April 4

I chose to read the Kymes article about online comprehension strategies. I thought this would fit in well with an article I looked at for our instructional model, which is reading and writing in content areas. The article I looked at for our instructional model project was specifically about comprehension in content areas and how to use writing to learn (versus learning to write) and gave many strategies to help students with this. The Kymes article deals with comprehension as well but focuses on online environments. In my placement I have noticed the great amount of digital media used in content areas for looking up information, filling in charts, or interactive activities. It is important to know how to deal with online environments because online and Internet sources for literacy are on the rise and will only increase in every classroom. I think it is very important to be able to distinguish comprehension strategies in print resources versus online resources and how to approach online environments as a teacher in comparison to traditional print resources. Although most strategies are the same across both types of resources, there are things that need to be kept in mind for online resources especially. The article talks about the need for awareness of purpose in order for comprehension and for online sources especially because it is so easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of text and it is easy for students to get sidetracked. The article also points out that skimming, scanning, and reading selectively is vital for online sources because there is so much out there and it is much more efficient to be able to read this way. Another thing the article points out is activating prior knowledge and maintaining the dialectic. Because “online text, images, and information is less explicit the reader must have a framework to organize and categorize new ideas and new knowledge” (Kymes). In addition, to maintain dialectic students must be able to assess the accuracy of the information. This goes along with the need to be able to evaluate text structure and quality. “The online reader must look for clues that indicate a less than reputable source and look for bias to determine if a source can be trusted” (Kymes). Because I grew up with a good amount of technology in school I distinctly remember teachers constantly telling us (even into college) that the most important thing about online research is determining whether the source can be trusted or whether a source is reputable or not. This is such an important aspect of online resources and should be taught starting at a young age. Technology and online material is continuing to increase and therefore teaching trustworthiness is crucial. It is also important to remember that these strategies must be modeled for students so that students can begin to master these skills and use them far beyond your classroom. I think the article points out a lot of great things in regards to online sources and they must be taken into consideration when dealing with any reading or writing (whether in the content areas or not).

3/21

The article that stood out the most to me this week was the Gregory article on comprehension. As others have mentioned, I too underestimated the ability of younger children to comprehend. I like how this article mentioned that younger students do have the ability to have intelligent conversations over text and to use strong terminology. The article just mentions that these conversations will be more visual and age appropriate. The importnat thing to remember is that the younger students have less life experiences and thus need the conversation to be simpler but not so simple that it doesn't push or challenge them. In the classroom I have noticed that my CT loves to have conversations with the students. She is always asking them if they understand or have a similar experience that they can share with the class. I think this helps students with their comprehension, they not only have the text but they also have their peers experiences to help them in their understanding. 

Readings 3/21

As I have made it clear before I have the least amount of knowledge in the teaching of lower elementary especially kindergarten. I was then instantly drawn to the Cahill article on Kindergarten Comprehension. Learning things such as the fact that “young students have the inability to construct personal narratives” and that full-length stories demand too much cognitive attention” helped me to learn about the concerns of younger elementary as well as start to make connections with what I know and see in my upper elementary classroom. When Mrs. Hope makes the connection that her students need to categorize the connections they make I found this I something that is true in upper elementary as well. In literacy I find that categorizing thoughts is something that students have a hard time with starting in kindergarten and continuing into 5^th grade. Even though the level of comprehension is different throughout the grades it still is a common problem. When I did test comprehension on first grade students in 301 when they would read a book they would read the words and lack the punctuation and fluency they needed to be able to understand the story. When analyzing this I realized I saw the teacher test their comprehension and make conclusions about them but I never really saw any teaching of comprehension given I was only there four hours a week. When comparing it to my fifth grade classroom the students understand what they are reading but lack understanding detail either writing detail or picking the details out a story. The biggest difference I saw was that comprehension is taught in fifth grade. I begin to wonder if they start at lower levels of comprehension because it was not taught early on. The article talks about great things kindergarten students can do to help with comprehension such as putting C’s up when they make a connection in a story. In my classroom they take pictures of them reading and post them so what I thought of is as a project students can take pictures of them doing something in their everyday lives that connects to a scene/plot/setting/character that they have read in the story thus far, helping them to make connections and look at the details. I really enjoyed this article because it helped me to learn about ways to teach comprehension in early grades and how these actually can be used and adapted to other grade levels in helping them understand comprehension.

