Lets sit and read…or not?

I have been challenged to sit and read. I needed to sit alone, with no computer, cell phone, computer or people. I conducted this challenge, in the beginning, in my dorm, which is not the ideal place for any type of work. My roommate was suppose to be out until 9 p.m. and it was 7 p.m. My thinking was this would be a great time; I will sit in my bed and read for 45 minutes. But that was not the case; I got 15 minutes in before my neighbor knocked on my door and had drama that she had to tell me about. As she exited my roommate came back, so I moved to the lobby. I left everything in my room but was interrupted by girls that needed to have a meeting in the room. In frustration, I gave up thinking fall break would be the perfect time.

On fall break I once again tried to read for as long as I could without any technology around. I sat on the back porch in the wonderful sunny weather, incredibly ideal for reading, but found someone needed something every few minutes. I lasted at the most 20 minutes. I thought this was an o.k. amount of time but I still need improvement. My problem is not that I feel the need to do something else but rather my current living conditions do not allow me much time alone.

iPoetry

Persona Poetry can encompass many different content areas as well as grade levels. Personally I believe I am poems would be a great way to have children introduce themselves at the beginning of a school year. I am poems (when using the template) are very detailed and dictate to the students what to write but also allows their own opinions. I am poems also require little background knowledge of poetry therefore allowing them to complete the task with little emersion. As you move on from the template I am poems about a child emersion in poetry is very important. Like many, if not all, the strategies we have learned children must be marinated in the concept before we ask them to create on their own (this is one thing I will not forget from this class J). When students are allowed to become the researchers of the information, become poets, artists, and, publishers, they truly grasp the information. They explore the information and they are publishing it for others to see; this is when children can truly learn. The teacher or worksheet is not the dictator of the information but rather the teacher is seen as the guide of the student explorers.

For my IDP my class is going to create an I am poem about the Tropical Rain Forest. All the students will be involved in creating it, they must do the research and they are going to present to their kindergarten book buddies all the really cool facts they learned about the Tropical Rain Forest. We will be conducting the poem as a class because they will have little exposure to poetry at this point and guided practice is needed. Overall Ipoetry can be simply about one student or integrated into every subject if children are marinated correctly!

Lets add some science!

**this would work best in chart form**

Using Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter written by Richard Platt and illustrated by Chris Riddell

• How do the pirates describe a seal? What do they believe a seal is?

Lets Expand our knowledge!

Using this website  http://library.thinkquest.org/6043/seals.htm answer the following questions

• How do they describe a seal?
• Where do seals live?
• Who are they hunted by?

Lets Expand our knowledge some more!

Using this website http://www.neaq.org/animals_and_exhibits/animals/harbor_seals/index.php answer the following questions

• How do they describe a seal?
• Where do seals live?
• Who are they hunted by?
• List two other facts about seals.

North Carolina Standard Course of Study for 4th grade science

Competency Goal 1: The learner will make observations and conduct investigations to build an understanding of animal behavior and adaptation. Objectives

1.01 Observe and describe how all living and nonliving things affect the life of a particular animal including:

• Other animals.
• Plants.
• Weather.
• Climate.

1.02 Observe and record how animals of the same kind differ in some of their characteristics and discuss possible advantages and disadvantages of this variation.

1.03 Observe and discuss how behaviors and body structures help animals survive in a particular habitat.

Reciprocal Teaching and Discussion Director

The Reciprocal Teaching and Discussion Director are two articles that introduce good reading strategies if performed and taught effectively. They are similar and different in many ways. Both strategies entail getting children involved in critically thinking about the readings they are responsible for. The strategies promote children asking questions about material they may not understand completely and rely on classmates for a greater understanding. Both strategies are aimed at encouraging children to become active learners. Most importantly both lessons require a successful launch process to be effective.

One of the main differences is one strategy puts more emphasis on one child. When using the discussion director strategy one child is head of the whole group discussion. If the child does not understand the readings, directions, or does not work well with his or her group minimal learning will be achieved. On the opposite side of this argument, discussion director could be very effective if you have a child that needs a sense of being a leader. I believe if the teacher explains this as a serious role, which encompasses a lot of responsibility, and is also a privilege students will truly flourish. Reciprocal teaching involves every student with a role and does not allow for a student to just sit around and listen. All children must add to the conversion at some point. Children may read their material more effectively if they know that they will be in a reciprocal teaching group because they are unaware of the role they may have to fill.

With all strategies teachers use in the classroom it is important to model what you want your students to be doing, let them learn about the components before sending them off on their own, and engaging them are all key for successful learning.

Vocabulary

A major theme I noticed that was stressed in these articles is that vocabulary instruction is very important in a classroom. Teachers cannot perform any type of instruction with vocabulary; the instruction must be one that is specific and thoughtful. Students that are struggling all the way up to the most excelled student in the class needs to know the strategies involved in understanding vocabulary.

            Kieffer and Lesaux explain how important vocabulary is when they state, “vocabulary and reading comprehension have a reciprocal relationship-as greater the vocabulary leads to greater comprehension, better comprehension also leads to learning more vocabulary words…” For example, in the Multi text unit about pirates, if students do not know about the strategies of understanding a word meaning (i.e. looking within text, looking out of text, using root words, etc.) or teachers are not supporting a student, the student will have a very low comprehension level. When reading What If you met a Pirate and Pirate Diary many new vocabulary terms are introduced that require a student to understand how to understand its meaning.

