This is in response to Monteleone’s post on chapter 5 about how reading aloud is not as important or beneficial for students as reading silently. I totally agree that when students read aloud in class they are focusing much less on the meaning and thinking portion of the task compared to pronunciation and not embarrassing themselves. My middle school kids sometimes even try to read too quickly, which I think is them trying to show off in front of others about how good of a reader they think they are. However, I do think that it does have some advantages. I think that it teaches them to speak clearly and, when taught correctly, teaches them presentation skills.
My second response is to O’Brien’s post on how all primary teachers should be instructing their students on the conventions of written language. Even in middle and high school I see students not fully understanding how a book or other type of text is laid out, so starting early on that would be beneficial. I can easily recall students not being able to figure out an encyclopedia, and it scares me! But I really like how primary teachers are using assessments like the one listed in the book, which is similar to the one you said you use, to begin the instruction. It’s like you are establishing the basic “rules” for reading. Thanks!
My response is to Kobrien- I agree with the comment that young children who watch TV or go out to eat with their families begin to read signs based on distinctive features like the M in McDonalds. I also commented on this. It is funny because last Wednesday we had parent teacher conferences. I work in a multi age Montessori class(3-6 year olds). Many parents had asked what can we do with our children and one thing we suggested was doing a letter hunt game on the way to or from school, seeing how many students have a long drive in.
This response is to MTruesdell's comment on the first stage of reading is often called the emergent literacy stage, and begins at a very young age till about the middle of first grade. This is the stage that I am also most familiar with teaching students from the ages of 3 to 6. It is so wonderful to see student exploring the human language. The Montessori program is a three year program so we get the students at the age of three till they are six. It is so wonderful to see how much they progress in those years and knowing that we were the foundation to their learning. I can only imagine how rewarding it would be to be a parent experiencing this!
I agree with Ellen's statement of "these basic conventions are the crucial base to be successful in reading." I also believe these beginning skills/awareness about print are often taken for granted. I know through experience how important these concepts of print are for the pre-emergent reader. Concepts of print need to be modeled by all early childhood teachers. Ellen also brought up some great points about concepts of print in regards to her ESL classroom. These ESL students are learning to read and write a whole new language and need to focus on learning concepts of print, just like our young pre-emergent readers.
I agree with C. Devlins chosen quote of "after memorizing a few books, often students can recognize a few words." I see this first hand with my own children, ages 4&6. They love Dr. Seus' books along with Eric Carles and Bill Martin Jr's. Many of their titles have repetitive sentence structure that allows young children to memorize the words. I see my son & daughter make word connections to other texts. My young children are so excited to READ these books because the repetitive structure of the text allows them to feel so incredibly confident and successful at reading.
In response to CCroff's comment on using the strategy the student is familiar with and not what the teacher is familiar with, I totally agree. I now that there are many ways to show your work in math, and as long as they are showing me something that helps them understand the problem I am happy (no work is not acceptable though). Often I see a student struggling with the method I showed them and I show them one that they might find easier to use.
I completely agree with B Matiash's comment about being able to have miscues and not have it affect the entire passage. I too make mistakes when reading aloud. I read a book aloud to my 6th grades students, I read the book 6 times, and even after having read it aloud that many times I still made a few mistakes, due to the difficulty of reading aloud in front of my students, making sure they are not doing something inappropriate, and looking up from the book.
I agree with emusto's comment that reading without meaning is useless. During my student teaching, the teacher pointed to one student and said that he was not a good reader. This puzzled me because I he likes to read and I had heard him read many times. He was what you would call a "word caller" or "song bird". He could read and had great fluency but he did not have a clue what he was reading. Kobrien says that primary school teachers should be teaching these concepts of print to their students. I agree with this but what about the students in our class that have great literacy exposure and already know about concepts of print? Do we make these children sit through all of this too?
I agree with K.Jones first comment about "turn reading." It's completely ineffective and students find the process to be hard and embarrassing. Some students see their turn to read as a way to show off their skills and in turn, it puts down other students. I remember even when I was in school, I would count out the part I had to read and then practice it so that I'd make no mistakes. I lost all context of that text.