Readings for 3/21

The Cahil article gave me some great ideas on how to make comprehension easier when dealing with my own classroom in the future. I thought the idea of starting off with "basic" components that the students could use, such as the hand signals when reading, was a great start at introducing them in to ways of expressing comprehension without it being to overwhelming for students. This article also made me think of my CT's classroom and how the students have a hard time relating stories back to themselves or making connections with what the story reminded them of. I have seen multiple students in my CT's class that will sit down and read or listen to a story and then are asked to fill out a follow-up sheet about the story and when it comes to the section where it says "what did this story remind you of?" the students resort back to parts of the story and are missing the point that they are supposed to be thinking about their own thinking from the story. I think that if my CT introduced a method similar to the one mentioned in the article, the students would make better connections and comprehend more of what they were reading.

On the other hand, the Applegate article mentions teachers using questioning as a way to guide readers/students through what they might want to be comprehending and this is actually something that I see my CT doing a lot. I think that by her doing this it is setting the students up for skills and ways to make sure they are comprehending and for them to eventually be able to do it on their own. Example: by the CT asking students certain questions, it gets them in the habit of asking themselves those questions when they have to do readings on their own. I think that my CT's classroom has a lot of "literalists" in it based off of what I have read in this article because they tend to focus on what the text says and sometimes have trouble with thinking outside of the story. I think this goes to show that they may be on the lower end of being able to comprehend things well because they are looking to the text for specific answers and not actually thinking about what the text is saying.

The guided reading section in Tompkins made me think of the guided reading I see my CT doing with students in the classroom. I was a little unsure of what guided reading was exactly because I have not had the opportunity to sit in with my CT as she does it and I know that each teacher varies with how they set up their guided reading, but this section helped me get a better understanding for what it is and what to expect when doing this task.

Comprehension articles...

While we read parts of the Tompkins chapter this week for our readings I would like to specifically engage with the two articles we had to read on comprehension: "Kindergarteners Can Do It Too" by Cahill and Gregory and "Profiles in Comprehension" by Applegate et. al

I loved the article by Cahill and Gregory! Not only did it stress something that I think is really important to stress (how younger ed. students view the world) it also specifically talks about the age group in which I am very curious to work with. Ever since I started substitute teaching back in 2008 I have enjoyed working with younger students over older students. There is something about their positive energy, the way they can encourage each other and the way they have not yet been tainted by the desire/ability to treat each other cruelly as I have seen happen in the older grades that I genuinely gravitate towards/respond to.

That aside, I know there are many different "pratfalls" or challenges that come in teacher lower grades, especially in implementation of literacy or basic skills across the disciplines. I question my patience many times with younger students and knowing myself well enough, I wonder whether or not really young children would be the most ideal match. If I were to venture a guess I would say that kindergarten-2nd grade teachers have the hardest job in education. So much of their time is spent implementing and checking for understanding that one of the downfalls is never really expanding.

All this aside, what I loved about the Cahill article is that Mrs. Hope's class gave a lot of different really cool ideas for implementing comprehension in the stories that were being read. Being the literally movie-minded guy that I am, my favorite, of course, was mind movies. Once the students had a visualized representation of what they were hearing in the story they would raise their hands in a 'V' and Mrs. Hope would call them out and they got to share their mental videos. The article says:

“As part of the introduction to this strategy (mind movies), Mrs. Hope asked the students to close their eyes and listen to the story Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe (1985). After reading two pages, Mrs. Hope asked the students to describe their mind movies. Later, they were asked to draw their mind movies and then to compare their drawings to the illustrations in the book...This provided Mrs. Hope and the students with the opportunity to discuss why some things were included in their pictures but not in the text.” (pg. 2)

What I like about this article - and how it segues nicely into the next article - is that it asks the students to use their imagination rather than simply answering call and response questions ad tedium. This kind of memorization does very little to nothing for their actual comprehension other than recitation of meaning. What the visualizations or mind movies do is to make the students engage with the text and its comprehension on a level that is much higher than what questions ask them to do.

