September 30, 2013

It is very important in the world of reading to learn the basics of letters first. The idea of coaching word recognition plays a vital part in a child's learning and reading for later life. It's where it all begins and is very important, and needs to be grasped to succeed in reading. I agree with the practices and tasks that were talked about in our readings this week however, I agree more with the idea that it's just as important for the students to learn the meanings of the words as it is to know how to spell the words. Growing up I remember having vocabulary lists, each week we got a certain list of words and we had to find their definitions and had to be able to spell them and recognize them by the end of the week. My favorite activity from our reading is probably the "Making Words" lesson. I like the idea of having a certain number and assortment of letters and seeing what the children come up with. I think it is important to correlate the stem of the word, like stated in Clark's article, with learning more words and expanded your vocabulary. Many words result from lots of other words. There are compound words and prefixes and suffixes, but children need to learn the possible root words first. Learning the word families are a big part in learning the sight words that students need to grasp a basic understanding of what they read.

http://joyfullearninginkc.blogspot.ca/2012/03/word-work-in-kc.html

Sometimes in activities such as "Guess the Covered Word" some students can be more advanced than others, this could result in some students having wider vocabularies and other not having a clue what the word could be. I really agree with combining teacher influence with other student influence. Sometimes teachers can talk and it sound like complete gibberish, but having help from another student can seem more on a level of understanding. However, it can also make a student feel inferior as well. I feel that group learning is important, but sometimes it is important for the teacher to create learning groups as well. Groups could result in leaving a student that may be behind and out of the spectrum, resulting in the student only falling further behind. "Sounding out" I feel is still an effective way of learning. Over the summer I nanny a little girl that just started kindergarden this year. She's proof to me that the "sounding out" method is affective. When we would do our reading time, she not only sounded out the words but could figure out what sentences said all on her own. She now is one of the best readers in her class and absolutely loves to read. "Sounding out" can give students a aha! moment. When students sound out words they are not just putting the sounds together but figuring out was letter sounds are appropriate for each word. This is where definitions are very important. Don't you agree? Why or why not? What kind of word learning activities do you remember? Do you think they made you a better reader at an early age?

Here is a link for forming word family ideas:
http://joyfullearninginkc.blogspot.ca/2012/03/word-work-in-kc.html

Pictures:
http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/product/productDet.jsp?productItemID=845524441791354

September 23, 2013

In our articles this week, one in particular stood out to me containing valuable information allowing students to learn how to read words without the "sounding out" process. The teacher has provided a visual way to learn letters and the sounds they make by relating the letters to objects and words they already have seen and know. I know that I am a visual learner, by having certain known objects in the classroom seemed to helped with the students learning and remembering what sound goes with what letter. It was always more appealing for me to get up and get out of my seat and do an activity rather than sit and read a book for twenty minutes. I think it would also help learning to be seen as a fun activity with younger children, so as they get older they will continued to love to learn. As a young reader and when I am with younger children learning to read I see a lot of the "sounding out" method still in reading. In my opinion this reading method does not help the reader to actually understand what they are reading. The student is too concerned about sounding out each letter of the word that they do not take notice of sentence structure or what the sentence and words actually say. What if students learned definitions of words with the pronunciation of words? Would that help them remember more?
These are websites that include literacy games that include sight and sound:

http://seusstastic.blogspot.com/
http://www.learning4kids.net/tag/sight-word-activities/


       

Just like a familiar song that you know all the words to. The activities presented by Yopp & Yopp's articles will not only teach students about literacy awareness, but will teach students about their environment as well. Words are everywhere, space around students are filled with symbols and words that they see on a daily bases. It's up to us, the teachers, to use this to our advantage and connect things that we know about the language and what we assume our students see on a daily basis and bring it to our classroom. The activities given by Yopp & Yopp sound very familiar and do a good job making connections, so students are proned to remember more and continually stimulate their minds even when they are out of the classroom.
         The NAEYC/ IRA report does a good job breaking down what is asked from teachers, family members, and students to help learners succeed in the classroom. The article gives valuable information for steps of learning and practical exercises that should be used to expand learning. I like how it gives not just classroom information but touches on the bigger picture as well. How do you think the community helps a student? The community is important, because in most cases it is the source of a good education. Depending on the certain community, it brings the valuable resources that students need to learn, these resources depend on whether the student gets the best education they need or not. A community provides schools, educators, and outside influences that strongly can effect a child's
education. I thought it was important for the children to engage in reading and writing attempts to give them practice and get them ready for lessons in the classroom. I think it's important for teachers to promote literacy related play activities, because this will help children correlate reading with fun and excitement at an early age. For parents, I feel that is important to talk with children, engage them in conversation, give names of things, show interest in what a child says, this will not only help their learning but improve the parent- child relationship as well.

