Language, Culture, Literature and Education Final Reflection

     Throughout the course of the semester, I have put much thought into what I was learning from all of the readings and work that I have been doing. Now that I have taken this time, I realize that this course has taught me much about the way that both language and culture affect everything. Not only has the affect been taught, but also the way that teachers should use this knowledge in their classrooms. This is one of the most practical courses that I have taken in my time here at JSC.

    All of the readings that we had to do in this course were beneficial to the main ideas of the course. I found that two of the books, Ganske’s Word Journeys and Owocki’s Make Way for Literacy, are practical books for teachers. They give information on how to use material in different ways to teach children. Delpit’s The Skin That We Speak tells more of the struggles of the minorities. It tells mostly of the white-black divide that is still happening between many people. This book focuses more on the racial differences in language, which gave a lot of important information that is definitely something that everyone needs to know. However, the book that I feel was most beneficial to me this semester was my choice book, Purcell-Gates’ Other People’s Words. This book is based on an illiterate Appalachian family and their struggle to learn how to read. Much of what we discussed in class was about multicultural and racial language problems, while this gave the story of a white families struggle. To me, it applies much more to the type of life that I will be living.

      The course has shown me that language affects every part of our lives. While many say that language is universal, after this course, it is clear that this is not true. Language is different depending on how students have been raised, what type of culture they are in, how they are taught and many other factors. Language is used orally and written, to tell a story or to do classwork. It is used in everything that everyone does and many think that the separation is based on race, but there are many more factors than that.

      As a Vermont resident and a future teacher who plans to say in Vermont, Purcell-Gates book truly spoke to me. The family in the book is a white family with a low income. The entire family is illiterate and is struggling to learn how to read. This story contributes to the class in a different way than any other work we did. It shows that not only those of different races are affected by language barriers. Many of the people in Vermont are low income and in the rural areas, many people have literacy problems. This book helped me connect how I would deal with situations similar to this in a classroom. Throughout the novel, the family struggles with learning to read and doing other basic skills that it seems that they should just know. The book shows how important language is to basic life.

      One of the most shocking and helpful scenes in the book is when they are refusing to keep the main boy, Donny, back a grade, even though he is illiterate. The teacher wants to hold him back, but when overall the school disagrees, Purcell-Gates steps in. This made me so upset as both a future teacher and a human being. As a teacher, it is important to do what is in the best interest of the children and to fight for that. While schools don’t like to retain students, sometimes, as it was in this case, it’s necessary. Also, this topic disgusts me just as a human. I feel, as we have talked about in this class, that all people have the right to an education and basic language skills. While it doesn’t matter to me if they are exactly correct language skills, everyone needs some and it is wrong to deprive a person of this. Part of the job of being a teacher, or a person in general, is accepting that language has a different role in everyone’s life and to allow the different cultures and language uses. Sometimes, it is necessary to help teach some of the language skills. The overall point is that all need to be accepted for their own language.

     This class and the choice book, Other People’s Words give very good opportunities to think about how these cultural and linguistic differences could be used in the classroom. Much of what we learn here at JSC is about inclusive practices and incorporating all types of students into the classroom. In Donny’s case, he was included in the classroom and was not helped at all really. He was behind the entire time and was not given the additional help that he needed. In his case, it was better to get outside help. However, this may not have been the case in a different class or with a different teacher. Donny could have been included in the class if he had been given modified work that he could understand. There were simple ways this could be done, such as have him orally tell answers or draw pictures instead of writing. These ideas could easily be extended and create much more work that could have an inclusive classroom even for a child that is basically illiterate as Donny was.

      We have also learned that the way people talk should not have so much influence on their schoolwork. Some children come from different cultural backgrounds and their home lives have very specific language uses. These could seem like they are “incorrect” but really they aren’t. Language is very diverse, just as people are and there is no correct way to speak. It is all based on where you are from, the environment that you have been raised in, exposures throughout life and many other factors that make everyone have their own unique language. Instead of discouraging this, as many schools do, it should be embraced. Language is really powerful and can explain a lot about a person. Individual language patterns can tell a story in themselves, showing how someone was taught how to speak. Just as creativity helps to show individuality, language does as well. This is something that should be included not discouraged.