In response to C.Croff's point 5, I agree with your idea that the student may not be a poor reader, they just find other parts that may be important. However, I think that those students may not think those points are the most interesting, rather those were the point that they could remember. This is what makes the job of being a reading teacher so hard; each student is so different.
M.Truesdell said that she finds that she uses the strategy of re-reading most often and that even those who are fluent readers have one or two strategies that they rely on most. I use the strategy of re-reading as well. Whenever I do not understand something I will go back and re-read it over and over again to try and make sense of it. Usually if that doesn't work I just get frustrated, like the students do!
I also agree with K.Jones that I don't think any one reading program or approach will provide an ultimate solution. It has to be a balanced or comprehensive literacy plan. Where phonics works for some students, it doesn't help all students. As we hear over and over again, every child is different we must differentiate our instruction to suit their needs.
After reading Chapters 5 and 6, C. Monteleone wrote: Page 87: "One of the best ways to evaluate phonic knowledge is to analyze children's spelling. As they spell words, children must think about each letter and its sound and then synthesize these sounds into words."
Really? What about the who consistently spell words phonetically, but incorrectly. Our language rules (specifically vocabulary here) and really very confusing for some learners. We have rules, many of them, and all the rules have exceptions. Why? Craziness.
I have to agree with her. The rule of the English language are very crazy, inconsistent at times, and hard for young readers to understand. I work on spelling and snap words with my 6 year old niece. There have been numerous times when she mispells a word even though she is sounding it out phonetically. It's confusing and hard to explain. It seems like each rule has either an exception or some other rule that contradicts it. So...what really is the best way to help these children improve their spelling and become more familiar with the English language?
EBenigno responded to the following excerpt from Chapters 5 and 6: As children read books with others, they begin to notice some basic conventions about written language. We call these early understandings concepts about print. They involve such things as understanding what we read (the printed words), where the print begins, what a word is, and reading left to right. (Pg. 82-83)
I can definitely relate and agree with her points and opinions on taking these basic skills for granted. Again, students and children are not born with these innate abilities and intuitions. We have to take time to teach these basic and fundamental skills. I experienced this first hand with my friend's son. He was struggling with his reading and his teacher had sent home a notice to his parents suggesting further testing. I sat down to read with him and as he read, I noticed he would read words out of order at times and reverse the order of letters and words. Since I am not a reading specialist or trained in diagnosing reading difficulties, I had little advice to offer my friend. In the end, they found that it was a discrepancy in the child's orientation. He was left-handed, but had been trained and taught all along to use his left hand. When he began reading, he was trying to read from right to left at times which was causing some of his problems. What an eye-opening experience that was.
“Strategy and skill instruction is like many regular classroom lessons; however, it is different because it is specific to the readers’ targeted concerns in reading.”
I think that in the ideal classroom setting, all instruction would be targeted to the reader’s specific targeted concerns. However, since this is not always possible given the differing needs of a class of 25 students, I think it is important that schools have a reading specialist or literacy coach who is familiar with the students’ needs and can address these concerns on a one to one basis. In the Niagara Falls district, since it is nearly impossible for reading specialists to service every needy student everyday, they have invested in a series of computer programs to aid with reading and language skills. Besides teaching students essential skills students may be lacking, this program then adapts itself to aid students depending on their strengths and weaknesses, targeting students’ concerns in reading. While I know that this cannot replace the benefits of working with a literacy specialist, I think it is a step in the right direction to differentiating instruction for each struggling learner.
I agree. I've been working in Niagara Falls for the past 5 years and it is impossible for reading specialist to serve all those students who need that extra help. I wish it wasn't that way but there are other programs that Niagara Falls district added. So I do agree when K. Jones says it's a step in the right direction.
If the students do not experience "choosing to read and write," they may not define literate activities as a part of their lives. Personal reading and writing allows time for students to define their literacy interest, to read and write for their own purposes, and to read and write without failing because they establish their purposes. (Pg. 69)
Reading should not be an obligatory part of a student's life. To ensure this, I want to provide my students with so many different types of books at many different levels. I've already started my collection of books that I want to share with students, whether the books are picture books, fun novels, or the classics. All are important and should be available to the students. I also love the idea of a journal where students can records their favorite parts of the book, their thoughts, and anything else. The journal won't have any standards but it'll be there for the student to go back and reflect.
