Scott article

This article caught my attention because it is something that I have noticed in the different schools I have been in. It is proven that students from urban under privileged areas tend to have a smaller vocabulary than other children their age who are in wealthier areas. I was really surprised when i read that the average three year old from professional parents has a higher vocabulary that the parents of three year olds on welfare. I found this to be mind boggling. How is it possible that a three year old just learning language had a higher vocabulary than  an adult parent of a three year old. This really made the point of the article real to me. there is a gap in the schooling and something needs to be done to help close that gap and raise the vocabulary of these underprivileged students. The article mentioned that to close this gap more time is needed working with vocabulary. It needs to be introduced at a younger age and this can be done through simply things such as reading aloud to students. Also blending content knowledge with learning vocabulary. Another surprise I found while reading was that the article mentions that Dictionaries are a poor tool for learning new vocabulary. It says that the average adult may know hundreds of thousands of words, they will be unable to define them or use them in context.
As a teacher, no matter where I work it is important that I introduce vocabulary as early and often as possible in order to give my students as many academic advantages as possible.

Readings for 4/4

The Kymes article was really interesting to me because I feel like it is such a step in to the new age of education and is introducing new ways to keep learning fun and updated. I think the idea of introducing the idea of skimming or scanning text to students could actually be beneficial. I think that students will become "trained" to target key information in a shorter amount of time as opposed to reading the text word for word, but still getting the same level of information. I just think this whole idea is somewhat ironic because I feel that there have been so many classes where we were discouraged from skimming or scanning text because every word was so incredibly important, but now it is actually being suggested as a way to read text, along with placing all of the important information in either a direct heading or all towards the beginning of the text. I could see how this would be beneficial to readers because I feel that most people tend to just look for the "important stuff" to begin with and now it will be much easier for them to access it with the new set-up. It makes me question how models such as this could effect things such as teaching students how to write good stories. We have always been taught that you save your solid point for the end and that you need to intertwine your details throughout the story. With this new approach, students might be confused as to why teachers are enforcing a "different" writing style than what they are used to seeing. They see no use for the way teachers want them to write because if they do not see it in the real world, then why should they learn how to perform that way? This blog post has taken a turn towards technology, but could technology have such a large effect on students lives and eventually schooling that it completely alters what we as future teachers have learned all through our own schooling?

Readings for 4/25

The Scott article made me immediately think of the different schools that I have been placed at for Student Teaching throughout the past few years. I had noticed that in some "economically advantaged" school districts, students who were in lower grades were higher achievers than some of the upper grades at schools that were "economically disadvantaged". The article also mentions that the home life can play a part in why students might struggle with vocabulary and ultimately comprehension in school. I could apply this to the same schools that I had mentioned above, in that the "economically advantaged" districts tended to have parents who used the same, if not very similar, language that was used by the professionals at the school. I have also observed the opposite of the "economically disadvantaged" districts where the students speak in a language that educators might not find "correct", but it is apparent that it is spoken around the home because they continue to talk that way. The article mentions that use of child-adult communication early on can increase the literacy and vocabulary development, however, I wonder how hard it is to break children of the habit of speaking that way or using certain vocabulary when they have grown up around it and at the end of the day when they leave school, they go home to it. I have seen similar situations in my current CT's classroom. My CT has tried numerous approaches to correct some students' vocabulary, yet they still come back to school everyday using it incorrectly. I have also let some students read to me and sometimes if they are unsure how to say a sentence, they will make it in to their own sentence while using the incorrect vocabulary or language. I think this could potentially effect the students comprehension because if this problem goes unnoticed, it might just solidify their use of incorrect language.

Mini Lessons

First Grade Classroom

Mini Lesson 1: For my first mini lesson, I wanted to to focus on the students' comprehension on books they were reading because I had noticed in the past that they do not have a problem reading the text, but tend to not remember exactly what happened or any big themes that were present throughout the story. I selected a few students that ranged from higher level to lower level readers to see if this would alter any feedback I received about their comprehension. I had the student's select one book from their browsing box (so I knew it was a book that was at their level) and asked them to take a "picture walk" through the story without looking at any of the words. After they completed this I asked them, "Based on the pictures you saw, what do you think this book will be about?" They all replied answers that could have easily matched the pictures they observed. I then asked the students to read their books to me. *These were done individually. When the student was done reading their book to me, I would ask, "Based on what you just read, can you tell me what this book was about?" I noticed that the students tended to start with what happened towards the end of the book and I would have to push their thinking by saying things such as, "that's true, but did anything happen before that?" Some students focused more on one or two details in the book, but one student was able to do a decent job at showing me he comprehended what he read with my prompting questions.

