Reading 2/20

Learning Centers, I found this article to be the most interesting of the readings. I like the idea of using learning centers in the classroom, I especially like it because I would like to teach in a Montessori school, and learning centers follow a lot of the Montessori way. They involve a lot of choices for the students and require the students to work with their peers and to decide for themselves how to go about completing a center.  

I don’t know if learning centers would be very realistic as a beginning teacher, it seems as though they will require a lot of time and experience. As a new teacher I may not have the time or resources to make these happen. However this could be used as an opportunity to collaborate with other teachers on ways to make the centers.

I like that the centers can be used as a way for students to work in groups. These could be utilized for ESL students and for different learning levels. The centers give the students the opportunity to gain experience with the things they are learning. I think one of the most important things is that the centers seem like a fun idea. They seem like something students would enjoy and look forward to doing. The centers could be utilized as a way to introduce a new lesson or as a form of assessment at the end of one. 

Readings for 2/21

Holliman's piece on centers reminded me of my placement and the way my CT has centers set up and also how I have seen centers set up in past classrooms. The thing that I saw that was most beneficial from the use of centers was how it made the students grow in their independence. At first, the CT had to somewhat guide them through the stages and how to do certain parts, but after about 2 months they finally started to just get in to the habit of knowing what to do at each center and what was expected and also how to stay on task at these centers with out the CT constantly having to remind them. My CT does centers a little differently this semester. She has their names in groups up on the board with different centers or "daily 5" as she calls them, also on the board. She has the helper of the day shift the groups each day and that is how the students know what center they are supposed to be at. I like this way of doing centers because when the students have a problem or a question with the work they are supposed to be doing, they are now "programmed" to look on the board and see who else is in their group for that center and they can rely on each other, instead of having to always ask the teacher. She got them in to the habit of asking each other by constantly telling them to ask a peer when they would come up to her. I think that I might have had a hard time doing this at first because I would instinctively wanted to help them out, but observing my CT do this was a good way for me to actually see the results of sometimes being a little firm with the students and turning them elsewhere for help. This article was really helpful, especially for people like me who are beginners, because it gave a lot of good ideas and kind of a step by step on how to get started and set up some good centers that would be beneficial to the classroom.

The Mohr article made me think of some readings and lessons that I have been seeing throughout different curriculums and from online resources. I have been seeing more and more lessons with ESL/ELL integration, even if it is just a side note or option towards the bottom, there are suggestions on how to target those learners and it is made easy enough and relevant enough that the teacher can just tie it in to their original lesson without it taking away from other students. I think this is a fabulous idea to have these little suggestions for teachers because sometimes they get so overloaded with trying to think of all the different students in their class and how to cater to different students needs with the original lesson, they might not have time to think of additional things for ELL students or they may think they have to come up with something completely different, when they really don't.

The Avalos article just made me realize how much work and preparation needs to go in to making sure that ELL students are being able to understand the reading and comprehend it. It honestly kind of stressed me out thinking about the different type of guided reading that would need to take place to assist these students and I am not sure that is something I can handle. I feel like it would be a big responsibility to make sure that they are truly understanding the text along with all of the other details that go in to reading that English language speakers pick up more easily and are almost programmed to know.

Overall, looking back on selected students I think that guided reading would be one thing I would focus on with them because I think so much can be lost when children are just reading on their own and you might not know what they are taking away from the text or what they are having trouble with.

CT/ Parent Communication

            My CT tries to develop a relationship with all of the students’ parents and does her best to not only keep them informed of what’s going on in the classroom but also tries to get them involved. At the start of every school year there is an open house where the parents are invited to come and tour the classroom and meet the teacher. During the open house my CT askes all parents to give their email and phone numbers.

            Every week my CT has the students do a weekly reflection, on the back of what they write she writes how their week went and anything they may have struggled with or excelled at. She also regularly emails parents with any comments or concerns she has with students.

            To get the parents involved in the classroom my CT invites them once a month to come in and take part in a candle light ceremony the class does. The parents are also invited at any time to come in and observe the classroom. All holiday parties are fully the responsibility of the parents. My CT coordinates with them but has the parents do all of the planning and setting up for any class/ holiday parties. She said that she does this so that the parents can be there to enjoy these events with their children.