      Overall, this course has taught me how truly important language skills are. I always knew they were, but never realized how truly difficult it can be having different skills than others. As Purcell-Gates describes, life without any sort of literacy skills is very difficult. The mother, Jenny, in Other People’s Words is illiterate. She can’t read signs or anything else. When she goes somewhere, she must take someone along with her so that she knows where she is going and also what is expected when she gets there. Even something as simple as shopping is a daunting task to her because she can’t do it alone. The library is a completely unknown place, and how to behave there is a new experience for the whole family. Until hearing about how exactly difficult struggles with not following the “normal” language rules are, I would not have believed it. I understood that some have a more difficult time, but this course has really opened up my eyes to exactly how hard it can be. I feel that it will make me a better teacher because I will be able to notice these things and hopefully offer help that will keep the individuality of speech alive. I know that I will allow all types of language in my classroom, because language is very important. Language is something that is essential to our lives and is constantly used whether orally, written or in any other form. Culture is also very important to basic life. I feel that both language and culture need to be incorporated into classrooms and this course has helped me get some ideas for how I will do that. This course ended up being very beneficial to me and I will use the information I learned in it for years to come.

References:
Purcell-Gates, V. (1995). Other people's words: the cycle of low literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Delpit, L. and Dowdy, JK (Eds.), The skin that we speak: Thoughts on language and culture in the classroom. (pp.32-48). New York, NY: The New Press

Ganske, K. (2000). Word journeys. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Owocki, G. (2001). Make way for literacy: Teaching the way young children learn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Instruction Dynamics II Final Reflection

Katie Forand

December 10, 2012

Reflections on Instruction Dynamics 2

   Instruction Dynamics is probably one of the most beneficial classes that I have taken here at Johnson State College. The course really helps to show how mathematical learning takes place in a classroom and how to encourage students to think mathematically. The important thing to remember about thinking mathematically is that it is not important to memorize formulas, but to be able to understand what a problem is asking them to do. Thinking mathematically is being able to understand the idea of the problem and how to go about it, even if it may not be the “correct” way. A big part of mathematical thinking is being able to understand basic mathematical ideas without having a formal mathematical understanding.

   Math has always been a strong suit of mine, and I had never really thought of how difficult it could be for someone. This class has helped me to understand that it can be really hard to teach math. The books that we read for the course, especially “Learning Mathematics in Elementary and Middle Schools” were very helpful. This text has a lot of good ideas and activities to teach in a variety of ways. We used many different ideas in class of how to solve problems of the same type in multiple ways. We spent the whole semester focusing on ratios, fractions, percents, etc. and we saw word problems, visuals, and many other types.

   By doing multiple different types of problems, we were able to see how we all thought about math in different ways, which helped in showing how children could think about math in different ways. We all came up with different ideas, and being able to explain and discuss the problems really helped to show that people really think about math in different ways. It helped to open up my mind at least to accepting different types of work, and possibly thinking about just starting out teaching the students multiple ways that they can then choose from later on. Also, this course really showed me that children can completely come up with their own math ideas. The videos that we watched of classrooms, and being in a classroom, helped me see that sometimes it is best to just let students go on their own and not give them a ton of instruction, at first at least. Eventually, they will probably need the formal instruction, but they also need time to explore the work and come up with their own thoughts.

   We have worked a lot with learning how to develop lesson plans and it really has helped me. I developed two math lessons on my own, from the work that we discussed in class and implemented one of them in my practicum classroom. I was able to base them both on mathematical standards and by learning about the multiple means of representation, expression and engagement, I was able to integrate all the students’ needs into the lessons. Through the course work that we did with ratios and such, and the books we read, I was able to make lessons that fit for all students. Also, in class we discussed numerous theorists, such as Sharma, which helped when grounding the lesson and entry four in research. In many education classes I have taken, these are things that just get glossed over, but I feel in this class we really discussed them and were able to learn what the ideas are.  

    As we learned, there are many ways that math can be instructed and it is important to make sure to use many of these different ways. However, the ways that you use depends on the school and the classroom. Every child learns differently, and every new group every year will need to be taught in some different way. The school helps to figure out what math program is being used, bridges, thinkmath, or something else, and that gives the basic way for instruction. However, depending on the students, there always need to be a back-up, another way to successfully teach the same material so that they can get the most out of it. Also, the more interested  the students are in mathematics, the more likely they are to listen and actually soak in numerous ways of doing the work, or even come up with their own. Students who don’t like math are not going to want to come up with their own solutions or spend a ton of time trying to understand other ways. It is important to recognize the classroom and teach to the students that are in the classroom. It is very important not to make lessons for what you think the students should be doing, but to make sure that the lessons are based for the student’s levels that are in the class at that time. Sometimes, things need to be changed based on the students understanding, and even if you have something planned for the next day, it will not work if the students don’t understand today’s work. Part of teaching, especially in math, is being flexible and open to changing up your plans for the good of the students. This class showed us that. One day a classmate had a hard time believing that students could come up with some of the math answers they did all on their own, so we spent the next class discussing this, we looked at student work and watched a video showing a student coming up with their own ideas. This was not what was planned for the day, but a “teachable moment” was used. We got to experience many of the ideas of a smooth running classroom in the course, which was something that was very beneficial as a future teacher. I finally got to see how I could actually implement the ideas that I have being taught about for the last three years. This is the first education that I have been in where we actually did work with the ideas and got to see how they were used with us, it’s always just been reading out of a book. This class gave a lot of practical work and that really helped me.