pictures: http://vet-education.org/welcome/?p=6
http://www.learning4kids.net/tag/sight-word-activities/

September 16 Blog Post

The book reading and article this week allowed me to realize how important a strong literacy history is to a strong literacy future.  When a child is younger, observation of their parents is a building block to their learning and curiosity for literacy. It’s important to have your family involved in your literacy and learning. As the book states “Children who have had lots of early literacy encounters can’t wait to learn to read!”(pg.33). A child’s family and adults involved in their lives are potentially the most important figures in their learning ability and literacy. Where a child comes from and the community that they are a part of plays a big role in their literacy and how much they may care about it. In the Joneses family, education became important when some had to choose other things over the opportunity of an education. Education becomes more valuable when it may be taken away. The adults involved build the literacy foundation of a child and if the adults give the push they are hopeful that the children will respond to it. It’s important that literacy and education are a central part of the family just like the Joneses. As I read the article I wonder how much better the world would be if more families had as strong as a literacy foundation as the Joneses. What if more families did the same? Going back to the book reading I found some of the classroom tips very useful like:

• Provide a Variety of Things to Write With and On- To younger children a piece of lined paper and pencil can look so boring and dreadful. I find this idea as very fun and interacting. Writing gives children a way to express themselves and letting them use different things besides just lined paper will help them get more excited about learning.

• Provide a Print- Rich Classroom- I always remember having interactive calendars and boards all around my younger classrooms and enjoying the bright colors. It gave me a willing and excited place to learn and want to read and understand my surroundings.Attached is an article that I found discussing ideas about how to make literacy the center of a home.

 I found both of the readings important this week and wanted to find ways that I could potentially help my students become better readers. I think having literacy supporting parents and guardians is a big part in how a child feels about learning as a whole. I wanted to find ways that I could help my students families create a literacy based home.

 Attached is an article I found discussing ideas about how to make literacy the center of a home.

 

http://www.rif.org/us/literacy-resources/articles/literacy-development-begins-at-home.ht

I also was excited to find ways that I, as a teacher, could help my students get excited about literacy and learning words to expand their reading. Attached is a list of games that I found on Pinterest that include practicing the basic needs of literacy.

Literacy games- http://adayinbcasfirstgrade.blogspot.com/2012/05/literacy-games.html

http://plantspress.blogspot.com/2013/09/workshops-are-working.html

Reading Response 1: Ch. 1,2 and article

The readings assigned contain valuable information and statistics to help classrooms become good learning environments. I do agree that to become good readers there should be a lot of reading involved in the classroom. Reading helps to expand the vocabulary and helps students to understand language. I thought it was neat to see how teacher read-alouds made a difference in how excited children got about reading themselves. I also agree with the fact that communication is important especially when helping children feel comfortable in the classroom and with their fellow classmates. I think it's important to be knowledgable and able to correlate all subjects taught in the day, so that children get more familiar with the material and can create relations between it all. One shocking fact that I found was that anchored word instruction was the only positively effective instruction in the observed classroom. What about in older classrooms? Which instruction would be more effective I wonder? The last paragraph put in perspective how important the teacher and their attitude towards reading is in a classroom. The teacher is the "most important variable in how well children learn to read and write". However, isn't it the parents too? I think parents also have an equal part in teaching a child how to read and write. The parents need to assist the child and allow them to know they need to practice to become good, avid readers. I understand that the teacher is the giver of the lessons to learn to read, but it's also with the needed help of parents children become good readers. I enjoyed finding out ways on how to make a more enthusiastic classroom for reading. While I was reading I could definitely relate to a lot of the ideas that the author stated, and could remember a lot of similar things that I did when I was in elementary school. I think teacher involvement and a one on one relationship is important to children first learning to read. Younger children want to know that you care about their success, and enjoy being acknowledged and praised for doing good. The reading conference is a good way to share this. It was interesting to find that we find our reading preferences at an early age and most of the time carried it into our adulthood. I loved reading Nancy Drew when I was little and thinking about it then and now there is a correlation on what I enjoy to read.  The six T's from Allington's reading I feel are entirely accurate and make a lot of sense. I think every aspect is equally important as the other, and the teacher needs all of them to maintain an effective classroom. Why doesn't every classroom include the six T's? Why haven't school districts paid more attention to what works and what doesn't work?