            I think all of this helps parents be confident in their child’s learning because they know what’s going on in the classroom and they have what is hopefully a positive relationship with the teacher. They can be confident that their children are in good hands and that they will be kept up to date on anything going on. 

Week 7 Readings: Centers

The reading this week that I identified with the most was Holliman’s article about centers. I liked this article because I have seen centers done really well and I have also seen them done poorly. This article talks about what a center is and different logistical decisions that a teacher has to make when it comes to planning centers. I liked how the article described a center as, “An area of the classroom where a variety of hands-on materials and meaningful activities are available for children to choose.” This definition is important to me because I think it is essential that the activities are meaningful and not just done to fill time. When I volunteered in Mrs. Buckley’s kindergarten class she used centers as a tool for her students to learn new information. She usually has about five centers set out and three out of the five centers have an educational purpose, for example she would have one center for math, one for writing, one for reading. The other two centers would be fun centers, like blocks, computers, sand table, coloring, etc. I liked the way centers were run because Mrs. Buckley usually had two to three parents or aids to help the students at the centers. This way she could ensure that the students were doing their work and that they understood what they were supposed to be doing. Another way I have seen centers run is a little less organized and overall less beneficial for students. The students can choose whatever center they want, as compared to Mrs. Buckley’s centers where she assigns groups and each child does the center one time. This is not beneficial because some students choose the same center every time and are learning nothing. The centers in these classrooms are also not as enriching because they are the same ones all the time and they include things like blocks, kitchen area, coloring, computers, etc. Another thing I liked about this article was that it suggests that children should be involved in choosing what they want to do for centers. This could be done for the ‘fun’ centers so the teacher only has to focus on planning the ‘learning’ centers. Overall I found this article very helpful and will use some of these tips when I am planning centers during my internship year.

Feb 20 Reading

I do not even know where to begin with Chapter 4 of the Tompkins reading. My biggest fear for next year is to be placed in a lower elementary classroom. Since I have been at MSU I have been in higher elementary (fifth) grade and I even started off as secondary so high school as well. This year I am in a fifth grade classroom and dealing with Literature in my classroom is helping not as much with how to read but how to understand. This is not the case in lower elementary classrooms. What I am most afraid of is not having any experience to be able to guide a young mind in the direction it needs to including that of Literacy. After reading Chapter 4 it helped me to really better understand how young readers develop where they come to and what the teacher needs to do to guide that. However words can only help so much it is the experience that I learn best through. I can though relate some of the concepts to what I see in my classroom today such as that of shared reading. In the chapter they talk about shared reading in a kindergarten through third (Ms. McCloskey’s 3^rd grade) teacher also does it through other subjects to help cover literacy while helping with understanding of another subject. I really drew from the section on “Fostering an Interest in Literacy”. Here they talk about how children’s intro to a written language begins before they enter the classroom and that is why I believe it is equally important to involve the parents while developing the concepts they talk about in the chapter in helping the development of literacy. Sharing with parents about a child’s development and what they need and what the parents can do to help this. Doing something such as signing up for a pen pal or writing some sort of letter to a relative can help in something such as concept of print while also relating it to the real world and their interest. This in turn shows them how literacy plays a role in their everyday lives.

CT/Parent Communication

I think that my CT has great communication with the parents of the children in her classroom. I have seen multiple parents feel comfortable enough to come in to her classroom at the beginning of the day and talk briefly with her about their child or some other matters. My CT also has a phone in her classroom that I have seen her use to "call home" for some students if there is a miscommunication or sometimes as a threat if the child is really misbehaving. She also has these reading logs that she sends home in little reading bags with a different book every day and has the parents sign off on the students reading. She makes it a big priority to reach out to parents and make sure they are involved and aware of everything that is going on with their students. I think the most my teachers ever really did with parent involvement was see that at parent teacher conferences and they would send home letters every once in a while informing parents on what was going on or what we might be learning. I still really like the idea of having the parents write about their children as a way to start them off in the beginning with their child's learning process and then I think the teacher might encourage parents to come in to the schools on a designated day to observe their students learning. I think this could be beneficial to the parents because they can see how their child performs in class and ways they might be able to help them at home. I have not seen my CT have any parent volunteers in the classroom. The only time I see this is when some parents will randomly come in before school starts as I stated earlier.