When I read her response it made me feel good. That's how I want my classroom library to be. I want a large variety of reading materials for my students. I don't want them to ever be bored with what I have in there. I always want the students to want to read and never have them feel as if they have to read.
K. Jones said ... “Some students refuse to predict because they don’t want to be wrong. Often their instruction has focused on getting answers correct.” Although I am sure this quote is true for reading, I have also experienced in math class. Just like students do not want to predict for fear of being wrong, sometimes they also do not want to speak out loud, help each other or write down their thoughts in their notes, because they are unsure if it they are writing the correct answers. As their teacher, there are a few ways I have overcome this stigma of being wrong. 1.) I praise students for trying and attempting to explain their thinking, even if they are wrong. I emphasize that you learn more from making mistakes than not even trying and if I see a student not trying, I make it their whole group’s responsibility for making sure that that student is doing what he/she is supposed to be doing. Creating a safe environment helps tremendously. Once students start to see mistakes as avenues for learning, there is no longer a stigma attached to them and students can learn freely, without the fear that they are being judged for their mistakes. 2.) When students do not want to write ‘incorrect’ answers in their notes, I make them use pencil, give them scrap paper or give them an extra worksheet so that they have one with their thinking and one that is neat. 3.) I will often put an answer key on the overhead so that as students are working, they have immediate feedback as to whether they are doing it right or wrong. Also, by design, all think work is done in teams with me working the room to catch these misconceptions as they happen.
I think these are wonderful ideas. I will use these ideas in my classroom because you never want a child to feel uncomfortable for making a prediction. I have to admit I was one of those students growing up. I hated making guesses because I didn't want to be wrong or be that far off from the answer.
B. Matiash said ... Often times in literacy classes we have talked about what the teacher should do to assess the student's progress; not necessarily what the student should be doing to assess their own progress. I think that students should think about their own reading skills and strategies. A self report such as the one in our textbook may be helpful not only for the student but the teacher as well. I think that when a teacher observes the student reading he/she may not always know what strategy the student is trying to use because they are not inside the student's head. For instance, they might be trying to re-read for comprehension, but is not sure how far back in the text he/she should go. A strategy make not be physically present, but mentally the student knows it is a strategy they can try.
I agree with this. I've sat down with children before who are struggling with reading and comprehension and I will just study them. I see that they are using some kind of strategy that their teachers have given them to use. I think that those students that I've seen struggle in this way need more guidance.
J. Hejza says …. We use letter recognition in my classroom. We do a preliminary assessment at the beginning of the year to determine how many letters and sounds they recognize. For example one student in my classroom Ella, knew 26 out of 26 names and sounds, whereas Stephen knew 8 sounds and 13 names. Our students relate letters with our sound chart- which is a key component of our classroom. I have done this also. I tested all the students in two kindergarten classes finding what names and sounds they knew. I would play matching games, and bingo games with them, grouped with other students who didn’t know all the sounds and names. This helped them to learn the sounds and the names very quickly, it took just a few week.
ELLEN BENIGNO says …Ineffective readers perceive active readers and teachers to be "perfect" readers and thus, they make no or little mistakes. Effective readers make mistakes and corrections without even knowing that they do it so it seems like that they are making no errors at all. As a teacher, I feel the way to break this thought is to make purposeful mistakes and demonstrate how to fix them. However, the mistakes have to look meaningful rather that "acted out." This will give the ineffective readers some confidence to know that mistakes are not indicators of being a poor reader instead it's part of the reading process. I tell students that I make mistakes all the time and that I am nowhere near perfect in hopes that students can learn from my mistakes. I agree with Ellen. We do need to model how we use the strategies when we are reading. I have done this with some of the students that I work with. They have got a better grasp of how to use them because of this.
