#edrd 345

[taylerflowers-blog]

In Chapter six of Miller, she talks about making inferences and predictions while reading. I think a chart like this is brilliant to use when making inferences in the primary grades because it helps to give students solid ideas about what an inference is. Often when students are asked to predict what will happen next in a story, they will give great answers, but also some that are completely unfounded. A chart like this teaches them to really search and pay attention to context clues in order to make better predictions and inferences and understand more and get more out of the story.

[taylerflowers-blog]

On this page I focus on the before, during, and after foldable. This really reminded me of our Mini Lesson from this past week in which we made the character change chart. I think strategies like this are especially helpful for students because it makes them stop and think about what they are reading, and to think critically about the stories they are being immersed in. In our Miller chapter 6 reading this week, she includes an entire section on asking questions, and she makes sure to address that questions should be asked before, during, and after reading. A chart like this will help remind students and really get them to ask a lot of questions, which will help deepen their understanding of the content.

[edrd345]

How Videogames Like Minecraft Actually Help Kids Learn to Read | WIRED

From the article: 

"[The researcher] asked middle and high school students who were struggling readers (one 11th-grade student read at a 6th-grade level) to choose a game topic they were interested in, and then she picked texts from game sites for them to read—some as difficult as first-year-college language. The kids devoured them with no help and nearly perfect accuracy.

How could they do this? “Because they're really, really motivated,” Steinkuehler tells me. It wasn't just that the students knew the domain well; there were plenty of unfamiliar words. But they persisted more because they cared about the task. “It's situated knowledge. They see a piece of language, a turn of phrase, and they figure it out.”

HUMANS! This is the permeable curriculum! Squeeeee!

[edrd345]

One of the first things we'll think about with our third graders, in addition to their interests, is how to help them thoughtfully self-select books. We'll use the I-PICK model (which appears in the Daily 5 curriculum that you are seeing in some of your practicum placements) as a guide. 

[kmack2016]

"In tracking children's development of print awareness, kidwatchers keep in mind that the situational context ma influence children's demonstrations of knowledge, and that maturation and sociocultural experiences vary from child to child. Children develop in their own directions, at their own rates, in their own social environments. Because of children's diverse interests, experiences, histories, and language, there are no standard steps that every child grows through.""

Kidwatching p. 31

[edrd345]

On Thursday, you jotted down keywords that express what it is that you value about teaching and learning. Here is the word cloud that I generated based on your jottings. 

The terms in bigger font were those that appeared more frequently across the class. Are there values that you think should be larger? Are there values here that maybe you didn't jot down, but that resonate with you in one way or another?

As we move into curriculum design and reading methods, we have to keep our values in mind - an even more important move amidst "school reform." 

[edrd345]

Visual Literacy Through Children's Picture Books

Well, well, well...

I stumbled across this little article about visual literacy this morning and thought it seemed relevant in light of our recent class discussions. Here are some tips from the article - which is written with parents in mind, but may provide some specific ideas for your classrooms, too.

Here are some questions I might use with elementary school kids, especially with those who assure me they're too old for picture books: •    What do you notice in the picture? •    Do the words exactly match what's happening in the illustration? •    How does that picture/color make you feel? •    What does that image remind you of? •    How has the illustration changed/progressed from this page to the next? •    Do the animals look real? •    Why does the cat look sad? •    Whose perspective is this illustration from? •    How do you think the artist made these illustrations? •    Why did the artist choose those colors, and why do they change here?

[edrd345]

Buying In to Opting Out: A Growing National Movement Shuns Standardized Tests

From the article:

"Parents and some teachers believe school administrators overemphasize the assessments, dialing up the pressure on students and creating a “teach to the test” classroom culture that leaves little room for individualized student evaluations, creativity, or critical thought.

Starting with No Child Left Behind and continuing with the Common Core curriculum, student testing has spiked in the last decade. In addition to state assessments, students in some districts are tested as often as once a year on math and reading proficiency; in previous decades, testing typically happened just once in elementary school, middle school, and high school."