Week 7 readings

Mohr, Gibbons, Avalos: These readings are really helpful for teachers who have no experience working with ELLS. As was said in the readings, a growing amount of our students will at least be bilingual. I want to compare these readings with my LLT class that I took last semester. This class (though I found it kind of boring) was pretty beneficial after I look back on it. Without this class, I wouldn't know the first thing about teaching an ELL. The reading touched on a lot of the same basic stuff; that we need to adjust some of our teaching approaches to help our ELL students. I think that the most beneficial thing that we can do that I learned from my LLT class as well as these readings are to have the students discuss! In the Gibbons book, it mentions IRE responses and how they don't improve English: "When teacher interactions lead only to single-word or single-clause responses, there is little opportunity for the learner's language to be stretched, for students to focus on how they are saying something, or for giving them practice in using the language for themselves." One of the first things that the Mohr article suggests is "increasing student talk time." The article basically says that we shouldn't let our student slide under the radar and have them engaging in discussions throughout the entire day with groups, partners and teacher-student interaction.
But obviously, we want our students to be able to do more than just communicate; we want them to also read and write with proficiency. The Mohr article tells us to have the student practice reading and then afterward, discuss what they just read. Other ideas that I learned in my LLT class is to have the students read, the write about what they just read, and then have them share what they wrote with a partner. This encompasses all aspects.

Holliman: In the Montessori classroom, they do something similar to centers but it's not quite the same. There are rugs placed sporadically around the room and the students are to fulfill certain tasks at those rugs such as math problems, vocabulary, drawings etc. Throughout the entire morning they choose the tasks they want to do that day (but they have a certain amount that they have to finish by the end of the week). Like the article suggests, they have place to mark of the tasks that they accomplished that day. The article also says that the teacher should be floating around the room helping the students. For the most part, you will always see my CT as well as her teaching assistant, walking around helping groups, partners and individual students. The morning is always busy and has that exact "BUZZ" that the article describes. Even though it's not considered "centers" in the Montessori, I think they are very similar in structure. As far as if they work, I don't know. It seems to be working but how can one really tell? But I think it's great that the kids are in an environment where they feel they are making their own choices as far as what they want to accomplish and how they want to accomplish it.

Teacher and Parent collaboration

As far as I can see, my CT has very good communication with the parents. My CT is known in the school as the teacher who "goes big" with her classroom projects and because of this, she needs a lot of help. I often times see parents volunteering their time to come in and help with the big projects. When the students were learning about the moon phases, my CT had a parent come in and guide the students while they painted 3 foot moons so they could hang them up in the hallway. When the parents come into the classroom to volunteer, I think it gives them comfort to see how the class is run on a day to day basis. They can see that their child is getting the proper amount of attention and is actively engaging in their classroom activities.
Honestly, I don't remember my parents having a lot of communication with my teachers except for at parent teacher conferences. But I don't think my parents cared too much. However, something that we had that my placement doesn't do is having the parents sign our planners everyday. It forced our parents to look at our assignments due everyday and check to see if we actually finished them. There were also letters sent home if something important was coming up but overall, my parents never came into the class to help out; not because they didn't want to...but the option wasn't available.
Some ideas as to how to get parents involved in the learning processes is doing what my CT does and having parent volunteers come in and help with large projects. If the parents want to know how their child is progressing or what they are learning, they should be checking their child's planner and they should be asked to sign their homework so it proves that it's been looked over. Also, sending e-mails to the parents about their child's progress is a good way to keep them updated and involved.

