Amanda

[brookecharlie]

Standard Miscue Marks

(use for miscue analysis - analyze child’s reading from recording)

[ali5047lled]

LLED 400 Miller Chapter 4

The Miller Chapter we read for this week had a lot that grabbed my attention. I really liked her section called "Authenticity Matters" where she talked about how important it is to be careful when selecting books. I never really thought about why choosing books could be important. She says "No matter how perfect someone else may tell you a book is, or how great a lesson they taught using it, it won't be perfect for you unless you can connect with it and put your own personal stamp on it in some way" (pg 73). This reminds me of taking AR tests in elementary school. Some of the books I was really interested in were not on the AR list, so I didnt read them because I wouldnt get any points for it. Instead I would usually settle for a boring book that got me a lot of points so I wouldnt have to spend a lot of time trying to find a book only to discover it wasnt on the AR list. They would always tell us that if we didnt get enough AR points, we wouldnt pass reading for the year. All of this never made reading feel fun, it just felt like a chore.

I think this is where a lot of schools go wrong, by doing programs like AR. They think they need to implement reading programs to get children to read, but instead they turn kids off from reading. I had to participate in the AR program until I started 9th grade, and by then I was so tired of reading books I just quit. I think schools should try to get kids to want to read for enjoyment by providing them with a variety of genres of books, and books written in different formats. There are much better ways to get children interested in reading than by threatening their grades if they dont get enough points, or by having a predetermined list of books that they can only choose from.

[ali5047lled]

LLED 401 Writing Workshop

I think the workshop models we have been talking about seem really fun and engaging for children. I like that they are the ones deciding what they want to read or write about. I like that the teacher gets an opportunity to walk around and conference and scaffold with the children, and talk about what the children are interested in. Writing workshops also allow the child to choose how they format their writing. They don't have to write a 5 paragraph essay, they could write a letter, a story, a brochure, or anything they want. The samway article discusses how Ms. Ramirez allows her students to choose which language they write in, which i think is beneficial to ELL. By allowing them to write in a different language, it shows that teachers value them and their culture. 

Because of the "importance" of standardized testing, I worry that the school district would think that this model isn't appropriate for helping students develop reading and writing skills. I feel like teaching is becoming a scripted profession, where teachers just do worksheets to prepare kids for standardized tests and reading out of basal readers. What if I went into a school district and they handed me basal readers? Would I be able to use these somehow along with workshops or would I need to make an argument as to why workshops would be a better way for kids to learn? I also worry that kids could get off task during workshops. All of the videos and stories we have talked about, the classrooms seem to run so smoothly. It almost seems too good to be true. I can just imagine having kids in class get off task, how would I be able to get them to work on their own?

Overall I have enjoyed learning about the writing workshops. Reflecting on my writing experiences in elementary school, a lot of writing was given to us in prompts, and then we would write a paper. Sometimes we would do research projects and make pamphlets of information, but I remember mostly writing sentence strips in early elementary and five paragraph essays later in elementary school. It would have been a lot more fun and engaging if we used writing workshops in the classrooms. I think the fact that writing workshops gives students control and lets them make choices about what they write about empowers kids and allows them to enjoy writing more. Fletcher and Portalupi discuss this in chapter four, "The writing workshop puts students on the spot and requires them to be active learners" (pg 37). I think that giving students the opportunity to be engaged in learning  will help them become more successful and become lifelong writers.

[brookecharlie]

[The students] needed to do something when they finished reading a book. But what? Design book jackets? Draw a picture of their favorite part? Make puppets of the book’s characters? Rewrite endings? My kids did all these things- and loved every minute…but…these activities were keeping children from doing what we know helps them learn to read best: reading. If reading workshop is all about real reading, it must be about responding in real ways, too.

(Miller, p. 61)

This put a new perspective on strategies that I thought were good post-reading activities.

(via brookecharlie)

[ksherbz-blog]

“If we mean it when we say we want children to become lifelong readers, if we mean it when we say we want children to actively engage in text for a variety of purposes and for increasingly long periods of time, we can’t teach them to make book selections based on words alone.” (Miller, pp. 52-59)

[ali5047lled]

[haleyelizabeth218]

3-yr. old reads Litany by Billy Collins

[itris22]

writer’s notebook idea

[erinmarieyevins]

[ali5047lled]

[ali5047lled]

LLED 400

 The video of Harmony reading shows us that harmony already knows a lot about reading, even though she isnt reading word for word, or sounding out words. By holding the book the correct way and turning the pages, she shows us she knows about book orientation. Harmony also uses expression throughout her stories. She doesn't read the story word for word, but instead tells the story through the pictures in the books. I think it is safe to say Harmony has learned all of these behaviors through listening to stories with her father. By watching her parents read, and use expression in the stories, Harmony learned to copycat their techniques in her readings to her father.

This video and the article reminds me of when I was little and started to learn to read. My mom use to read to me every night, and once I found a book I really enjoyed, I would ask her to read it to me multiple times, Then, I would eventually try to read the book to my parents, obviously not word for word but just what I remembered from being read the story so many times. This is similar to Harmony, she isnt reading word for word but it is evident that she has been read both of these stories enough times that she can tell a story based on the pictures and what she remembers. 