Mini Lesson 2: For my second mini lesson, I wanted to shift the focus to writing and having the students include more detail in their stories. This is an issue that my CT has been trying to overcome with the students for the past few weeks, but I wanted to give it a shot to see how difficult it was. I presented them with the "5 Finger Story", where the students were supposed to begin writing a story on whatever topic they wanted, but they had to include 5 different details, which they can count on their 5 fingers. I began by showing my selected students an example of what a "5 Finger Story" might look like. I had them go through the mini story I had written and point out the 5 details that I included. After we quickly discussed the importance of adding detail to our stories, I had the students attempt to write their own stories. I informed them that if they were unable to think of the whole story, that they could make a list of all of the things that happened or that they would want to include. One student made a good attempt at trying to make 5 solid detailed sentences, however the sentences all had the same beginning and just a new detail at the end. Another student was getting really upset that he could not think of a topic to write about, so he did not end up completing the task. This showed me that having students incorporate details in to their stories is not as easy as I thought it was. I thought that the younger students would have had an easier time because I assumed it was easy for them to use their imagination and just list off different details, but I now know that it is apparently not that simple.

Reading for Micro Teaching

I gathered from this article that when students are presented with informational text, it is harder for them to comprehend because it seems to be so cut and dry. Subjects such as history and science might be harder to understand because of the text structure. There are some other approaches that can be used such as brief lectures, films, role play, etc. These techniques have received positive feedback. Although these are good techniques, students still need to higher level reading skills to read informational texts. If students use prior knowledge, think about the text before they begin to read, use the text to support their ideas, etc it will help them become better at comprehending. Students are also encouraged to rely on each other for trying to comprehend text instead of constantly relying on the teacher so they do not become passive learners. Another beneficial technique can be having peer led discussions, which allow for a more “natural” feel when discussing. The teacher can observe this for assessing how well the students are grasping the material. When doing this, the teacher can also have them quote and site text as another way to verify comprehension. In any of these approaches, it is important to make sure that you are modeling the technique so the students know what is expected and are aware of what to look for. Keep in mind that this will not happen overnight and you need to take baby steps to form good comprehension.

4/4/11

Readings 4/4/11

This week while reading the Kymes article on “Compression Strategies” it really made me question what type of teacher I am going to be. I say this because the article focuses on online environments. I know that using new technology and the Internet is a new and great source for learners I also feel old school in its teachings. Using technology is increasing and I see it used in my classroom everyday. Currently my students are using glogster (online resource) to do their book reports. Doing this has been a great idea but it has also come with its problems. First my teacher had never used it before so it was hard for her to answer the student’s questions. Luckily she had the technology assistant and me in the room to assist. Other problems she ran into was making sure the students did not use www.youtube.com because of the possible bad things they could come across (they were however allowed to use www.schooltube.com). This leads to the article talking about having students know what a good source is. This I agree with being very important because there are a lot of sources on the Internet that are not reliable. The problem I see comes with time. I already see in my classroom how little time she has to do the things she needs to get done in all subject areas. Is teaching them what is a good and bad source another things that teachers have to get done. With the growing in technology there is the growing in what has to be taught. That is what raised my question “Am I going to be the older teacher who still does everything the old school ways?”

4/10/11

Readings 4/10/11

This week the article looked at Vocabulary Learning. Immediately when I read the title I thought of my placement and the new program they are using in the Okemos Schools to help improve the vocabulary level in the system. This system used visuals and previous knowledge to build an understanding of new terms. The article however was dealing with urban setting classrooms, which is not what Okemos is. So once I read the article I realized that this is what the article is talking about what is missing from the urban schools. Students in the urban setting are behind by two to three years and they say it is this way for many reasons. One talks about their lives at home. What they hear and do in their households reflects what they hear and do in the classroom. If they are not constantly surrounded by new or correct vocabularies it does not challenge them. Also how Okemos has a new system that is helping them to improve the student’s vocabulary urban schools do not have good ro updated resources to help improve. Overall it is a lot of lack of in Urban School and more involvement is needed in helping improve students understanding and comprehension of vocabulary development and learning.