Readings for Feb. 21

These were not my favorite readings compared to others we have recently read, but I think a few of them brought up some important points. I find it hard to really get into an article or chapter in a textbook if it does not relate to what I am observing in my placement. When reading the Tompkins chapter and the Holliman article I was not as engaged in them as the other readings. However these readings did remind me of struggles I had last year in my 301 placement because I was in a Kindergarten room. The ideas such a concepts of print, phonemic awareness, and print awareness all came screaming back to me. We were drilled with these ideas so much in 301 that I don’t think I will ever forget them. The basic concepts of print are so important and I found it so frustrating in my Kindergarten placement when students struggled with such simple things are letter/sound relationships. Also, when students were unable to even identify letters (not to mention their sounds) it was hard to know where to go from there because it does not get any more basic than that. Furthermore, the Holliman article reminded me of my Kindergarteners doing centers last year. This article makes centers seem to be a very positive thing (which I think they are) while this was not necessarily the case in my experience. The teacher did not use centers to benefit the children, and did it more to waste time with meaningless tasks. This is not to say that all the centers were meaningless, there would be a couple beneficial activities that the students partook in, but also many centers that needed improvement. The teacher took this time to individually test students, which was needed, however this meant she was not interacting with the students at the actual centers whatsoever. The classroom always seemed to be chaotic and many times the students had no idea what they were supposed to do at each center. This left the students confused and therefore off-task. The teacher also made the mistake of not allowing for any choices to be made by the students. She told them exactly what they had to do and how to do it. I do believe centers can be a great way for hands on learning, problem solving, exploration, discovery, and collaboration to occur just as it is described in the article, however I would love to observe a classroom where centers are implemented successfully.
On a more positive note, the Gibbons chapter, Mohr article, and Avalos article were interesting to me because I am currently in TE 494 and have an ESL placement in addition to my 4th grade 402 placement. Many ideas about working with ELLs found in these articles apply to my 494 placement and I can see them directly relating to the ESL classroom. The steps described in the Avalos article regarding modified guided reading can be seen in my classroom somewhat. They work in small groups as well as one-on-one with the teacher and analyze the text, practice shared reading, and respond to the text. I also found the Mohr article to bring up a good point about pullout ESL programs (such as the one I observe). It is easy to place the responsibility of the student’s academic success on the ESL teacher when it should not be. It is extremely important as an ESL teacher to talk with the student’s mainstream teacher and make a plan to most beneficially address the needs of the student and give them the extra help in the areas they need to work on. It is the responsibility of both teachers that each student experiences success.

Week 6 Reading

I really enjoyed the readings for this week because the topics that were discussed were very interesting. I first want to talk about the Maples article Opening Quality Lines of Communication: Seeing My Students through the Eyes of Their Parents. I thought this was a great idea because as a perspective teacher I always wondered the best and most affective way to connect with parents. I like this letter idea because parents are able to share details with the teacher that they may not feel comfortable doing in person or in front of the child. By learning this information about the child you have an insight about the child’s likes, dislikes, behaviors, and academic strengths or struggles. As a teacher this is valuable information to have and as seen in the article can impact discussions and student’s learning. In my school district the kindergarten teachers go around to each of their student’s houses to welcome them to kindergarten and see what their home life is like. I think this is a good strategy, but may be threatening to some families who feel that the teacher is coming into their home to judge them. If you tried something like the letter then the parents can share valuable information in a non-threatening setting. In the article this strategy was implemented in an eighth grad classroom, but I think it could work in special and general education classrooms of all grades and is a great way to get parents involved.

The next article that caught my interest was the Carlisle article, How Can I Help Children with Learning Disabilities? I liked reading this article because I am special education learning disability major. Many of the points from this article are best practice, but are not seen put in to action in schools. I have volunteered in several resource rooms and I was surprised to see the lack of communication between the special education teacher and general education teacher. The general education teacher does not know the IEP accommodations and goals that the student is working towards. If the general education did know the goals they lacked the training in how to achieve these goals. It always concerned me that the general education teachers in Michigan States teacher preparation program do not have to take a course about how to teach special education students because the article said that one in twenty students has a learning disability and 50% of these students spend a majority of the day in the general education classroom. When I become a teacher my goal is to collaborate with general education teachers so they know each students IEP goals and accommodations and the best way to teach each individual student.

The last point I want to make was a quote I noticed in the Maples article. The teacher said that from receiving letters from the parents she realized she had a huge responsibility. She wrote the following, “We don’t teach students we teach human beings…children…someone’s “treasure” or “blessing.” We are entrusted on a daily basis to provide them the best possible education we can and to see them as they really are – not who we think they are or what the stereotype tells us.” I liked this quote because it reminded me to give each student a chance and not to judge them based on stereotypes or what other teachers say about them. I hope that when I am a teacher I can take what I have learned in these articles and apply them to my classroom.

