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.