While I didn't like the next article as much (it was ok, still, though) I thought that it also presented some interesting ideas on comprehension. I liked when the article said:

“There is, however, a widely used alternative to factual recall and recitation questions and that is the type of questioning that encourages students to engage in discussion. These questions have been variously designated as higher order, inference, scriptal, implicit, or aesthetic. No matter what their label, these kinds of questions have several common characteristics: They do not lend themselves to a single correct response, answers to them must be justified logically by readers, and they encourage discussion and the acknowledgment of multiple viewpoints.” (pg. 1)

The article then goes on to talk about the different types of comprehenders and I couldn't help but see many of the students from my field placement as what are described as "Fuzzy Thinkers." Fuzzy Thinkers: "...are characterized by their vague and imprecise concepts that are frequently reflected in vague and imprecise language. Fuzzy Thinkers can give you an answer to any type of question you ask, but the thinking behind their responses will be elusive and ambiguous. When we follow up on their initial responses with questions designed to clarify their thinking, we find that they are often unable to explain what they meant. In general, they cannot explain because they never had a clear idea of the significance of their original answer.” (pg. 51-52)

My CT spends a very large amount of her time reading to her students from books of all different genres and grade levels. I LOVE this about her. Reading is essential and I like that while certain books that she chooses might be deemed "too young" or not age appropriate, she still incorporates them into her daily life as a teacher because they not only give her a chance to read to her students but they also are covering material that is appropriate to her other disciplines. But, I see Fuzzy Thinkers ALL THE TIME in her class. What I find interesting is that it is generally the female students that she has. They will timidly raise their hands, and then, when they can't rearticulate their answers for them to make more sense they shake their heads and get nervous smiles and blush and hid in their hands and say "nevermind" or something of the like and act giggly and silly as if by laughing at themselves first they've beaten everybody else to the punch.

Readings: Comprehension

I think comprehension is one of the most difficult aspects of literature. Some students struggle with comprehension because they cannot read the words to put the information together. While some students struggle with comprehension because they just do not understand what is going on in the text. I had a student in my sixth grade class last year that was reading at grade level, but was at a first grade level when it came to comprehension. According to the Applegate article this student would have been considered a left fielder because she gave answers that are unpredictable and had no connections to the text. I was surprised at how many different types of profiles there were for comprehension. I think it is so important to start comprehension young, which relates to the Gregory and Cahill article. I like the way this article described schema as the stuff you already have in your head, like your personal experiences. My kindergarten class uses their personal experiences to relate to the different books that they read. When my teacher reads a book she asks questions that relates to their lives. I have seen my teacher ask if the students have ever had an experience like the one talked about in the book and then she chooses five or six students to share their experiences. Another strategy that my teacher uses that I find beneficial is asking “I Wonder” questions to get students thinking about the book. My teacher sometimes says I wonder what is going to happen next? She then asks several students what they think is going to happen. I think this is beneficial because the students have to think about what is going to happen so they have to understand what has already happened in the book to have an opinion on what is going to happen next. I think comprehension is very important for students to understand and it is pivotal to start this process young so they can grow in their comprehension as they get older.

Readings for March 21

The article that stood out most to me and that I found the most interesting was the Gregory and Cahill article. I think it is very common to underestimate the ability of such young children and it is important to understand that children as young as Kindergarten are able to learn and practice comprehension strategies they will use for the rest of their lives. As this article explained, this classroom of Kindergarteners was able to distinguish whether their comments in discussions were connections to the story, descriptions of their visualizations (mind movies), or questions. In particular I loved the “Velcro Theory”. This is a great way to approach the idea of schemas. I also found it exciting to see children as young as Kindergarten knowing and using the term schemas. The Velcro Theory says that a “new piece of information is easier to remember if we can stick it onto something that’s already in our heads”. This is a great way to think about schemas and it makes sense (and will also make sense to young students). I also really liked the idea of having students close their eyes and then draw what they imagine and then compare it to the illustrations in the story. This is a great way to get students engaged in the text without requiring them to do a lot of writing (which is good because they are so young), but is just as beneficial in my opinion. This article also did a good job of breaking down the idea of inferring. By simply saying, “was the question answered in the text or did you have to use your brain?” it makes this concept seem less complicated. I think by simplifying even the most complex concepts, you can address these types of things with very young children.
In addition, I also like reading about the different Comprehension Profiles in the Applegate & Quinn article. This article talked about the need for higher-level questions that get students to really think rather than recall text details. This is pretty much exactly what we have been hearing in this class in every article we have read so far. Nonetheless, I found the profiles interesting and I enjoyed being able to place some of my students that I have been working with during my small group literacy lesson into some of these categories. There is one student in particular that falls into the Fuzzy Thinkers and/or Minimalists profile(s). She always seems to have something to say however she always makes vague statements and provides no elaboration on her answers no matter how much I try to probe her with further questions. I find it interesting that type of student can be found anywhere. I agree completely with the need to identify the profile of each of your students so that you are able to “provide instruction they need for effective, rewarding, and engaged reading” (Applegate & Quinn). You are not able to effectively approach the instruction of a student until you understand their habits of reading and thinking.