Feb 14 reading

I found this week’s readings to be rather interesting. The first one I am going to discuss is the Maples article. I really enjoyed this article and the idea of asking parents to write about their students. As future teachers we are constantly hearing about the importance of making sure our lessons are relatable to our students. This is hard to do at the beginning of a semester when we are still trying to learn who our students are. By asking parents to write about their children a teacher is not only forming a relationship with that parent but also learning about their students from the people who know them best. Those letters can also be beneficial in learning about what works best for getting students attention and interest. They would also be beneficial as a way for a parent to share any learning disabilities their child may have.

The Breitfelder article mentioned the importance of using visuals in teaching, especially when working with students who may have different disabilities. The article mentioned that many students may struggle with auditory instructions but are able to excel with visual ones. I really liked how this article gave different examples of how to use different pictures and graphs in the classroom. Not only did the article explain these resources, it showed pictures and explained how to create them. Another topic I liked that the article brought up was using a rewards system in the classroom. The article said that this has been found to be very effective with students struggling with attention or behavioral disorders. I have seen my CT use rewards and benefits when working with an ADHD student. She says that she has seen an enormous improvement in his work since she introduced the rewards system. One of the things she said is important when using rewards is to make sure the students’ parents are on board.   The behaviors and work ethic need to be required not only in the classroom but also at home when working on homework, this will help to make a permanent change in the students’ work. 

Begging to read chapter 3 of the book Literacy for the 21^st century I instantly learned so much from the assessments the teacher did on the student Seth. I have previously been in a first grade classroom and saw some of the assessments they talked about in the chapter. Going through my personal experiences in the classroom both first and fifth I have seen some of these assessments but the one thing I have heard from every teacher is that they do not have enough time to analyze each students literacy and if they do they have to do a run down portion of it because of time. What I want to learn is what is a way to do this. The teacher in this chapter does a great job of really analyzing this student through five different really good assessments such as having him read aloud to her and she scores him. How does she have the time to do this when all I have heard form my CTs is how they do not have the time. I am scared that as a teacher I will not know how to properly assess my students the way Mrs. McNeal does.

I also enjoyed reading about how to determine students reading levels. The guided reading is something that I have observed in my placement in previous years and have seen as successful. Also I recognized the DRA assessment kit in my previous first grade classroom as they mentioned in the chapter. The only differentness is that in the book it is a number level of reading and I my classroom it was DRA but instead of a number system it was an alphabet system. So I wonder what is the difference? Is one better than the other?

For my jigsaw I choose to read the Carlisle article on helping children with disabilities. The reason I enjoyed the article so much is because I am not a special education major I have not had any experience with learning how to most benefit this types of students. Also being in my placement I had not had a student in the classroom with a learning disability until this year. During my placement I have adapted and learned on my own ways to help them in learning but have never been told by my CT correct or ways that she sees work. The only feedback I have got from her has been that I handled that student very well during my lesson. I enjoyed it best that it focused on particularly literacy and how to help with faster growth in literacy with students who had a learning disability.

Overall I enjoyed the readings this week because they seemed as if they were instructional guides to helping with different aspects of teaching literacy to different types of learners.

Readings: February 14

I also really enjoyed this week's readings. I felt that the readings were very specific and had a lot of useful information. They were less about studies and methods and more about certain situations that are very likely to occur in any classroom.

Maples: I really enjoyed this article because you hear so much about how important parental involvement is. I always hear it is important to get parents involved to help their child's learning outside the classroom, but this article brought up the important fact that parental involvement is important in so many different ways. Maples said that "teachers should establish respectful and trusting relationships with children and families. Through these relationships, every aspect of learning- attitude, effort, motivation- can improve." I loved the "million word" homework assignment he teacher sent home for the parents to do. This simple assignment is a great way to get parents involved. It shows them that as a teacher, you care about who their kids are individually. Establishing this relationship with parents right in the beginning can set the tone for the rest of the school year. Previously, when I thought about having a relationship with my students' parents I thought of classroom newsletters, occasional phone calls home, conferences, etc. However, I really like the idea of establishing a more personal relationship. I think that can greatly improve the classroom environment.