   I know that many people struggled with Instruction Dynamics 2 because it is a math course, but that really made it more appealing to me. I am doing a double major with mathematics here at JSC and have always really enjoyed math. I find it to be very fun, and I do not allow myself to get intimidated by math problems, because I know that they are solvable, even if it may take a long time. I have always been strong in math, and I feel that this will help me when I become a teacher. I really can understand math and I’m one of those people that will work on a problem until I fully understand it, no matter how long that takes. This will help me when I’m a teacher, because I will be sure that I fully understand it before I try to teach the material to someone else. I feel that my love of math will reflect on the students. I will go in wanting to teach math, enjoying math and not having a fear of math, like so many people do. I will encourage the students to give math a chance, and I will have a positive attitude about the math classes, because I truly do have a passion for math. I find that when I have teachers who you can tell love what they are teaching; I learn better from them and want to enjoy it as much as them. I know that I am able to be this way with math and I hope that I will be able to encourage students to love math as well and really do well in it, not to get test scores that they need, but to help them. Math is everywhere in the world and it is crucial that everyone has a basic understanding.

    This class was definitely one of the best education courses I have taken. The work that we did was very field based, and we actually were able to do the work, rather than just discuss how to do it, which I really enjoyed. From this course, I was able to learn that thinking mathematically is about much more than just knowing the answer to a math problem. It is about understanding what problems are asking and how you can solve them, not necessarily actually solving them. If a student can look at a problem and know what it is asking them and know that they could solve it in many different ways, and understand why, then they are a strong mathematical thinker and the answer doesn’t really matter as much as that. I hope that I can take these ideas into a classroom of my own and teach children to truly like math, rather than just have to do it, and to be able to think mathematically in their own lives.

References:
*Cathcart, W. G., Pothier, Y. M., Vance, J. H., & Bezuk,

 N. S. (2011). Learning mathematics in

elementary and middle schools. (5th ed.). Boston,

MA: Pearson Education

 

*Twomey Fosnot, C., & Dolk, M. (2001). Young

mathematicians at work. Portsmouth, NH:

Heinemann.

 

*Improving Mathematics Instruction for All: Professor Mahesh C. Sharma

Final Lesson

Title of Lesson: Froggy Read-aloud              Subject Area:  Literacy                    

Projected Lesson Length:   35 min            Grade Level:         First Grade             

Instructor: Katie Forand          Date(s) of Lesson: November 30, 2012                 

School:  Bakersfield Elem. School    Cooperating/Host Teacher: Mrs. G      

Description of Class and Classroom Climate:

     The classroom and school have a very strong sense of community in them. The school has about 160 students and the first grade class has ten students, four girls and six boys. The school is home to many low-income families and there are a great deal of students who receive free or reduced hot lunch. The children love being read to and really enjoy doing fun activities. It is a small class, that is sort of chatty, but that doesn’t stop them from getting their work done. They pretty much all seem to enjoy reading much more than any other subject.

Theoretical or Research Grounding:

Miller, D. (2002). Reading with meaning. Markham,

 Ontario: Pembroke Publishers Limited.
This lesson really goes along with many of the ideas from Debbie Miller’s Reading with Meaning. The lesson is essentially about proficient reading skills, which are really focused on in the book. Also, many of the ideas of discussing reading and having the children respond to reading is an idea that Miller uses a lot. The Froggy book allows students to make text-to-self and text-to-world connections about their experiences at doctors’ offices and overall thoughts about doctors in general. The whole Miller book really has to do with having a lesson based off a book and I really tried to use as many of these ideas as possible.

Guiding Question:
How can we use Froggy to connect to our lives and what we are learning?

Standards:
RF.1.1.
Content-Reading: Print Concepts: Skill- Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation)
This standard will be addressed while we are reading the book – looking at different sentences to see how they are formed and why they are formed that way. Also, I will be checking that they have the ideas of what a sentence needs to have when they write their journal entry. We will go over some of the main ideas of sentence structure before they start writing to remind them, but they should know most of it already. I will be looking for it and assessing it in their writing.
RL.1.1.
Content-Reading: Key Ideas and Details Skill- A. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text B. Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details
 This standard is the main point of the lesson. While reading, I will ask the students questions about what is going on in the story and their predictions. After the reading, we will discuss what happened, who the characters are, and where it took place. The students will also be given the opportunity to ask questions about the reading. They will then go to write about the story, either writing about what happened, their favorite character or how and why they connect to the story.