A few important points from Breaking Down Words tp Build Meaning: Morphology, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension in the Urban Classroom:

• knowing high- frequency root words is very important
• vocabulary must be learned through context
• volume of a students reading and vocabulary knowledge have a strong correlation
• understanding morphology is important in a students reading comprehension
• have a word wall in your classroom  

Please don’t make me go to Social Studies.

It was fifth grade and I was not reading on a fifth grade reading level but my teacher was making me. We went around the room each reading a paragraph to the class from our social studies textbooks. I could hardly read the text to myself let alone read it out loud, sitting next to the cutest, smartest boy in the class. I would sit there trying to count the students and the paragraphs to see what I might have to read. Anxiety ran wild within me and comprehension was out of the question. I HATED reading out loud which lead me to hate reading.

After reading these articles and conducting reading assessments on children I really wish my teacher would have taken the time to integrate lessons that look liked a mulitext unit. Reading self-esteem is very important and knowing your student’s ability is even more important. Planning these units is going to take a lot of time and resources but the outcomes will greatly improve student reading. Students will all be learning the same subjects but just reading at different levels. They will be working with children on their level but can engage in classroom activities because all students are comprehending similar material.

A “wow” moment happened to me while reading this article that I feel like noting. The conclusion of the article put into words what I believe but just did not know. The way Betts (1946) wrote about seeing the differences in children is exactly what I believe in. “…the dilemma in modern education has been brought about by a failure to admit differences by the treating of all children alike.” No two students are alike. As educators we need to have the passion to truly know our students ability and catered towards differences even in an education system that wants all students to be on the same page, at the same time, and with %100 comprehension. This is not the case and will never be the case but we can help students if we know their ability and provide them with quality resources.

It makes me smile knowing that I now have quality resources! My students will never feel the way I did!

Shared Reading!

Shared Readings: Modeling Comprehension, Vocabulary, Text Structure, and Text Features for Older Readers is a very important article about the categories involved in shared reading. The most important concept I took away from this article is we must model our own thinking with children no matter what the concept is.

Important points I also learned from the article:

• Students must be able to see the text and follow along with the teacher.
• Teachers must practice before they perform before the classroom.
• Teachers must be encouraging.
• Show children how to find the meaning of vocabulary using inside the text sources and outside the text sources.
• “Skip it” is a terrible thing to say to students unless you are with them in a group and can guide them later in their thinking.
• Shared reading should be a daily occurrence.
• Teachers should know why they pick a certain piece of text.
• Modeling thinking is very important and challenging.

Pirates Wanted!

After reading Internet Workshop and Blog Publishing, A Twin-Text Unit of Study and A Twin-Text Unit of Study I am truly amazed how much you can incorporate into your unit plans. While reading I noticed that I did not consider any of the activities as simple busy work. All the activities not only had meaning but allowed the students to conduct their own learning with some guidelines from the teacher. In many of the classrooms that I have been in I have noticed a lot of busy work; read this book or passage and answer the questions that usually contained one correct answer. In these articles one defiant correct answer is not the case.

Internet Workshop and Blog Publishing really emphasized how important and helpful using blogs in the classroom can be. I have been really apprehensive about using blogs in my classroom because I am not completely comfortable with them. Blogs can be very time-consuming and many times teachers just do not have enough hours in the day. We have learned a lot about the different features of blogs and how they can be used but to actually read and see how they were used in a unit gave me a better understanding on just how helpful they can be. The article really depicted that blogs can take a lot of time but the student’s enjoyment and learning will be well worth the time spent. Calling them authors, poets and publishing their work so others can see is truly a motivator that comes from within your student. The teacher will not have to be so concerned about students paying attention or staying on track because the students will want their best work on the blog for all to see!

The graphic organizers used in articles were something that I really enjoyed. As I said before I do not enjoy seeing the one answer is right, lower level cognitive thinking questions because they do not engage the student in his or her learning. The organizers allow for students to have different correct information that allows discussion over answers. It allows them to compare with other students and defend an answer that they may believe is true.

I have noticed that children love to tell about their experiences. If students do not have any time during the day to express themselves because they are so involved in answering the question correctly as soon as they see a chance the students want to tell a story that gets the whole class off topic. I believe if this type of learning the articles are referring to (i.e. discussion, publishing work to blogs, questions that allow for many types of opinions and answers) was used in more classrooms students would not get so off topic. Not only would students learn something new it would be something they would remember because they did the research, they did the learning, and all the teacher did was guide them in certain directions! Just imagine that vastness of learning!

AAAHHH Poetry!

“Write an entry about poetry.” No,no, no, anything but please! So here is my first attempt since…oh well…maybe 8th or 9th grade! I get a lot of anxiety thinking about people reading my work but part of being a teacher is throwing yourself out there!

Attempt one at evolving into a poet!

Leaking Tub

L

E

A

K

I

N

G

tub, oh what a waste of water.

Why can’t you just take a b    r     e    a   k    ?

That water could be in a majestic lake.

Maybe the pipe has a b   r    e    a   k or someone made a mistake?

Plumber please come fix this

L

E

A

K

I

N

G

tub!

After reading the article and books my main thought was, “oh poetry does not have to rhyme…what? That is all they ever taught me in school.” In my classroom I want to expose children to all types of poetry and not just rhyming poetry. I feel as though students become scared of poetry because they do not feel like they can rhyme. Love That Dog and Sharon Creech are helping to inspire me; what a truly amazing book on many levels!

My first attempt at a minilesson!

Click if you would like to know more about my minilesson!

Writing Minilesson