons throughout the day if they have manipulatives to keep them attentive. For one of the visuals, the Breitfleder suggested having individual "mini" versions of the visual so the students can all participate with their mini one, and one student will come up to do a manipulative on the bigger, teacher version. I thought this was a great idea this way everyone is participating in the activity, and therefore getting more out of the lesson.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Week 4 Post
I really enjoyed how Tomkins refered to effective spelling practices in the classroom. She mentions that some teachers find spelling tests effective, while others feel they should be learned through reading and writing. In the third grade classroom I work in, my students do not have spelling tests. My CT is not big on testing children’s knowledge, he is even against times table test too. He would rather have his students demonstrate their knowledge through math games and math work than a test, and he feels the same way about spelling. My CT has his students working towards their spelling in much of their language arts work daily. The students have reading time where they read out loud to the class, are being read to, or are reading silently. Also, he has students writing their own books and sharing them to the class. The other day in class my CT had the students use their thesaurus’ when he eliminated certain words to be used in their writing. He told the students they couldn’t use words like “said, little, big, etc” because he wanted more descriptive words like “declared, shouted, enormous, miniscule, etc. I really enjoy his method of teaching and so do the students of his classroom. Although, I find spelling tests helpful and encouraging to some students, I think there should be more ways to encourage a child to learn besides the competitive nature of tests.
After taking the Digital Native quiz, I felt less confident about my digital skills. I would say, overall, I am digitally native rather than a digital immigrant, but I still am not aware of all the digital possibilities out there. For example, before this class I had never really blogged before. I knew of friends’ blogs that I would read and check up on, but I never had one of my own. The more I read on the site about how our generation is always multi-tasking I knew I was digitally native because I am always multi-tasking. As of right now, I am typing while listening to music with a friend talking to me. I am always doing multiple things at once and I find it impossible not to at my current point in life. I am always so busy, it seems pointless not to multi-task. I found the site interesting how it said that certain people do not find disabilities like ADHD legit, because with the current generation it may not be that a child needs medications, but simply more of a challenge. For example, I can compare two classes where I cannot focus in one, but am fully alert in the other. I think a lot of it has to do with how effectively a class utilizes its time and class to yield participation and attention.
After taking the Digital Native quiz, I felt less confident about my digital skills. I would say, overall, I am digitally native rather than a digital immigrant, but I still am not aware of all the digital possibilities out there. For example, before this class I had never really blogged before. I knew of friends’ blogs that I would read and check up on, but I never had one of my own. The more I read on the site about how our generation is always multi-tasking I knew I was digitally native because I am always multi-tasking. As of right now, I am typing while listening to music with a friend talking to me. I am always doing multiple things at once and I find it impossible not to at my current point in life. I am always so busy, it seems pointless not to multi-task. I found the site interesting how it said that certain people do not find disabilities like ADHD legit, because with the current generation it may not be that a child needs medications, but simply more of a challenge. For example, I can compare two classes where I cannot focus in one, but am fully alert in the other. I think a lot of it has to do with how effectively a class utilizes its time and class to yield participation and attention.
Week 3 Post
I really felt that Gibbons had a lot of good stuff to say about reading that related to my field classroom. The Scaffolding book spoke a lot about having students fluent in reading by grade three, and the majority of my classroom is fluent in reading. My CT has them reading silently, aloud, and as a class. They are constantly editing and producing books, which they read aloud to their classmates and have in their classroom libraries. Also, the chapter spoke of how ESL students should read aloud rather than write to effectively develop their literacy skills. I have three ESL students in my field classroom, one ESL student in particular is struggling because he just moved here from Korea. He works one on one a lot with my CT and practices reading and editing his book before he shares it with the class. I think reading to the class really encourages him to work on his reading and overall improves his reading. Overall, I really enjoy how well my CT goes about teaching literacy effectively in the classroom. He makes sure it is everywhere in the classroom, which I think is great to do because literacy is so integrative. I don’t like when students simply work off to themselves, because I think literacy should be apart of the whole class more than an individual activity.
Week 3 Post
It was difficult to relate the concepts discussed in the Tompkins chapter to my field placement because I feel that my students are well beyond the basics of spelling. I have seen students blend sounds together while trying to "sound out" a word, but they don't really sing songs and chants or participate in any of the activities listed in the chapter.