Content Learning Objective(s):
Know: The students will know more about how to respond to readings thoughtfully and how they are able to analyze information that is not directly given to them from a book.
Understand: The students will have a better understanding of what makes a good sentence, what the main idea, characters and setting of a book are. They will understand that these are things that are in every book and will understand how to get these ideas when reading on their own.
Do: Hopefully, they will pay more attention to these main ideas and look for them in every book that they read. Also, they should be able to form sentences that have all of the important features.

Procedure:
Anticipatory Set/Hook: I will begin the lesson by asking the students if any of them have ever gone to the doctor and what that experience was like for them. Once we discuss this for a few minutes, I will begin reading “Froggy goes to the doctor”.
Instructional Procedure: I will read the book aloud, stopping to ask questions and predictions as I read. After reading the book, we will discuss what happened in the book, who the characters were and where it took place. I will write the ideas on the smart board. After this, the students will go to write in their journals. They will either write what happened in the book, who their favorite character was, or about an experience that they had at the doctors.
Closure: To wrap up the lesson, I will have some of the students share what they wrote and we will discuss it. This will let the students see how the others think and can get ideas from each other.

Assessment Plan:
To assess the students I will use a checklist as well as notes on each. This will contain how they are able to understand the main ideas, characters and setting, as well as how well they are able use the correct sentence structure in their writing. This will be assessed based on their writing and my observations during the lesson.

Universal Instructional Considerations:
Multiple Means of Representation: I will be reading the book aloud, but after I will also allow the students to look through it if they need to. This may be necessary for some students to fully process the story. Also, even though we will be talking about the main ideas and characters, I will also write the student’s ideas on the board so they can reference them as needed.
Multiple Means of Expression: The students are being given an option of what they would like to write about, and even though they are all writing tasks, the three choices are all very different. This allows a student to use the prompt that they feel fits them best and that they can best express.
Multiple Means of Engagement: The students will have different options to be engaged in the lesson. I will be reading them a story, so they may really enjoy that. If not, they may like discussing the story and their own connections with it. Also they will get the chance to write something that they chose, from the open ended topics.

Differentiation Considerations:
The students in the class won’t need many adaptations for this particular lesson. I feel they will all be able to get the ideas from hearing the book and the discussion. However, there is one student who is still having a very difficult time writing. In this case, she would be able to write her thoughts down, but she wouldn’t be able to be assessed like everyone else, at least not on the sentence structure part. She is still working on basic spelling skills and the sentence formatting is not something she has even really started working with yet. However, she knows what she is writing, so I will have her read what she wrote to me or another adult and we can just transcribe it. She will still be able to be assessed on the topics that they should be able to get from the reading and discussion. This is the only adaptation that really needs to be made.

Resources/Materials:
Book – Froggy goes to the Doctor London, J. (2002). Froggy goes to the doctor. New York, NY: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0-439-56226-0
Smart board
Writing Paper
Pencils

Support Considerations:
I will have the other adults walking around and helping the students writing. They will be able to help them with spelling or just making sure they are on task. One will probably be with a specific student for most of the time at least, so that she can help transcribe what she is writing.