Breitfelder: I liked this article because I think it can be directly related to any classroom. Although it specifically talks about students with learning disabilities, I think that the adaptions and accommodations mentioned in the article can be beneficial for all students. In my classroom now, my CT has talked to me about how important it is to tell the kindergarteners exactly what they will be doing any why. She said that giving them a timeline of exactly what they will be doing, how long they will be doing it for, and what they will gain from doing it helps the students stay focused. I liked the idea of visual supports for this same reason. I think that by having a visual schedule gives the students something to easily refer to. They will know the structure of their day and will know what is coming next. I know that if one thing is out of the ordinary in their my classroom's daily routine, every student notices and it really bothers them. They need to know why things are different and I think visual supports would really help in those situations. As important as these accommodations may be for students with learning disabilities I think that they could benefit the entire class.

Marcus: This article really showed me a lot about gifted children. I never thought about it in this way. that just because a child is smart, maybe the gifted track is not right for them. This shows how important it really is to know your students. Marcus was smart, but almost gave up on school because he became so frustrated. When he finally found a teacher that worked with him, he finally loved learning again. Every student is different. In my placement I notice children who are smarter than they think, like Marcus. I try to tell them they are smart but they reach a point where they give up if they become frustrated. That is the point where, as a teacher, you need to find a new way to reach that student. Another small point in the article that stood out was when someone suggested that Marcus have something to hold on to to help him pay better attention. My cousin is in the first grade and when they have time where all the students sit on the carpet and have to pay attention, they all have squishy balls to occupy their hands. At first, I had the same thought as the teacher in the article. I thought it might become more of a problem than a solution. However, it works and it allows the students to focus their attention on listening by keeping their hands busy. I think this is a really cool method and a way to think about focusing kids' attention, as opposed to just telling them they need to sit still with their hands in their laps.

Scott: I chose to read the Scott article about effective urban literacy instruction. The article said that instructional practices should be authentic, motivational, and focused and differentiated. The article mentioned different ways to assess students' literacy, and not one teacher in the article said that standardized tests were an effective way to do so. Urban teaching environments present literacy challenges. I liked how the article explained authentic, motivational, and focused ways to teach literacy. Teachers need to specifically look at the needs of urban learners and teach to those needs. Every teacher from the article had something different to say about their teaching principle when it came to literacy, however they all agreed that literacy education needed to cover a wide range of literature, be hands on, cover many strategies, and enstill confidence in the students. I think that these principles are the key to teaching literacy to any student.

Classroom talk in my class

I tend to see a lot of IRE type of talk in my classroom and really very little in depth conversations. I wondered if that was just because the students were younger and possibly unable to really form opinions or have deep conversations, but then i realized that they are capable of more than I give them credit for. I also noted that even though my CT does demonstrate some IRE types of talk, I think I have also done that when working with small groups of students just because that is the way I was trained to do it when I was in elementary school and I was mimicking my CT. I also thought it was interesting when we were talking in class about how a lot of us never really got any exposure to deep discussions until later in our years of schooling. I think this says a lot about how we were all brought up and how it could have potentially effected how we taught as teachers. If we hadn't read these articles or had this discussion, we could have run the risk of not having involved discussions with our students because we just assumed they either weren't ready or that we were supposed to teach that way because of the way we were taught. On the other hand, I think that some IRE is necessary just so the teacher can use it as an evaluation of what the students know and where to go from there. Possibly using it at the beginning of opening up a conversation might be beneficial. I think the scaffolding that would be most beneficial would be to give the students examples of how the presented question/topic might be answered. I think a lot of positive reinforcement is also necessary when first getting these discussions going and accepting a lot of answers as "right" answers to at least get the students talking. There are some students in my class who have a hard time vocalizing their ideas, so one way to handle this would be to ask those particular students more directed questions to at least get some sort of response out of them. Another technique could be asking those students if they agree or disagree with a previous students comment.

Week 6 readings

I kind of actually enjoyed this weeks readings...weird.

Maples: I had a lot of fun reading this one. What a great way to get parents involved in your classroom as well as get to know your students? I really loved that idea and honestly think I will try to use it in my future classroom. And I like how she found how to incorporate it into her literacy lessons by finding out student's interests and experiences so she could pick texts that they could relate to. Just thought the whole thing was a really cool idea.