When I worked with Kelly* last semester, I noticed that the words on her spelling lists all rhymed. I feel that this is a good approach to teaching students new words because they are able to compare the rime part of the words even though the words have different onsets.
Towards the end of the chapter, Tompkins begins to talk about spelling tests and how some teachers feel they are beneficial in the classroom, while other teachers feel that spelling should be learned through reading and writing. In my field placement, instead of my CT giving his students a basic spelling test where he says the words and the students write it down, he gives them a list of 5 words and the students circle the word that is misspelled or they circle none of them if all of the words are spelled correctly. I feel this is a great way to test students on their spelling because this will connect to the students learning how to edit their own work in the future.
After taking the Digital Natives Quiz, I was surprised that I only received a 4/6. I wasn't sure what "modding" was or "smart mobs." I am not at the "emergent stage" of digital literacy because I knew what more than half the terms were, but I'm definitely not a digital native! It seems that someone at the emergent stage of digital literacy would not be familiar with any of the terms from the Digital Natives Quiz, and they would not know how to use a blog, wiki, IM, etc... They would be exploring through the programs but would need assistance from someone who is digitally literate. This is similar to the emergent reading/writing stage from the Tompkin's chapter (chapter 3) since students are just beginning to learn their alphabet and write scribbles that will eventually form into letters.
When I worked with Kelly* last semester, I noticed that the words on her spelling lists all rhymed. I feel that this is a good approach to teaching students new words because they are able to compare the rime part of the words even though the words have different onsets.
Towards the end of the chapter, Tompkins begins to talk about spelling tests and how some teachers feel they are beneficial in the classroom, while other teachers feel that spelling should be learned through reading and writing. In my field placement, instead of my CT giving his students a basic spelling test where he says the words and the students write it down, he gives them a list of 5 words and the students circle the word that is misspelled or they circle none of them if all of the words are spelled correctly. I feel this is a great way to test students on their spelling because this will connect to the students learning how to edit their own work in the future.
After taking the Digital Natives Quiz, I was surprised that I only received a 4/6. I wasn't sure what "modding" was or "smart mobs." I am not at the "emergent stage" of digital literacy because I knew what more than half the terms were, but I'm definitely not a digital native! It seems that someone at the emergent stage of digital literacy would not be familiar with any of the terms from the Digital Natives Quiz, and they would not know how to use a blog, wiki, IM, etc... They would be exploring through the programs but would need assistance from someone who is digitally literate. This is similar to the emergent reading/writing stage from the Tompkin's chapter (chapter 3) since students are just beginning to learn their alphabet and write scribbles that will eventually form into letters.
I was thinking about writing in the placement that I am currently in, and I feel that I don’t see enough of it. I go in the afternoon on Monday and the morning on Thursday. The morning has a structured schedule similar to Ms. McClosky’s schedule in the Tompkins book. They start the morning with a class meeting. They do the lunch choices, calendars, a couple of math related morning routines and then they go to their seats and work on their morning sentences. They have two sentences that they need to correct and rewrite on the line below. The CT puts it on the ELMO and projects it onto the white board and they correct it ass a class. When they are finished they can read . Then they have a free choice time where they can read, write or practice words on the white boards. There are many other reading opportunities throughout the day. There are many of the things discussed in Chapter 3 of the Tompkins book. There are signs, printed rules, and labeled class items to name a few. I guess my concern with the writing is this: during their writing time I see many people in the class focusing on the pictures to go with the stories instead of the story itself. I am waiting to see how much writing they do for other subjects but unfortunately there are a lot of obstacles to seeing the other subjects. There are speakers coming in, or switched gym periods, or an extra music class . Plus there was a substitute one of the days which meant worksheets. I wish I could be there more often to see what goes on.
Week 3 Post
This week in my placement, we were not in the classroom but on a field trip to Waldumar, which is an outdoor education center. It is focused on science and map skills. This was my second time this semester spending such a lovely day there. The first time I went, I was so bored out of my mind that I was counting down the seconds until I was allowed to leave the freezing cold barn that has not yet been introduced to a heating system. Today, I was in charge of leading a group of students out into the woods with a gps system that I had no idea how to use and did not end up working! It was a frustrating day, especially because I could witness the students learning language arts.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Week 2 Post
Most of the third graders in my field placement are at the fluent stage of the "Three Stages of Reading and Writing." They make text-to-text and text-to-self connections during reading time. The students in my class are becoming familiar with the writing process as well. They have written creative stories every month and they will start with a rough draft, then conference with my CT, Katie, or I and then we will go through their story with them and correct spelling and grammar.