Review:
Overview: The lesson seemed to go pretty much as I planned it. The students were interested in the book, they found it funny, like I had thought they would. Also, they were able to answer questions about the book and ask questions. One of the characters in the book, named Dr. Mugwort, was meant to be a toad, but I didn’t tell the students this nor did I think that they would pick up on this. One of the questions that a student asked me was “Was Dr. Mugwort supposed to be a toad?” I asked him why he thought she might be a toad, and his response was that she was brown and ugly, but looked a little like Froggy, so she had to be a toad. He was absolutely right about her being a toad; I just didn’t think that was one of the questions that would be asked. The students went a little off topic with the journal writes, some of them wrote about why they liked the book, instead of what the book was about, but it still worked for them doing the response that I wanted, and they still thought about the book and what was going on in it. I think that the students did what I wanted them to do with the book, they got the ideas that they needed. I did feel that some of the topics should have been discussed a little more, but I didn’t have time for it. I would have liked to have had the students discuss the main ideas of the book as a class, but they all seemed to get it so I think that it worked out alright. Next time I did a lesson like this, I would make sure that I left enough time to discuss the information as a class a little more than I did. I included the text-to-text by using the Froggy book. I asked the students if they had ever read a Froggy book before, which some of them had and recognized the characters, making a text-to-text connection. Also, we discussed their own experience at a doctor’s office, making a text-to-self connection. We made a text-to-world connection when we made overall generalizations about the students going to the doctors and what happens at the doctors, in general. The students did really well with this lesson.
Analysis: The lesson was implemented in the way I expected it to be. My assessment was also done in the way I thought. The assessment was very informal; I evaluated their work as well as kept a checklist based on what I observed in the classroom. I think pretty much all the students got the ideas I wanted them to and they did very well with the lesson. They just did the work that I asked and did not complain, like I thought some of them would. Overall, I feel that the lesson went very well.
Reflection: I think this lesson helped me to understand how to use a book to teach students important ideas. The students really liked hearing the book and they enjoyed the journal writing, which they usually don’t. Also, I will be sure to try to read entertaining books, like this one was for the children. They talked about the book all afternoon, so they really did enjoy it and get a lot out of it. I’ve always heard that books are the best way to teach skills, but until this lesson I never truly understood why. I will definitely use books as often as possible to teach lessons, because the students really enjoyed it.

Exploration 2

As part of our course, we have explorations that we do, to understand terms and how they appear in classrooms. This is my exploration 2, showing their phonemic awareness skills.

Phonological Awareness
Most of the students are very good with phonological awareness. Many of them read aloud when doing any sort of reading, because that way they are able to sound out words aloud which is easiest for them. When they are reading, they are very good about sounding out words and they are very aware of the sounds that go along with each word. This is very apparent during their word study. They must sort the words twice and then state them out loud. When they are doing this, they sound out each part when they aren’t quite sure of what the word actually says. I have spent time reading with the students before and they really do understand the sounds that go along with words. I spent some time reading a book called “Adventures in Cartooning” with one of the students who is one of the better readers in the class and many of the words were difficult for him to read, however, the book was one he had a lot of interest in. He asked me to help him with some of the words that he didn’t know, and what I did was have him sound out the parts. He was able to sound out every part of the words and could figure out what the word said almost every time. However, there are some students who still have a difficult time with this. One student is able to sound the words out, but he cannot put the sounds together to form a word.  Mrs. G tries to spend extra time with him, helping him with this, because he has a very difficult time reading since he can’t sound the words out to figure out what it says.

Alphabet Knowledge

The students are all pretty good with alphabet knowledge. They are able to recognize words by the sounds that they hear. Also, when they are trying to spell a word, they are able to sound out what the word should sound like, which makes it so they know what letter goes along with the sounds. They have not really learned much about vowels yet, they know what vowels are but they haven’t learned their sounds or how to produce them yet. Mrs. G says that they will begin working on this soon. When they try to figure out how to spell something, Mrs. G has them sound it out and asks them what letters make those sounds. With the exception of the vowels, they usually get the word right. Also, the students have handwriting notebooks that they write in to help them with their writing of letters. The students all know all of their letters, but sometimes when they write them they write them a backwards. The notebooks show them how to write them, have them trace the letters, then have them write them on their own. Also, the students all have the alphabet written in their nametags and also on their reading workshop folders.

Letter Recognition

The students are all very good at letter recognition. This is the only topic that all the students really understand. It is clear that the students know this when they are writing, reading and doing their word sorts. They are very good about knowing the sounds that go along with the letters, even if sometimes they have a hard time putting the sounds together to form a word. When the students see a letter, or are trying to write one, they are very good about saying the sound out loud to associate it with the letter. They also do this when they are doing their word sorts. Many times, Mrs. G and the para-educator, Mrs. H, go around and have the students sound out their word sort words and the words that they are writing. The difference between this and the alphabet recognition skills is that the students are all able to recognize specific letters and the sounds that go along with them, but they are not all able to put those letters and sounds into words.

 Phonemic Awareness/Alphabetic Principle (Beginning Sounds)

The students have been spending a lot of time working on beginning sounds. Many of the students are doing word sorts that have to do with the beginning sounds and diagraphs. The students are learning the words by learning the beginning sounds. They are very good with the sounds and once they start to sound it out, or once someone starts to make the sound for them, they can almost always figure out the word. Also, the computer program they use, called starfall helps with their beginning sounds. It emphasizes the beginning sounds of words as they go through the alphabet, giving numerous words for every letter, to help them associate the sounds with the letters.