Week 8 readings

Gregory Article:
Wow. Here it is, living proof, that we can have discussions with any grade level. This article actually shocked me. Kindergarters participating in book discussions, raising their hands with signs of what they're about to say and using words like "schema." How cool? But I think Gregory sums it's up best when she says, "By necessity, comprehension instruction looks different with young children. It is more active and much more visible (i.e., through the use of hand signals)." We've always been told in our TE classes, "This can be done in any grade level with the proper adjustments." Now we can see that this is actually true. So far this year what I've learned is that kids are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. I mean, I was amazed to see the 3rd and 4th graders in my placement making "text to self" or "text to text" connections. I thought it was awesome that my CT would have her students foreshadow what would happen next in a story or have the students close their eyes and visualize what was happening. I believe she's even used the word "inner movie." And if I was amazed that 4th graders could do this...one can imagine my shock that kindergartners can. I really enjoyed this article. Sort of inspiring!

Applegate Article:
It was pretty interesting to see the different ways students can answer comprehensive questions. In my placement, I believe that I see most often Liberalist and minimalists. The article had mentioned that minimalists can be quite frustrating to deal with because we know that those students have something to say but they're too afraid to say it. I just experienced this yesterday in my placement. There is a difficult student who is sort of a smart ass (I have no other word for it...so I'm sorry). He's always trying to challenge teachers and I think it's because he thinks he's always right. However, as soon as he's ask a question he's not sure of, he hesitates and becomes silent. He was trying to come up with answers to prompts given after reading a short story and he was a having a lot of difficulty. When I tried to help, he kept responding with "I don't know..." It's tough not to just give up and walk away at that point but I kept going. With help from me, he finally came up with an idea but was still reluctant to write it down. I walked away and watched him struggle with the idea and after about 10 minutes, wrote it down. It was sort of a "mission accomplished" moment for me.

Tompkins Chap 2
The first half of this chapter focuses on the strategies for reading. In Stage 4: Exploring, it says, "Students go back into the text to examine it more analytically. This state is more teacher directed than the others; it reflects the teacher-centered theory," (48). The first suggestion it makes is for the students to reread the selection. I find this to be such an important strategy to help with not only analytical skills but also comprehension and fluency. However, it seems to be the biggest drag for the kids. My CT often has her students reread material two or three times over again. The students are always complaining, "I've already read this!!" But i can tell the discussion is so much more rich when they've read through it two or more times. They know the story like the back of their hand which makes it easier to recall and make connections the second time around. My CT always tells me if the students complain that they've already read it then I should say, "Good. Then we should be able to breeze through it and you will be able to add much to our discussion."