Breitfelder: I love that our articles are becoming more about what we can actually do to improve our classrooms. For the past year or so I kept on feeling like all we were doing in TE was reading about what the problem was and then never finding out how to solve it. That's why I like Breitfelder's article on how teachers can modify their classroom to fit the needs of students with varying disabilities. What I learned from this article was that most students with disabilities are visual and that it's always good to include pictures in their everyday. But it also suggests to write things out for "the readers." My only question is that this article was designed for early childhood so what do we do when the students start getting into upper level grades? Is it still appropriate to facilitate their reading with a lot of pictures? Or is that stopping them from the actual practice of reading? Just a thought.

Marcus: I also really enjoyed reading the Marcus Case. To be honest, I never thought of the struggles a gifted student could be facing. I think the stereotype of a gifted student is that they are really smart AND focused. But now that I think about it, I have a cousin who was a lot like Marcus: very smart but a trouble maker. It was cool to see that once he changed schools and got a new teacher who made accommodations to Marcus, he responded better. He began WANTING to read because at the beginning of the day she would let the student choose their own books to read. And she did what his parents do and that is, warn the students when they have a few minutes until they have to move on. This helps students like Marcus who can just up and leave a project. I also can't help but sympathize with Marcus that he didn't have the fine motor skills to write yet but was constantly being pushed to write, write, write. How awful it must have been to be pressured to express himself in such a particular way and not be able to do it? I can see how students come to hate writing at an early age if they are having difficulty with the simple act of holding a pencil and putting marks on a paper.

Carlisle: I decided to do my jigsaw on How Can I Help Children with Learning Disabilities? In comparison to the Marcus case, Carlisle's article suggests that teachers do what Marcus' new teacher did and that is have the students pick out their own books for silent reading "even if the book the child selects has few words in it," (pg. 3). I assume that reason for this is because some reading is better than no reading at all. And the students can also benefit from looking and analyzing pictures in a book. This is something I wish my placement did. I never see the students reading something that THEY want to read. I never see silent reading time. This is something that I know I always had in elementary and middle school and I valued a lot. And after we'd read, we would write down in our journals a quick summary of what we read and how we felt about it. What a great way to get students not only excited about reading, but excited about writing on a book that they like.

Overall, good readings this week!

Readings for 2/14

Maples: As I started to read this article, it triggered something in my mind that brought me back to TE 401. We had a discussion on different ways to reach out to parents and I remember one thought was going to their house and having a "conference" there instead of forcing the parents to make the effort to come to the school. Before getting in to the rest of this article, it made me think how far is too far? Where do you draw the line on trying to get in touch with parents? I really liked the idea of having the parents do the homework and having them describe their child. This is an idea that I want to take away from this article and use in my own classroom because I think it is really difficult to try to peel away the layers of every student in your classroom. With this assignment, a teacher can know right away what kind of learners, behaviors, and situations he/she is "dealing with". My only concern would just be on how many responses I would get from parents, similar to the concern in the article, and also if this task can be done in any grade. If it is appropriate to start in younger elementary, I think this would be a great piece to have for students records that can be passed on to other teachers. I think it would be interesting to see this assignment in the classroom I am in because I have formed certain assumptions about my students, but like the article states, it is somewhat based on a stereotype and just what I see for a short time. I think that there are a variety of learners in the classroom, but I have no idea what makes them different from one another or why some students might act out when others barley say a word. Having information from the parents about the children could really be beneficial because that might shed light on why some of the students are at the level they are at or do the things they do.

Breitfelder: When reading this article, there was mention of using visuals such as daily schedules, etc. to help some students who have autism in the classroom because they are more visual learners. I thought this was interesting because I am sure that it does help students with autism, but I also feel that some "regular" students might also be visual learners, so would some teachers not provide these visual pieces if they did not specifically have disabled students in their classroom? I know that my CT has a lot of visual supports in her classroom and as far as I know, there are not any students who have autism. She has a whole area devoted to "morning message" visuals such as a calendar, agenda, etc. She also has another board where she keeps track of groups of students for their daily 5 work so they can actually see what they are supposed to be working on and who else is working on that task so they could ask them for help if they needed it. The example in the classroom with the daily 5 work reminds me of the work centers that are mentioned in this article. The students are depending on the visual cues of the posted card to direct them what to do. In regards to supporting a variety of learners, I think this article helped me the best because it gave me numerous ideas on how to set up my classroom so even if I can't personally be helping students one on one all the time, I at least know I have resources set up in my class that can assist the students. I think the hardest part of all of this is just making sure I really push my students and myself to use those resources because I know my instinct is to go and help every student, but realistically I won't have time for that.

