I really enjoyed ready Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodriggo Corral. Although it was mostly a picture book, it was made for an older audience. I never realized how much pictures tell a story. Chopsticks was about a young pianist that lost her mother in a motorcycle accident. Her father was her piano teacher and had her travel all over the world to share her talents. At a young age she falls in love with a boy who lived on the same street. Her father disapproved of their relationship and forced her into more shows to keep her away. During her tour, she would "slip" and play the song Chopsticks. Chopsticks was the song that reminded her of the boy back home. The couple continued to talk to each other while she was on tour through IM and mail. She would also recieve multiple paintings in the mail. Their love grew very strong and eventually both of them snapped. The boy got expelled from schol and she had to go to a school to deal with her mental break-downs.
As I was reading this story I often felt like I had to go back and read/look at the previous pages at times. I realized there were details from the pictures that I had not noticed that were important for the storyline. It would not surprise me if there are things brought up in class that I had not noticed while reading. I'm excited to hear what my classmates got out of the story and see if there's a deeper meaning to the book than what I saw.
One thing that I would like to figure it out from the story is the meaning behind the octopus. Throughout the book there were several pictures of an octopus and I'm not really sure what it symbolizes.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Blog 6
In both the Grave's book and the article we had to read this week I learned about the importance of fluency. Fluency is really amazing when we consider our brain has a hard time attending to one thing at a time. When we read fluently we are recognizing words as well as reading with reading with the proper phrasing, intonation, and stress. Not only are we reading the words off the page but we are also processing the words and comprehending them. While reading fluently we are putting our brain to a lot of work!
Since our brains are bad at multitasking we must train ourselves to do all of these things automatically. In order to train our brains both readings stressed the importance of modeling and repetition. A teacher is responsible for modeling what fluent reading looks like and a student will read the passage after trying to mirror the teacher. It may take the student several times to develop fluency for a certain passage.
I really like the Poetry Academy strategy to promote fluency. In the Poetry Academy the teacher would pick a poem for the students to read out in the hall (for 5-10 minutes) with an aide/volunteer. The poems were funny or entertaining to keep students' interests. The volunteer would start by modeling how the poem should be read and then the student would read with the volunteer. After that the student would read the poem independently aloud. While the student read indpendently the volunteer would provide assistance and praise. Then the student would take the poem home and read it to as many people as they could and would have those people sign off verifying they heard the poem. The following week the student would meet with the volunteer again and read the poem one more time. The process would then restart. At the end of the year the class would have a party where they would all read aloud their favorite poems. Parents were encouraged to attend and snacks were provided. I like this program because it takes very little time out of the classroom and shows great improvements in the students' reading abilities. I also like that it gets the family involved and promotes repetition.
After reading this chapter I have one main question...
When is it appropriate to "force" a student to read aloud? In the readings I learned that having round robin type reading in your class could be detrimental to some students. Struggling readers do not want to read in front of the entire class and show that they are struggling. But I feel like reading aloud in front of people is inevitable. A student needs to learn to be able to do this. How would you know the right time to have a student do this? I would never want to embarass a student, however, I think it is important that they learn to speak/read in front of others.
Since our brains are bad at multitasking we must train ourselves to do all of these things automatically. In order to train our brains both readings stressed the importance of modeling and repetition. A teacher is responsible for modeling what fluent reading looks like and a student will read the passage after trying to mirror the teacher. It may take the student several times to develop fluency for a certain passage.
I really like the Poetry Academy strategy to promote fluency. In the Poetry Academy the teacher would pick a poem for the students to read out in the hall (for 5-10 minutes) with an aide/volunteer. The poems were funny or entertaining to keep students' interests. The volunteer would start by modeling how the poem should be read and then the student would read with the volunteer. After that the student would read the poem independently aloud. While the student read indpendently the volunteer would provide assistance and praise. Then the student would take the poem home and read it to as many people as they could and would have those people sign off verifying they heard the poem. The following week the student would meet with the volunteer again and read the poem one more time. The process would then restart. At the end of the year the class would have a party where they would all read aloud their favorite poems. Parents were encouraged to attend and snacks were provided. I like this program because it takes very little time out of the classroom and shows great improvements in the students' reading abilities. I also like that it gets the family involved and promotes repetition.