 Concept of Word

Mrs. G spends a lot of time working on words and their meanings out of context. She has them do word lists every week to test to see which ones they have picked up on and which ones are still difficult for them. She also gives them flashcards to practice these words on throughout the week. The website starfall also helps with concept of word a lot. One of the big things that starfall has the students do is sequence words into sentences after reading them the sentence, or just giving them the words. The students have to figure out how the words can go together and put them back into order, just given a list of them. They all seem to do very good with this topic as well. They have difficulty with some of the sight words, but they tend to do very well with the sequencing on starfall. I have noticed that the activities that they do using starfall actually help them to do a lot better, I’m not sure why, but it definitely is a trend that they do better with starfall.

 Concept Knowledge

The students work on concept knowledge with their word sorts. Many of them are doing beginning sound and diagraph word sorts, which give a sound and then only have pictures that correlate. They must figure out all of the pictures and put them in the correct category, under whichever beginning sound it has. They are categorizing by similar sounds and they are able to group them pretty well. Some students are at a different stage, so they use pictures in a little bit of a different way. Some are sorting by different vowel word families, so they have a card with a word on it, then have to match it up with the corresponding picture. They are still categorizing them, but it is more like matching than actually using the pictures to make the categories. The students have a more difficult time with these when they first get them, and it takes them longer to sort, but by the end of the week they are very good with sorting them and understanding where each picture is supposed to go.

Ganske’s Word Journey’s Connections to this Exploration

Page 79 – “Picture sorting is most appropriate for students at the emergent, letter name, and early within word pattern stages” – the first graders are still getting introduced to many of these phonological awareness ideas and they are at the beginning stages of them. Mrs. G tries to give them pictures a lot, which makes sense because that is what they can understand best.

 Page 83 – There is a chart showing possible rotations for groups which looks a lot like a chart that Mrs. G has in her room to show the students where they are supposed to be during reading workshop time.

 Page 117 – These sorts look very much like the sorts that the students are doing. I realize that probably all sorts look similar, but looking at these, it reminds me of the first graders sorts, which is really the foundation for their learning of phonological awareness.

 

Since the students are still learning the basics of these skills, not a lot of the things in Word Journey’s relates, but I can see where a lot could relate later on. 

How do children become readers and writers?

Children use many skills to become readers and writers. They are taught these skills throughout their life, they are not just born with them. Debbie Miller's book "Reading with Meaning" explains many of these skills that teachers are responsible for teaching children how to read and write. During our time in Instruction Dynamics 1, we have been learning, through readings and classroom observations.  Below, I have added some of my work from the course so far to show how I have learned how to help children become readers and writers.

Some work from Debbie Miller's "Reading with Meaning"

§ “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 personal stamp on it in some way.” (55)

­ Students know if something is real or not, and if you are trying to teach them something that you aren’t really connecting to they will know that. If, as the teacher, you are modeling the skills in a way that you are not excited about the readings and excited about using the skills, then they will not learn how to connect and be excited, because they will not have seen that. Being authentic when teaching students is very important and it the only way that they will fully understand it, also, it helps to teach them about choice and that not every book will be one that they like, which is important to learn early.

­ “Additionally, because the events in the narrative were familiar to the readers, they were more readily able to keep the meanings intact in their retellings. In contrast, a lack of well-developed schema for expository structures –which may vary internally more than stories – and a lack of background related to the text content, may have led students astray in their retellings.”(Stephen Kucer, Going beyond the author: what retellings tell us about comprehending narrative and expository texts, p.6) By allowing students to use books that are familiar to them, they will be able to do better work. They have already built a schema for these works, so they can build on that rather than having to make a new schema. This is why it is always important to have choices, so that students can make choices that they are interested in and already have a schema in and will be able to do better.

­ Growing up, I had the reading program SFA for all of my elementary school years. I hated it, and I believe that some of the reasons that I hated were that the teachers hated it and that there was no choice. All of the teachers that I had made it very clear that they didn’t like SFA while teaching it. It was never fun and it took up almost half of our school day.  Being such a long period of time, in order to keep attention, it should have been fun, but it wasn’t. The teacher’s feelings toward SFA definitely were noticed and reflected by how us students felt. Also, we always had to read the same books. The program didn’t take this idea that what is perfect for someone to connect to isn’t perfect for everyone to connect to. It is really important to have this idea in every subject of school, because I didn’t have it for SFA and I hated reading during those years. I went for probably four years never reading books I didn’t have to for school because I didn’t like what SFA was teaching and because of that I didn’t like reading.