Ladson: I selected this article because I am still unsure on how to handle race in the classroom. I think I would have said what it seems like most teachers say that it is easier to be blind by race in the classroom and treat everyone equally, when in reality that may not be the best practice. After reading this article, I think it is important to acknowledge race in the classroom, however I am still a little confused on how much it needs to be acknowledged. Does a teacher need to make it acknowledged amongst the students? Or does the teacher just need to make sure that they can vary the lesson and cater to different students based on their race, similar to catering to students with different abilities? I see a lot of variation when it comes to students in my classroom in terms of race, however I don't really see my CT do anything differently with different students.

Marcus: The tip about setting up learning centers was a piece that I want to take away from this article to incorporate in my own classroom. I think it is important to have different centers that you can use as "backup" options for students who get done more quickly than others or who are being stubborn about a certain task. It was interesting to read the Marcus case because I might have not known what to do if I had a child like that in my class. I don't know if I would have been able to tell that it was giftedness or him just acting out. I think it was really important what the mom said about the teacher being able to challenge the student enough, but not push them to the point of frustration. I think this is something for all teachers to consider with all students in their classroom because each student might only be able to "handle" so much of a challenge and the teacher would have to alter how he/she approachers certain kinds of students.

Week of February 14th

Seriously, why did I call this blog "Lunchtime with Literacy"? I have no idea.

Regardless, the readings for this week were quite interesting. For this post I would like to take some time and comment on three of them. Two of the assigned articles and the one article I chose for the jigsaw.

Maples

The Maples article that we were assigned gave me an insight into a very cool idea to do for my own classroom. I would love to take her idea and have the parents write a letter (in less than a million words - ha!) about their child. Being that the parents are the supreme authority of their children before they step into my classroom, their insights into the child will be immensely helpful.

Maples talks about how she didn't want to buy into the stereotypes of urban families; most notably about how parents seem to be lacking as a strong support system for their children. She says: "However, the power of parental involvement has been shown to contribute to improving a building’s psychological climate for learning as well as children’s academic performance." (pg. 1)

Having parents become more and more involved allows the child to see how important they really are. Also, setting the precedence early in the classroom that the parents insights into their children are valuable allows the parents to feel warm and welcome in the class and gives them the feeling that their child is valuable to their teacher.

Scott, et. al

This article seemed kind of like a retread for me of many articles that I have already read in the college of ed. While it is never unimportant to read about the struggles of urban education, I feel like most of the articles I read about them usually have the same spin. There were, however, a few quotes that I liked that I thought I would share.

"It was interesting that in their responses these educators talked as much about the needs of urban teachers as they did about urban learners…"(pg. 1)

"From the teacher perspective, Mona considers one of the gravest unmet needs of the urban learner to be teachers’ failures to take into consideration who their students are…"(pg. 2)

"Finally, what changes are needed to move us toward a pedagogy of success for urban learners? The message that came through loud and clear from all three was teacher professional development."(pg. 4)

I especially like the last quote which implies that an initial education isn't necessarily enough. It is a stepping stone but continued professional development can only increase the success of teaching in urban areas as teachers continue to grow with the times rather than stay inert from what they have learned, in some cases, 20+ years ago.

Breitfelder

"As teachers, we know the best ways students with special needs learn is by having adaptations and accommodations that can be used for that specific child, to meet their needs, so they can be successful in the classroom." (pg. 3)

While this article might not seem to have much in common with the two articles above since it is not about strictly urban area teaching I thought that one of the interesting issues it brings up is the idea of consistency. Many homes, urban or otherwise, suffer from a lack of consistency and your classroom is one area that you can help these children have a consistent part of their day at least five days a week for the duration of the school year.