After reading this chapter I have one main question...
When is it appropriate to "force" a student to read aloud? In the readings I learned that having round robin type reading in your class could be detrimental to some students. Struggling readers do not want to read in front of the entire class and show that they are struggling. But I feel like reading aloud in front of people is inevitable. A student needs to learn to be able to do this. How would you know the right time to have a student do this? I would never want to embarass a student, however, I think it is important that they learn to speak/read in front of others.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Blog 5
I thought this week's readings were very insightful, particularily Chapter 4 from Creating Literacy Rich School for Adolescents. I am doing my FEEP course this semester and I have seen many of the issues Chapter 4 addresses in my classroom. My FEEP classroom is a 7th and 8th grade resource Math and Language Arts. Just like some of the students the book talked about, the students in my classroom attend regular classes for the the majority of their day. However, most (if not all) of the students are reading around a 2nd grade level or below. While in this class I often get discouraged and wonder if these students will ever learn to read. I also question how they are able to comprehend the lessons in a regular classroom when they are struggling with simple passages. I have always considered teaching high school students, but seeing the students struggle makes me believe I should teach a younger age so I can intervene and help students start/stay on track. Luckily this chapter has given me more confidence in teaching older children. This chapter has helped me see that just because the students are behind does not mean that they are hopeless.
In this chapter I learned many different strategies to help struggling students. If caught at an early enough age, I believe RTI can be very beneficial for students. By using RTI we can try multiple settings to implement interventions and catch struggling learners early. It also eliminates Special Education for some students; some students may not need to be in Special Ed, rather they just need a little more instruction (or attention) in a couple of areas. Another strategy I learned from this book is to utilize reading and students interests rather than using textbook programs. By developing lessons around a student's interest we are able to get them more engaged. Also, textbook programs focus on one skill at a time. When we focus on one skill at a time, students are not focusing as much on the comprehension of the story. If we use stories and have students use different skills as they read they are getting much more practice. The final strategy I learned in this chapter is to do a lot of small group activities. By doing this, students are able to recieve more attention and are focusing on the area they are struggling in. If a teacher constantly teaches to the whole class they are not addressing the different levels of their students.
After reading this chapter I find myself asking...
How can we show teachers that textbook programs are not always as successful as we would imagine? Is there a way to influence teachers to create their own lessons around readings rather than a program?
I would like to see if these strategies helped the students my FEEP class. Once again I am so glad I read this chapter! It definitely gave me some encouragement and makes me want to go out and help teach struggling readers to read!
In this chapter I learned many different strategies to help struggling students. If caught at an early enough age, I believe RTI can be very beneficial for students. By using RTI we can try multiple settings to implement interventions and catch struggling learners early. It also eliminates Special Education for some students; some students may not need to be in Special Ed, rather they just need a little more instruction (or attention) in a couple of areas. Another strategy I learned from this book is to utilize reading and students interests rather than using textbook programs. By developing lessons around a student's interest we are able to get them more engaged. Also, textbook programs focus on one skill at a time. When we focus on one skill at a time, students are not focusing as much on the comprehension of the story. If we use stories and have students use different skills as they read they are getting much more practice. The final strategy I learned in this chapter is to do a lot of small group activities. By doing this, students are able to recieve more attention and are focusing on the area they are struggling in. If a teacher constantly teaches to the whole class they are not addressing the different levels of their students.
After reading this chapter I find myself asking...
How can we show teachers that textbook programs are not always as successful as we would imagine? Is there a way to influence teachers to create their own lessons around readings rather than a program?
I would like to see if these strategies helped the students my FEEP class. Once again I am so glad I read this chapter! It definitely gave me some encouragement and makes me want to go out and help teach struggling readers to read!
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Blog 4
While reading chapter 2, in Creating Literacy-Rich Schools for Adolescents, I was amazed to learn about the progress of a freshman in high school named Abdurashid. Abdurashid came to the United States from Ethiopia in the 9th grade. He spoke 4 different languages, none of them were English. By his senior year, Abdurashid was passing AP exams (including English) and was accepted into the University of CA at San Diego to study premedicine. In less than 4 years Abdurashid was able to not only learn the English language, but to completely flourish in America.