As Katie was saying in her post, our CT tries to get his students to use more interesting words by prohibiting them to write the words "big," "small," and "said." He has a list of words on top of the white board that the students can use instead of big, small, and said. When he stops allowing students to use a particular word, he will have them take out their thesaurus and look up "more interesting" words for the students to use instead, and then he will put them up above the white board.
There are a few students in the class, like my focus student Kelly, who are unable to create their own stories, or even sentences without assistance. Kelly is at the Emergent Stage of the Three Stages of Reading and Writing. She knows her alphabet and how to write her name and letters, but when she writes, she does not put a space between her words, and she uses invented spelling. If you ask her to read what she wrote back to you, she will be able to. She understands the concept of print and directionality concepts such as reading from left to right and from top to bottom on a page.
Kelly has improved a great deal from when I first started working with her last semester during TE 301. She is able to follow along during shared reading with one-on-one correspondence, she just has a difficult time writing sentences on her own.
As Katie was saying in her post, our CT tries to get his students to use more interesting words by prohibiting them to write the words "big," "small," and "said." He has a list of words on top of the white board that the students can use instead of big, small, and said. When he stops allowing students to use a particular word, he will have them take out their thesaurus and look up "more interesting" words for the students to use instead, and then he will put them up above the white board.
There are a few students in the class, like my focus student Kelly, who are unable to create their own stories, or even sentences without assistance. Kelly is at the Emergent Stage of the Three Stages of Reading and Writing. She knows her alphabet and how to write her name and letters, but when she writes, she does not put a space between her words, and she uses invented spelling. If you ask her to read what she wrote back to you, she will be able to. She understands the concept of print and directionality concepts such as reading from left to right and from top to bottom on a page.
Kelly has improved a great deal from when I first started working with her last semester during TE 301. She is able to follow along during shared reading with one-on-one correspondence, she just has a difficult time writing sentences on her own.
Comment on Ashika's post
Once again my computer won't let me comment on other posts, but this is what I was trying to comment on Ashika's post:
It sounds like your CT has established a great classroom community for his students! This reminds me of the 3rd chapter of the Tompkins text where Tompkins says that reading and writing should be demonstrated as integrated processes. Your CT is doing this by reading a book with the class and then writing out the students' questions. This will help them become more familiar with sentence structure and spelling of high frequency words. Is "Fly Away Home" a chapter book? I saw the movie but I never read the book. It's great if it's a chapter book and the students are able to comprehend what the teacher is reading and able to ask questions about the book.
It sounds like your CT has established a great classroom community for his students! This reminds me of the 3rd chapter of the Tompkins text where Tompkins says that reading and writing should be demonstrated as integrated processes. Your CT is doing this by reading a book with the class and then writing out the students' questions. This will help them become more familiar with sentence structure and spelling of high frequency words. Is "Fly Away Home" a chapter book? I saw the movie but I never read the book. It's great if it's a chapter book and the students are able to comprehend what the teacher is reading and able to ask questions about the book.
To Amanda's comment on my first post
For some reason I can't reply to your comment on my post from last week about Kelly, but here's what I was trying to say:
Kelly has trouble with her sight words, for example she has a difficult time distinguishing "that," "they," and "there." None of her English spelling look similar to the Spanish language, but she does confuse her vowel sounds. She'll pronounce "set" like "sat" because she assumes every c-v-c word has an "a" sound in the middle. My CT said it's very difficult to keep in contact with her parents, it was easier in the beginning of the year because her sister went to college close to home so she would attend the parent-teacher conferences, but now her sister went out of state to college. He said that Kelly's parents brought their landlord to a conference once and she's going to try and help Kelly out.
Kelly has trouble with her sight words, for example she has a difficult time distinguishing "that," "they," and "there." None of her English spelling look similar to the Spanish language, but she does confuse her vowel sounds. She'll pronounce "set" like "sat" because she assumes every c-v-c word has an "a" sound in the middle. My CT said it's very difficult to keep in contact with her parents, it was easier in the beginning of the year because her sister went to college close to home so she would attend the parent-teacher conferences, but now her sister went out of state to college. He said that Kelly's parents brought their landlord to a conference once and she's going to try and help Kelly out.
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