Literacy Reflection #8

Flint Chapter 12 discussed how to work with struggling readers and writers in the classroom. Many of the practices discussed in the reading are practices that I have seen or am seeing now. I do strongly believe that motivation and engagement have a significant role for struggling readers. It is important to make sure that all readers are engaged in the text that they are reading. This comes back to having a classroom that offers a wide variety of choices and relies on the teacher knowing the interests of his/her students.

There were a couple of instructional practices discussed in the chapter that I really liked. I like the idea of scheduling easy reading time. It is a great idea to have a short block in the day where a group of mixed reading levels can come together and have reading time where everyone can read the text. This is definitely a great practice to help struggling and non-struggling readers can gain confidence and fluency in their reading. In my classroom, I see read alouds done everyday. The text is usually above the what readers can read on their own and it is a great way for students to practice comprehension.

Haw River with 4th Graders

This time around the parachute worked out so much better than it did with the 3rd graders. My partners and I were able to tweak the activity to fit the needs of the students much better than the previous time we did the activity. My partners and I had a group of six students. With these students we had each student drop the parachute using two different materials. We were also able to question and prompt them and they more readily understood the activity when we related the parachute to skydiving. It was great to see the students engaged and having fun. I think that it is important to foster a love for science because it is definitely one of the subjects that gets overlooked in the curriculum.

Flint Chapter 8

Flint Chapter 8 on Intermediate and accomplished readers and writers really resonated with me this week because I am in a 4th grade classroom and a majority of the day is spent on establishing good literacy practices. Word study strategies is something that I see often in my class. The students spend about 30 minutes everyday focusing on word study. So far I have seen them study affixes, and patterns especially dealing with vowel sounds. Usually the students are given a worksheet that has a few examples of the strategy and then they are given a list of words that they have to identify. I really liked the Roots and Branches activity in the book. That is definitely something authentic that I feel I could incorporate into my classroom.

I also found the sections focusing in reading with fluency and comprehension very informative. Many teachers consider reading with fluency to be fast readers, but I believe that not only must the reader read at a well established pace, but they must also comprehend what they have read. Many times you will get a reader who can read fast, but has no idea what they have just read. Speed does not equate with competence. I think that as a teacher we must address the misconception that reading with fluency means being a fast reader.

As for comprehension strategies, I see a wide range of use of graphic organizers used in my 4th grade classroom. I also feel that making connections (text-to-self, text-to-world & text-to-text) is key to the reading process. Everyday my teacher does an interactive read aloud with the class and she is always focusing on making connections and predictions. This gets the students really involved and by doing the read aloud the teacher is demonstrating the think aloud process.

Flint Chapter 11

I really enjoyed this chapter because it focused on using inquiry based learning and nonfiction texts in the classroom. In all of our classes we have been learning how to incorporate inquiry based learning into our classroom because that is one of the best ways that students will and can learn. I agree with this. When students are given a choice and are able to feel a sense of ownership in their work they are going to learn so much more than just telling the students what they must do.

I also found interesting how the book talked about sign systems. For my read and share article I read about how to incorporate semantic sign systems into the language arts curriculum. This included the use of dance, drama, art and music. This is a great way for students to gain new perspectives, but it is disheartening because I am not seeing much of this in my classroom. I am seeing the basic draw a picture type of situations. I think that when teachers really commit to using sign systems it can greatly benefit students.

Differentiated Resource

A differentiated resource that I have seen in my classroom that I highly recommend is www.starfall.com. This is a website that contains literacy activities that can be done at home or incorporated into the classroom. This is great for exceptional children because students are able to read using phonics. Starfall has interactive stories on four different levels. The first level is "ABC Lets Get Ready to Read." This level introduces children to the alphabet and the sounds associated with each letter. The second level is "Learn to Read." This level focuses on developing phonic skills. The third level is "It's fun to read." On this level students can play with fun and interactive games that foster their literacy development. The last level is "I'm Reading." On this level children can read low-level books or have the books read to them. In each book the words are highlighted when they are read. Personally, I think that Starfall is a wonderful educational website that teachers and students can use.

www.starfall.com

SAM ANIMATION

Literacy Reflection #5

I think that Flint Chapter 9 was very interesting in talking about the effective assessment practices for reading and writing. My fourth grade class just took a reading and math benchmark last week, which was a summative assessment. When I went to school that Wednesday the students were taking the reading part of the benchmark. It was really interesting have to proctor an exam and see the students struggle to get through that exam. While I do understand the point of standardized multiple choice tests, I do not feel that if fully shows the knowledge your students.

I do find the use of alternative assessments very helpful. In the book it talks about using running records, and this can be very helpful especially during guided reading time. I know that when I do my guided reason lesson on Wednesday I will be using a running record. I also think that it is very important to have a portfolio system set up in your classroom. I know that many teachers don't do them because they can be very time consuming, but it's important to have a collection of each student's work that can show their progress.