This is in response to Monteleone’s post on chapter 5 about how reading aloud is not as important or beneficial for students as reading silently. I totally agree that when students read aloud in class they are focusing much less on the meaning and thinking portion of the task compared to pronunciation and not embarrassing themselves. My middle school kids sometimes even try to read too quickly, which I think is them trying to show off in front of others about how good of a reader they think they are. However, I do think that it does have some advantages. I think that it teaches them to speak clearly and, when taught correctly, teaches them presentation skills.
ReplyDeleteMy second response is to O’Brien’s post on how all primary teachers should be instructing their students on the conventions of written language. Even in middle and high school I see students not fully understanding how a book or other type of text is laid out, so starting early on that would be beneficial. I can easily recall students not being able to figure out an encyclopedia, and it scares me! But I really like how primary teachers are using assessments like the one listed in the book, which is similar to the one you said you use, to begin the instruction. It’s like you are establishing the basic “rules” for reading. Thanks!
- Mike Carter
My response is to Kobrien- I agree with the comment that young children who watch TV or go out to eat with their families begin to read signs based on distinctive features like the M in McDonalds. I also commented on this. It is funny because last Wednesday we had parent teacher conferences. I work in a multi age Montessori class(3-6 year olds). Many parents had asked what can we do with our children and one thing we suggested was doing a letter hunt game on the way to or from school, seeing how many students have a long drive in.
ReplyDeleteThis response is to MTruesdell's comment on the first stage of reading is often called the emergent literacy stage, and begins at a very young age till about the middle of first grade. This is the stage that I am also most familiar with teaching students from the ages of 3 to 6. It is so wonderful to see student exploring the human language. The Montessori program is a three year program so we get the students at the age of three till they are six. It is so wonderful to see how much they progress in those years and knowing that we were the foundation to their learning. I can only imagine how rewarding it would be to be a parent experiencing this!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ellen's statement of "these basic conventions are the crucial base to be successful in reading." I also believe these beginning skills/awareness about print are often taken for granted. I know through experience how important these concepts of print are for the pre-emergent reader. Concepts of print need to be modeled by all early childhood teachers.
ReplyDeleteEllen also brought up some great points about concepts of print in regards to her ESL classroom. These ESL students are learning to read and write a whole new language and need to focus on learning concepts of print, just like our young pre-emergent readers.
I agree with C. Devlins chosen quote of "after memorizing a few books, often students can recognize a few words." I see this first hand with my own children, ages 4&6. They love Dr. Seus' books along with Eric Carles and Bill Martin Jr's. Many of their titles have repetitive sentence structure that allows young children to memorize the words. I see my son & daughter make word connections to other texts. My young children are so excited to READ these books because the repetitive structure of the text allows them to feel so incredibly confident and successful at reading.
ReplyDeleteIn response to CCroff's comment on using the strategy the student is familiar with and not what the teacher is familiar with, I totally agree. I now that there are many ways to show your work in math, and as long as they are showing me something that helps them understand the problem I am happy (no work is not acceptable though). Often I see a student struggling with the method I showed them and I show them one that they might find easier to use.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with B Matiash's comment about being able to have miscues and not have it affect the entire passage. I too make mistakes when reading aloud. I read a book aloud to my 6th grades students, I read the book 6 times, and even after having read it aloud that many times I still made a few mistakes, due to the difficulty of reading aloud in front of my students, making sure they are not doing something inappropriate, and looking up from the book.
I agree with emusto's comment that reading without meaning is useless. During my student teaching, the teacher pointed to one student and said that he was not a good reader. This puzzled me because I he likes to read and I had heard him read many times. He was what you would call a "word caller" or "song bird". He could read and had great fluency but he did not have a clue what he was reading.
ReplyDeleteKobrien says that primary school teachers should be teaching these concepts of print to their students. I agree with this but what about the students in our class that have great literacy exposure and already know about concepts of print? Do we make these children sit through all of this too?
I agree with K.Jones first comment about "turn reading." It's completely ineffective and students find the process to be hard and embarrassing. Some students see their turn to read as a way to show off their skills and in turn, it puts down other students. I remember even when I was in school, I would count out the part I had to read and then practice it so that I'd make no mistakes. I lost all context of that text.
ReplyDeleteIn response to C.Croff's point 5, I agree with your idea that the student may not be a poor reader, they just find other parts that may be important. However, I think that those students may not think those points are the most interesting, rather those were the point that they could remember. This is what makes the job of being a reading teacher so hard; each student is so different.
