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.