Tompkins Chap 8
"...comprehension depends on three prerequisites: having adequate background knowledge about the topic and the genre, being familiar with most words in the text, and being able to read it fluently. When one of these requirements is lacking, students are unlikely to comprehend what they're reading," (pg 259). I think this quote pretty much sums up what this chapter is about. If we want our students to improve their comprehension we need to help them make connections by using their background knowledge (text to self, text to world and text to text), we must expose them to as much vocabulary as we can and we also need to help them practice reading in order to improve their fluency. "Students need to spend lots of time reading authentic texts independently and talking about their reading with classmates and teachers. Having students read interesting books written at their reading level is the best way for them to apply comprehension strategies. As they read and discuss their reading, students are practicing what they're learning about comprehension," (pg. 271)

3/14 readings

The Raphael and Salna were very similar; they both were about the importance of book talks in a classroom.   I liked how in the Salna article there were a variety of books used to discuss a topic or theme. The students read all of the books from the topic/theme and then took turns having the leading role in discussions. Through these discussions students were able to share their ideas and opinions and reflect on the different topics they were reading about. As someone else mentioned, the student were learning without realizing. Not only does this allow the students to learn about a topic/theme it also teaches them about discussion etiquette. They learned to wait their turn and how to give appropriate answers and how to start a discussion.

My CT uses book talks in the majority of her lessons. She is always using a book as a way to introduce and close a lesson. She is usually the one who does the reading but the students are given the opportunity to raise their hand at any time in order to ask a question or to point out something they noticed that they found interesting. The students then discuss the book as a class and are asked to relate it to their own experience with a lesson or out of class experience.

I think this opportunity to use books with discussion is important. It gives students an opportunity to share their opinions and gives them the opportunity to lead an in class discussion which can lead to increased confidence. These discussions are a great assessment of the students’ progress and a way to see areas where they may need growth. 

Readings for 3/14

The Salna article really stuck out to me in a way that I could relate to a lot of examples that were presented in it. I thought it was interesting that the fishbowl technique was mentioned because that was something that I had seen in my spanish class in high school. I know it was somewhat different than the technique that was talked about in the article, but I felt I could connect to this article because I had done this activity in a class. I just remember when I participated in the fishbowl activity in my class, I did not feel as engaged in the activity because I was more worried about trying to add a comment to the discussion instead of it being a thought-worthy comment. I still think it would be beneficial to use in a regular classroom though because the students would not be worried about using another language, like I was, but would be able to focus on the content we were talking about. The other activity that I could relate to was the use of the browsing box. My CT uses this in her classroom right now and it seems to be very effective. She selects books for the students that are at their level and would be interesting to them, along with being in relation to things that are being talked about in the classroom. I saw this same activity and technique used in the Salna article and it seemed to be as effective as the way my CT executes it. The book club was another technique that I could somewhat relate to. I remember being a part of a book club in elementary school, however mine was setup a little differently than this one. We were all assigned a large book that had many different stories in it and would stay in from lunch/recess a few days out of the month and read in our groups and do follow up activities/questions. I had actually forgotten about that experience until I read this article, but it made me reflect on how useful that technique was in my learning experience and would be something that I would want to incorporate in to my own classroom. The last thing about this article that I really related to was how Kyle acted in the classroom and his attitude about literature. I have a student who is very similar to Kyle in my CT's classroom, so seeing some of the progress and techniques used on him helped me think of things I can do with my CT's student to help him become more involved in literacy lessons. I like the way that Book Club Plus shows the graph of the units that are covered so it is easier to understand and see how this technique plays out. I also really liked how the Book Club in general is set up so students are supported no matter what level they are at and what focus they are stronger in. After reading both of these book club articles, I think I will definitely try to incorporate this in to my classroom to benefit all of my students.

Immediately when starting the Tompkins chapter, I was reminded of "word work" that I see in my placement every week. There is a special teacher who comes in to work with the class on vowels, such as the ones in the example in chapter 5. She is really good with teaching the students through many different techniques that keep them all engaged. The latest example I have seen her use is having the students represent certain teams for each "e" sound/ending. She will make the students coaches and have them be responsible for their team for that week. She also uses flash cards that have words written on them with different "e" sounds and endings and works with the class as a whole, yet individually calls on each student to volunteer answers so she can see that everyone is learning. She also likes to pair words with the vowel sounds she is working on as well. One time she had the students pretend they were eating an apple to represent the "a" sound. I think techniques like this are very beneficial for the students because it helps them remember what they are learning in a fun way and it seems to really stick with them.