M.Truesdell said that she finds that she uses the strategy of re-reading most often and that even those who are fluent readers have one or two strategies that they rely on most. I use the strategy of re-reading as well. Whenever I do not understand something I will go back and re-read it over and over again to try and make sense of it. Usually if that doesn't work I just get frustrated, like the students do!
ReplyDeleteI also agree with K.Jones that I don't think any one reading program or approach will provide an ultimate solution. It has to be a balanced or comprehensive literacy plan. Where phonics works for some students, it doesn't help all students. As we hear over and over again, every child is different we must differentiate our instruction to suit their needs.
After reading Chapters 5 and 6, C. Monteleone wrote:
ReplyDeletePage 87: "One of the best ways to evaluate phonic knowledge is to analyze children's spelling. As they spell words, children must think about each letter and its sound and then synthesize these sounds into words."
Really? What about the who consistently spell words phonetically, but incorrectly. Our language rules (specifically vocabulary here) and really very confusing for some learners. We have rules, many of them, and all the rules have exceptions. Why? Craziness.
I have to agree with her. The rule of the English language are very crazy, inconsistent at times, and hard for young readers to understand. I work on spelling and snap words with my 6 year old niece. There have been numerous times when she mispells a word even though she is sounding it out phonetically. It's confusing and hard to explain. It seems like each rule has either an exception or some other rule that contradicts it. So...what really is the best way to help these children improve their spelling and become more familiar with the English language?
EBenigno responded to the following excerpt from Chapters 5 and 6:
ReplyDeleteAs children read books with others, they begin to notice some basic conventions about written language. We call these early understandings concepts about print. They involve such things as understanding what we read (the printed words), where the print begins, what a word is, and reading left to right. (Pg. 82-83)
I can definitely relate and agree with her points and opinions on taking these basic skills for granted. Again, students and children are not born with these innate abilities and intuitions. We have to take time to teach these basic and fundamental skills. I experienced this first hand with my friend's son. He was struggling with his reading and his teacher had sent home a notice to his parents suggesting further testing. I sat down to read with him and as he read, I noticed he would read words out of order at times and reverse the order of letters and words. Since I am not a reading specialist or trained in diagnosing reading difficulties, I had little advice to offer my friend. In the end, they found that it was a discrepancy in the child's orientation. He was left-handed, but had been trained and taught all along to use his left hand. When he began reading, he was trying to read from right to left at times which was causing some of his problems. What an eye-opening experience that was.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete**CHAPTER 4**
ReplyDeleteK. Jones said ...
“Strategy and skill instruction is like many regular classroom lessons; however, it is different because it is specific to the readers’ targeted concerns in reading.”
I think that in the ideal classroom setting, all instruction would be targeted to the reader’s specific targeted concerns. However, since this is not always possible given the differing needs of a class of 25 students, I think it is important that schools have a reading specialist or literacy coach who is familiar with the students’ needs and can address these concerns on a one to one basis. In the Niagara Falls district, since it is nearly impossible for reading specialists to service every needy student everyday, they have invested in a series of computer programs to aid with reading and language skills. Besides teaching students essential skills students may be lacking, this program then adapts itself to aid students depending on their strengths and weaknesses, targeting students’ concerns in reading. While I know that this cannot replace the benefits of working with a literacy specialist, I think it is a step in the right direction to differentiating instruction for each struggling learner.
I agree. I've been working in Niagara Falls for the past 5 years and it is impossible for reading specialist to serve all those students who need that extra help. I wish it wasn't that way but there are other programs that Niagara Falls district added. So I do agree when K. Jones says it's a step in the right direction.
**CHAPTER 4**
ReplyDeleteE. Benigno said ...
If the students do not experience "choosing to read and write," they may not define literate activities as a part of their lives. Personal reading and writing allows time for students to define their literacy interest, to read and write for their own purposes, and to read and write without failing because they establish their purposes. (Pg. 69)
Reading should not be an obligatory part of a student's life. To ensure this, I want to provide my students with so many different types of books at many different levels. I've already started my collection of books that I want to share with students, whether the books are picture books, fun novels, or the classics. All are important and should be available to the students. I also love the idea of a journal where students can records their favorite parts of the book, their thoughts, and anything else. The journal won't have any standards but it'll be there for the student to go back and reflect.