 

§ “But I’ve learned it’s up to me to teach through these kinds of connections. Now I know it’s up to me to gently redirect the children’s tangential responses right away before they become the norm.” (59)

­ Many connections are made because students get excited about something or in their minds, something connects, but it really doesn’t. These connections aren’t bad, because it means that the students are listening and having fun with the reading. However, at some point they need to move on from these fun connections and begin to make meaningful ones. That is what is important to teach them. It’s not that no connection can be fun, it’s simply that some connections need to be deeper, which can be taught through modeling how to do this.

­ “Although she did not elaborate on her thinking in the detail Nadia did, Maleeka’s second response is clearly more cohesive than her first” (Sunday Cummins & Cate Stallmeyer-Gerard, Teaching for Synthesis of Informational Texts with Read-Alouds, p. 9) It is not only important to show how to make connections, but also to teach how to make the connections better each time they do them. When teaching, you shouldn’t be comparing to other students to see if someone is doing it right, you should be comparing them to themselves. It is important to make all students improve based on their past work, not other students past work.

­ When I’m observing in the first grade classroom, I notice that the students do make a lot of connections when reading, but most of them aren’t very meaningful. I also notice that the teacher, Mrs. Gervais allows one or two of these connections, which usually are about a family member or a toy, then she stops them. I noticed that she will then give one of her connections, before allowing new connections from the students, which after hearing hers are usually more related to the book. It is interesting to see how quickly the ideas the kids had can transform into much deeper thoughts after seeing what Mrs. Gervais says. It really shows how effective modeling is and that she is trying to get them to wean away from the meaningless connections.

 

§ “I’ve learned that children love to grapple with complex social and moral issues, and they often have clearer heads than some grown-ups I know! Sometimes I search for just the right book to help launch the discussion, other times a read-aloud will spark a discussion about something I hadn’t planned.” (66)

­ Students usually have a lot going on in their lives and as a teacher, you can’t shy away from the things they are dealing with. It is important to encourage them to think about what is going on in their lives and how they might be able to help get through difficult situations. Students need to be shown that they aren’t the only ones dealing with these problems and that they can get help if they are having problems.  If they aren’t having any serious problems now, it is also important to let them know that everything in the world is not always easy and that they will have to deal with difficult things.

­ “Teachers and schools tend to mistake good behavior for good character. What they prize is docility, suggestibility; the child who will do what he is told; or even better, the child who will do what is wanted without even having to be told. They value most in children what children least value in themselves. Small wonder that their effort to build character is such a failure; they don't know it when they see it.” (John Holt, How Children Fail) This really is what I feel is happening in schools. Teachers expect that students understand something and are able to relate to real world scenarios, but really no one has ever taught them how to do this. It is important for teachers to actually teach character and recognize it in students. Children need to be taught that some things in the world aren’t great and how they handle it and themselves is really important, and that’s where the teachers should come in.

