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.