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.