One thing that stood out to me in the article was when Doake discussed children memorizing stories and how parents think doing this is harmful.

"Unfortunately, parents may see the reproducing of stories through reading-like behavior as a process of rote memorization view it as harmful to their children’s reading development." (pg 3).

Doake then goes on to discuss how some parents could just quit reading to their children when they being re-telling stories.

"Since "sounding out" requires a careful, sequential inspection of each letter in each word being read, any method of learning which does not demand this is seen as harmful. As a result, parents may do what one mother in the Durkin (1966) study did when she found her son reproducing stories through reading-like behavior; simply stop reading to their children." (pg 3).

I had a hard time wrapping my brain around this. Why would parents stop reading to their children when they are telling the same story in their own way?  If kids are using both their imagination and memory to read a story, why is that worse than them sounding out the words? The hooked on phonics series, which is targeted for kids and their parents send the message to parents that sounding out words and recognizing word families is valued more than a child recreating a story they are familiar with.

[kyrahnagy]

Children need to be given the opportunity to draw/sketch/doodle FIRST. Then ask, “could you tell me your story?” NOT “what is this?”

Dictation: “Do you mind if I write your story ANOTHER way?”

values child’s attempts at writing—his/her approximations; acknowledges that what s/he has done is important

using post-it notes or a notebook with child’s dictated story lets child retain ownership

child see his/her ideas in conventional writing

WE LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!

[kyrahnagy]

This is a video of Sherbs’s mini lesson example in 401. Despite my continued confusion on the difference between homonyms and heteronyms, I found the mini lesson experience super cool and helpful.

PS Erin, your hair lookin’ good today. 

[ali5047lled]

LLED 401 Tumblr 2

From reading the Bissex article, I understand Differentiation to be how children break up words and sentances. Differentiation starts with children writing with letter-like characters and with the purpose of sending a mesasge. Next, children focus more on the sounds the words make. The article talks about Paul writing "EFUKANOPNKAZIWILGEVUAKANOPENR", and how he later learns to break this down into a sentence by putting spaces or dots between the different words. This is another way of differentiating.

Decentration is when a child can see another persons point of view. the article describes it as children "stand outside" of their writing, and give explanations about their writings to others. they also know how to differentiate different types of audiences (self, teachers, peers).Before decentration occurs, students assume that the reader has knowledge they may need for their piece. 

I think knowing these two theories will help me see a students progress, specifically differentiation, which I understand to be a long, ongoing process. I think I could see evidence of differentiation with the letters my pen pal sends me. For example, from looking at my letter from logan, I know that he understands how to separate words in a sentence and how to decipher what sounds letters make.

[ali5047lled]

Components of a literacy workshop

mini lesson: 15-20 mins procedural or strategic, employs mentor texts to demonstrate strategy, explicit instruction, metacognitive think alouds.

guided practice: students put procedure or strategy into practice with teacher close by. (think pair share. turn and talk. knees to knees.)

independent practice (MOST IMPORTANT): up to 45 mins, students employ and approximate strategy with text of their choosing. there can be a myriad of activities going on (partner reading, whisper reading, conferencing, literature circles, independent reading.)

Sharing time: students gather and show/explain/tell how they used strategy, how it worked for them, students retain ownership of their work.

[brookecharlie]

Gosh this is adorable. This little girl already understands so much about reading - emotional connections, how to hold a book, making predictions, visual representations, etc. Clearly, decoding is not the only way to learn how to read.

[ali5047lled]

LLED 400 Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to hear, distinguish, and manipulate individual units of sound within a word (Luongo-Orlando pg 60). Phonemes differentiate words. I think Phonemes are important to teach children about because they allow children to recognize individual sounds in words and are the building blocks to literacy. Some ways to tell that students have phonemic awareness is if they are able to identify rhymes, make new words by changing phonemes, identify similar sounds in different words, and identify separate sounds within words.

Reading about Phonemic awareness reminded me of how I was taught phonics in elementary school. I had a hard time understanding the different sounds some letters make, like A. I also would get confused with letters like C and K because they sound similar. When I decided I wanted to be a teacher, I thought about my struggles with phonics and letter sounds and worried that I would have a difficult time teaching children those concepts, because I struggled with them.

On pinterest, I searched for some phonemic awareness activities, something more fun than just repeating sounds the letters make which is how I learned phonemes and phonics. On pinterest I found a lot of worksheets with blanks, where students would fill in the letters, or match pictures to the letter that word starts with. There were also a lot of activities encouraging teachers to think of words as stretching, like bubble gum or a slinky. I think using the slinky or bubble gum analogy could be helpful to students. In my classroom, I want to do more than just worksheets to help my students learn phonemes. One activity I came across that I thought was cute was an activity where students get a bag with an item inside of it, and fill in the blanks to a short song, telling others what sound their item starts with students guess what is in their bag.

http://growingkinders.blogspot.com/2011/07/phonemic-fun.html