Spring Break Readings

I really enjoyed the rich examples and mini-lessons that Tompkins Chapter 5 shared with us in the reading. When discussing Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, and Spelling they provided everyday examples and activities that you can use with students that are effective and efficient. One that stuck out to me was singing ole McDonald (p. 150). When I think of that song I only think of it as a nursery rhyme but in the chapter they show how it can be used as a tool for identifying beginning middle and end in words. They also give other great classroom activities such as online games you can use and mini lessons that involve sorting objects based on phonics concepts and then making a poster. Not only do they give us activities to use but this chapter helped me to see where students develop from. Being in a 5^th grade classroom there are still many words that students spell wrong our use the wrong letter because of the sound and most of the time I just correct it and tell them the right way to spell it because I do not have a full understanding of how they have developed this understandings of what they do and do not know. Being well informed of what they develop in early grades is something I am really working on and I believe this chapter does a great job in helping me with that understanding.

In the Salan reading I also loved the book club activity that she introduced as one that she does in her first/second grade classroom. The idea of balanced literacy is one I completely believe in and find it disappointing that it is something not done in every school. Going back to the book club, this activity is something that I have seen done in the 5^th grade classrooms I have been in but never thought about in the early years of literacy development. After reading this article however I totally see how book club is a form of balanced literacy. Students are reading, comprehending writing and so much more. These were all amazing sources of understanding literacy. Then to build off of that article I read the Raphael article on book clubs as well. I enjoyed this one as a support to showing how activities in book clubs such as writers’ workshops and book discussions can be such an important and strong support for literacy.

With all the readings this week I really related it to my everyday experiences with teaching. Book club is something that I was completely convinced of throughout the readings on the importance that it has in children’s literacy development throughout all grades. I believe this will help me to see book club in a different view as we do in this upcoming week in TE 402 class. My fifth grade classroom participates as well in a book club but I have yet to witness the processes such as workshops and discussions that go with it. After reading the articles I am very interested in seeing how it develops for the students and how they respond and interact to these activities and the book in their development of literacy.

Spring Break Reading

A common factor that I'm seeing in all the readings is that in order to improve literacy, we need to speak. It's not enough just to read and write...we need to be discussing and being verbal.

In Tompkins Chapter 5 it says, "Teachers nurture children's phonemic awareness through the language-rich environments they create in the classroom. As they sing songs, chant rhymes, read aloud word-play books, and play games, children have many opportunities to orally match, isolate, blend and substitute sounds and to segment words into sounds," (pg. 147). What this tells me is that phonemic awareness shows the students that speaking and reading go hand in hand. Phonemic awareness means that children who are "phonemically aware understand that spoken words are made up of sounds, and they can segment and blend sounds in spoken words." Phonemic awareness has to happen before phonics so children can learn to convert letters into sounds. Again, there's the hand in hand correlation with speaking and reading.

In Gibbons Chapter two, it says when a teacher uses IRE type of discussions, "...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," (pg. 17). I think I may have referred to this quote before but I think it's such an important point. We can't expect our ELLs to improve in their literary discussions (or any form of communication for that matter) if we just depend on IRE types of discussions, our ELL students will most likely remain stagnant as far as verbal communication goes.

Chapter 3 says that students were seen to go through 4 stages when learning science: 1. Doing and experiment, 2. Introducing key vocabulary, 3. Teacher-guided reporting and 4. Journal Writing. Stage 3 states again how important discussion can be to facilitate learning and writing ability. It says, "...the overall aim of the teacher-guided reporting was to extend children's linguistic resources and focus on aspects of the specific discourse of science. As the teacher expressed it to the child, 'Now we're trying to talk like scientists.' She also anticipated that the reporting stage would create a context for students to "rehearse" language structures that were closer to written discourse--that is, that were closer to the written end of the mode continuum," (pg. 45). To reiterate, this stage basically says that in order for students to get ideas on what to write about, they need to discuss it first. Through different types of discussions, and using vocabulary and language that scientists use, they are more likely to write scientific papers or journal entries. I believe that having discussions where the students can pretend like their real scientists is extremely beneficial for the students because it makes it fun and interesting! And because they're having fun with the discussion, they'll have more to write about.