When I read her response it made me feel good. That's how I want my classroom library to be. I want a large variety of reading materials for my students. I don't want them to ever be bored with what I have in there. I always want the students to want to read and never have them feel as if they have to read.
**CHAPTER 5/6**
ReplyDeleteK. Jones said ... “Some students refuse to predict because they don’t want to be wrong. Often their instruction has focused on getting answers correct.”
Although I am sure this quote is true for reading, I have also experienced in math class. Just like students do not want to predict for fear of being wrong, sometimes they also do not want to speak out loud, help each other or write down their thoughts in their notes, because they are unsure if it they are writing the correct answers. As their teacher, there are a few ways I have overcome this stigma of being wrong.
1.) I praise students for trying and attempting to explain their thinking, even if they are wrong. I emphasize that you learn more from making mistakes than not even trying and if I see a student not trying, I make it their whole group’s responsibility for making sure that that student is doing what he/she is supposed to be doing. Creating a safe environment helps tremendously. Once students start to see mistakes as avenues for learning, there is no longer a stigma attached to them and students can learn freely, without the fear that they are being judged for their mistakes.
2.) When students do not want to write ‘incorrect’ answers in their notes, I make them use pencil, give them scrap paper or give them an extra worksheet so that they have one with their thinking and one that is neat.
3.) I will often put an answer key on the overhead so that as students are working, they have immediate feedback as to whether they are doing it right or wrong. Also, by design, all think work is done in teams with me working the room to catch these misconceptions as they happen.
I think these are wonderful ideas. I will use these ideas in my classroom because you never want a child to feel uncomfortable for making a prediction. I have to admit I was one of those students growing up. I hated making guesses because I didn't want to be wrong or be that far off from the answer.
**CHAPTER 5/6**
ReplyDeleteB. Matiash said ... Often times in literacy classes we have talked about what the teacher should do to assess the student's progress; not necessarily what the student should be doing to assess their own progress. I think that students should think about their own reading skills and strategies. A self report such as the one in our textbook may be helpful not only for the student but the teacher as well. I think that when a teacher observes the student reading he/she may not always know what strategy the student is trying to use because they are not inside the student's head. For instance, they might be trying to re-read for comprehension, but is not sure how far back in the text he/she should go. A strategy make not be physically present, but mentally the student knows it is a strategy they can try.
I agree with this. I've sat down with children before who are struggling with reading and comprehension and I will just study them. I see that they are using some kind of strategy that their teachers have given them to use. I think that those students that I've seen struggle in this way need more guidance.
J. Hejza says …. We use letter recognition in my classroom. We do a preliminary assessment at the beginning of the year to determine how many letters and sounds they recognize. For example one student in my classroom Ella, knew 26 out of 26 names and sounds, whereas Stephen knew 8 sounds and 13 names. Our students relate letters with our sound chart- which is a key component of our classroom.
ReplyDeleteI have done this also. I tested all the students in two kindergarten classes finding what names and sounds they knew. I would play matching games, and bingo games with them, grouped with other students who didn’t know all the sounds and names. This helped them to learn the sounds and the names very quickly, it took just a few week.
ELLEN BENIGNO says …Ineffective readers perceive active readers and teachers to be "perfect" readers and thus, they make no or little mistakes. Effective readers make mistakes and corrections without even knowing that they do it so it seems like that they are making no errors at all. As a teacher, I feel the way to break this thought is to make purposeful mistakes and demonstrate how to fix them. However, the mistakes have to look meaningful rather that "acted out." This will give the ineffective readers some confidence to know that mistakes are not indicators of being a poor reader instead it's part of the reading process. I tell students that I make mistakes all the time and that I am nowhere near perfect in hopes that students can learn from my mistakes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ellen. We do need to model how we use the strategies when we are reading. I have done this with some of the students that I work with. They have got a better grasp of how to use them because of this.