­ I find that when I’m around children, I am always trying to shield them from knowing bad things that can happen, but the truth is that some of them probably already know about these bad things and they probably have to deal with some of them. When we think of kids, we think how they are innocent and we want them to hold onto that, but if we taught them that bad things can happen earlier, they would understand them better and may not be so confused about what is right or wrong. Kids that never know about anything that can happen in the world and are very sheltered tend to get more out of control than kids whose parents and teachers have explained to them how they can deal with situations. It is important for the kids to learn about these things early on and books are a great way to introduce some of the topics without being to traumatizing to the children.   § “Setting the tone for the workshop and establishing its expectations and procedures.” (p. 26) ­ One of the most important things to do when you become a teacher is set the tone for the rest of the year. The first few weeks are crucial to show your students how your class will run and what type of teacher you will be. It is important to start all activities right away so that students can use this time to get used to them. ­ “Though the workshop model is undeniably powerful and effective, implementing it can be a real challenge for teachers.” (Teaching the Best Practice Way, Harvey Daniels & Marilyn Bizar, p. 156) It is important for teachers to tell the expectations up front so that students know how behave and what is expected. By doing this, it will be easier to implement an activity that is usually hard.   § “Learning to read should be a joyful experience.” (p. 26) ­ Reading is supposed to be a fun activity as well as something that we have to do in our everyday lives. The way that you learn to read is important because that usually determines if you like reading or not. If you learn in a fun way that really makes reading enjoyable then most likely that will stick with you longer than bad learning experiences with reading. ­ This reminds me of the Sweet Words articles that we read in class. Basically, all learning should be fun, just like the articles state and playful learning will make it much easier for children to understand. By allowing joy into different aspects of learning then the students will probably understand more.   § “Be genuine. Laugh. Love. Be patient.” (p. 26) ­ Being a teacher is so much more than just providing curriculum to children. You are there to provide support and care for the students as well. It is important to teach, but to also have fun and make the classroom an enjoyable place. ­ This also reminds me the Sweet Words articles. It is important to have a positive attitude in your class and allow playful, fun times. Also just being kind is very important, because some students don’t have that in their life. They need an adult to be positive in their lives.     § “I try to vary genre, author, format, and style and think about books this particular group of kids can easily connect with or what might pique their interest.” (p. 28) ­ It is very important to make reading interesting to all students and one way to do this is to switch up the type of books that are read. By doing this, the children get exposed to new things and can determine for themselves what kinds of books interest them and therefore, what kind they would like to read on their own. ­ “We are recognizing that all students are distinctive and different in a variety of ways.” (Teaching the Best Practice Way, Harvey Daniels and Marilyn Bizar, p.29) All children are different in every way. It’s important for this to be recognized and accepted while deciding what to teach. Everyone deserves to have things that interest them while in school and it is important to take that into consideration.   § “Reading aloud is one of the most important things I do.” (p.29) ­ Reading aloud is an important step in teaching children literacy skills. Reading aloud allows even children who are not good at reading to understand the book and the ideas in it.  It also allows the teacher to model the behavior it takes to become a proficient reader, which will help all the students to become better readers. ­ This reminds me of the section “Modeling good listening and not interrupting.” (Teaching Children to Care, Ruth Sidney Charney, p. 109) By reading aloud, you are showing the kids the way to be a proficient reader as well as teaching them how they should behave while someone is reading to them. It’s teaching them reading skills and listening skills and they will benefit from reading aloud much more than silent reading. § “Once again, I think about what I want for kids in March, April, and May, and set about getting them there.” (p.37) ­ Many times, the beginning of the year is spent teaching behavior and expectations. While this does take up time away from teaching the curriculum required, in the long run it will help. Taking a few weeks to get the students so they know what is expected will be much better than having to take time every day to remind of correct behavior. Overall, it takes less time to get expectations understood early than trying to go right into the curriculum. ­ “Learning to be more decent and to build caring communities is hardly a waste of time.” (Teaching Children to Care, Ruth Sidney Charney, p.18) It is very important for teachers to take the time to teach children what is expected from them, they don’t just know these things. These are skills that are necessary for living in society today and all students need to understand them. Students need to understand how they need to behave, and enough time needs to be given so that they can fully understand it before the actual curriculum starts.   § “It’s about tone, it’s about respect, and it’s part of the language we use as we live and learn together for six-and-a-half hours every day.” (p.38) ­ When you are with the same people every day, it is easy to get annoyed with each other. However, for a classroom, or any community, to run smoothly, there must be respect between everyone. By having respect, the class will run much smoother and everyone will feel appreciated and safe in the classroom. ­ “It works well to overtly tell students you expect them to respect each other, to respect us teachers, and to respect themselves.” (Positive Classroom Management, Robert Di Giulio, p.38) Respect is very important for classrooms and society in general to run smoothly. As teachers, it is important to teach these skills to children so that they grow up being polite and respectful to everyone.    And some work from my classroom observations:   Mrs. G’s’ class has mostly good readers, however there are a few who have a very difficult time. The students that are good readers don’t necessarily read the book word for word. I notice that a lot of times they will leave out a word, or use a synonym instead of the actual word. This, to me shows that they are looking for the story to actually make sense and predicting what will come next, rather than just reading word by word and not comprehending it. Also, when reading as a class a lot of the students who are the better readers are the ones who ask questions about what words mean and what might happen next. The students who have a difficult time reading independently tend to sit quietly during class readings. The students who are not as good of readers usually do not try to figure out the meanings of words, they simply want to finish the reading. They are not able to decipher the words from the sounds they make. When they try to sound out the words, they can correctly sound out the parts, but are unable to put it back together. I find that many of them make up sentences in their heads about what the pages might say, based on the pictures, rather than actually trying to read the sentences. This however only confuses them when you go back to the actual sentence to help them read. I will point to a word and ask what it says and they will say one of the words that they had said in their made-up sentence rather than try to read the word. There are really only three students who seem like they are having a hard time with reading, and Mrs. G does tend to work with them more often, or have me or the para-educator Mrs. H work with them more often. She does work with all the students, but I have noticed she always goes back over to one of these three. It is clear that she is trying to get them to understand how to comprehend the readings and be able to make predictions rather than just reading because they have to. I have also noticed that the students who do not have as much trouble reading are usually done their reading before the other students because they are able to use their skills to comprehend it faster. It is interesting that even after being in the class only a few times, it is pretty easy to see the students who are good readers and the students who have a more difficult time.   The readings and observations are really teaching how to help students become readers and writers, because without strong teachers, they won't be able to be.