The Salna and Raphael articles go hand in hand. They both emphasis how important discussions are to have in book clubs. Holding discussions after reading a story helps not only with comprehension but also getting along in a group (Salna, 47). The Raphael article calls this "community share." Either way, this is what we've been emphasizing in 402 this entire semester: the benefits of book discussion. What I love about book discussions is that it doesn't even seem like you're learning; you're just having a conversation. And through that conversation, the student is getting more of an in depth look of the story. Salna says, "My observations of their discussions showed me that they comprehended what they had read... I was pleased to see that so many of them could figure out a theme from their reading. I think this showed higher-level thinking."

In my placement, my CT knows that discussions are important in comprehending stories. However, what she does is weird to me. She has the kids discussing while she's reading the story. She stops at almost every sentence it seems like. Last week, she wanted to show us that her students knew how to have a discussion and it took her 30 minutes just to get through three pages. Are the kids even hearing what the story is about? It's just a weird concept to me to have a discussion while reading. There's so much going on. If it were me, I'd read first and have the kids soak it all in before they can talk about what they thought.

Spring Break Readings

While all of the readings did not specifically talk about ESL students, most of them did, and the ones that did not address the issue outright still offered advice to their specific topic that can be translated to fit. Below are some quotes that I pulled out of the readings that DID address ESL students:

Scaffolding Literacy Chapter 2

“One clear teaching implication of studies into second language acquisition is that the degree of facility of second language learning in a classroom depends largely on how classroom discourse is constructed.” (pg. 16)

“While a single instruction may cause no problems, instructions that involve a number of sequenced steps are often far more difficult. Try to put into practice the notion of ‘message redundancy’…by giving the same instructions in several ways.” (pg. 21)

“A group task should require, not simply encourage, talk.” (pg. 22)

Scaffolding Literacy Chapter 3

“While spoken and written language obviously have distinctive characteristics, this continuum of texts illustrates that there is no absolute boundary between them. Technology increases this blurring.” (pg. 41)

Tompkins Chapter 5

“When EL’s learn a word they being by learning its meaning and how to pronounce it. Almost immediately, they’re introduced to the word written form, and with practice, they learn to recognize and read it. Soon they’re writing the word, too. At first their spellings reflect what they know about the English spelling system, but with spelling instruction and reading and writing practice, they learn to spell words correctly. Because spelling is more demanding than reading, it’s not surprising that students’ knowledge about spelling grows this way.” (pg. 171)

These quotes above all come from the chapters that we read from our texts. The other two articles that we read, "Book Clubs Plus" and "Book Clubs as Part of a Balanced Curriculum" offer suggestions on not only how to include the concept of book clubs into the classroom but also how to scaffold book clubs so that every student from every walk of life is included in the fun. Here is where the link between ESL students and students with other obstacles becomes concrete. While a teacher may not have a student in their classroom that is performing lower than normal simply due to the fact that they do not understand the language in terms of the way it is regularly spoken, read and written in the classroom, does not mean that the teacher will not have students who do not struggle otherwise. Below are some quotes from the two articles that we read for this week that help to include various different students at different ability levels regardless of what their ability handicaps might be:

"Book Clubs as Part of a Balanced Curriculum" - Salna

“Balanced literacy is an approach to teaching language arts that…involves a number of different components, including guided reading, reading centers, shared reading, modeled writing, and oral language activities.” (pg. 42)

“When creating Book Clubs, I had several goals. I wanted them to interest my students and challenge them a bit. I wanted to introduce my students to some authentic issues that were appropriate to their age level as well as controversial topics for them to think about, write about and discuss. I also wanted to introduce a range of genres and to incorporate literature from our basal into Book Clubs” (pg. 44)

"Book Club Plus" - Raphael et. al.

“To learn to read well, all students need to read thought-provoking, age-appropriate books.” (pg. 1)

“A dilemma facing teachers is how to engage their diverse readers in meaningful activities around age-appropriate text while also providing instruction appropriate to each student’s individual needs.” (pgs. 1-2)

Both of these texts hit on the point that the books associated with book clubs need to be age-appropriate. You can encourage literacy in the classroom all you want, but if you are not providing students with the opportunity to engage in books that their various different levels you will see in the classroom then you have provided them with nothing. A student that grew up in an educator's home might be at a different level than a student who just arrived from China. Your classroom needs to be set up in a way that appropriates and accommodates all types of readers.