I am so glad I read this chapter because it showed me that things like these are completely accomplishable if we approach them in an effective way. This chapter gave me great insight into creating a rich literacy environment in my classroom. I plan to use many, if not all, of the techniques I learned in this chapter. I think these techniques will especially be beneficial for me working with Special Education students. They, like Abdurashid, will have struggles learning English literacy, but with the proper instruction we can make big strides.
One of the techniques, given by the book, is to have all classes use the same notes template. I can see this being beneficial in so many ways. Notes are very important for students to identify the main ideas/topics. If teachers teach the students an effective template, and use it across all classes, students will be able to take more efficient notes and keep them organized. I often had teachers try to teach us how to use Cornell Notes in school, but none of them enforced them. Personally, I think enforcing good notes will definitely help students down the road. In college, sitting in meetings, etc. it is important to be able to take notes AND be able to go back and understand them. If schools taught students a schoolwide notetaking system, students could better prepare for the future...tests, jobs, etc.
Another technique I see as being beneficial is to have beginning class work; at my high school we called this bell work. Everyday students would come into EVERY class and there would be a prompt/assignment on the board. This assignment took no longer than 10 minutes, but allowed students to introduce themselves with the topic of the day or refresh on yesterday's topic. Then after bell work the teachers would extend on the lesson. The book also noted that it is a good idea to have some form of exit slip at the end of the day. This gives students reflextion time on the material they learned that day. Both of these techniques are very beneficial because it is promoting repetition of the material. It is also adding reading/writing into every subject! The book gave so many great activities that teachers can use for these exercises: vocabulary instruction, graphic organizers, anticipatory guides...
This chapter has given me so many great ideas to promote literacy in my classroom. By using the different techniques in the book I am hitting 2 birds with one stone. My students will be practicing their literacy AND the subject matter I am teaching. I truly believe if teachers use some of these techniques we may see more students flourish like Abdurashid did!
After I read this chapter I came up with one main question...
1. How does a student like Abdurashid pick up so quickly on a foreign language, yet others struggle to become literate in one?
I am so glad I read this chapter because it showed me that things like these are completely accomplishable if we approach them in an effective way. This chapter gave me great insight into creating a rich literacy environment in my classroom. I plan to use many, if not all, of the techniques I learned in this chapter. I think these techniques will especially be beneficial for me working with Special Education students. They, like Abdurashid, will have struggles learning English literacy, but with the proper instruction we can make big strides.
One of the techniques, given by the book, is to have all classes use the same notes template. I can see this being beneficial in so many ways. Notes are very important for students to identify the main ideas/topics. If teachers teach the students an effective template, and use it across all classes, students will be able to take more efficient notes and keep them organized. I often had teachers try to teach us how to use Cornell Notes in school, but none of them enforced them. Personally, I think enforcing good notes will definitely help students down the road. In college, sitting in meetings, etc. it is important to be able to take notes AND be able to go back and understand them. If schools taught students a schoolwide notetaking system, students could better prepare for the future...tests, jobs, etc.
Another technique I see as being beneficial is to have beginning class work; at my high school we called this bell work. Everyday students would come into EVERY class and there would be a prompt/assignment on the board. This assignment took no longer than 10 minutes, but allowed students to introduce themselves with the topic of the day or refresh on yesterday's topic. Then after bell work the teachers would extend on the lesson. The book also noted that it is a good idea to have some form of exit slip at the end of the day. This gives students reflextion time on the material they learned that day. Both of these techniques are very beneficial because it is promoting repetition of the material. It is also adding reading/writing into every subject! The book gave so many great activities that teachers can use for these exercises: vocabulary instruction, graphic organizers, anticipatory guides...
This chapter has given me so many great ideas to promote literacy in my classroom. By using the different techniques in the book I am hitting 2 birds with one stone. My students will be practicing their literacy AND the subject matter I am teaching. I truly believe if teachers use some of these techniques we may see more students flourish like Abdurashid did!
After I read this chapter I came up with one main question...
1. How does a student like Abdurashid pick up so quickly on a foreign language, yet others struggle to become literate in one?
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