I have never heard of basal reading until this week’s readings. I think that it is interesting how 74% of teachers use basal reading. According to Using Basal Readers by Peter Dewitz and Jennifer Jones, “basal reader is a complex collection of reading selections, support materials, and assessments held together by a hefty teacher’s edition.” I think that the basal program is a great way to help guide teachers in building their students literature and comprehension. It is important for teachers to do what is best for the students and scaffold for their students. This program is beneficial in helping the students become stronger readers and helping the teacher with new techniques to build her/his knowledge of learning through programs. My cooperating teacher does not use this program but I do know that their all some students in her class that could benefit from this program. In the article, Exploring Culturally Relevant Texts with Kindergarten and Their Families by Katie Schrodt, Jeanne Gilliam, Fain Michelle, and Hasty, it talks about how children can take their books home to read with their parents. My cooperating teacher does this as well. The students take their books home and reads the book with their parents, then their parents sign a log for them. “Children bring a wealth of culture knowledge, and experience to the classroom (Schrodt, 2015, p. 590).” This is a great way to get parents involved in their child’s learning and progress and also benefits the parent because they can learn different cultures and expand their knowledge on the topic. We as teachers need to be aware that present day classrooms are culturally diverse and will be more so in the future. This reminds me about how my cooperating teacher told the students how one of their classmates can’t eat ham on his grilled ham and cheese sandwich, so he has to just have a grilled cheese. This is because of his religion but when the children asked why, my cooperating teacher ignored the question. This would have been a great opportunity to discuss this child’s culture but it was ignored instead. We should let students and families be aware of the different cultures because there may be a student in the class with their child that has an interesting cultural background that we should teach and learn from.
I have always considered the word assessment as a negative one. Every time I think of the word assessment, it makes me think about standardized testing and failure. According to Morrow, there are many different ways that teachers can assess their students other than a piece of paper and a pencil. I really like how Morrow uses student evaluation forms for her assessment. Student evaluation forms give the students their own evaluation on their assignments, homework, and using their work to discuss their weaknesses and strengths with their teachers and their parents as well. I think that this is a good way to get the students involved on what they are doing and how they can improve because they are the once evaluating their work. Morrow also mentions student portfolios. I like how she mentions this because this is what we are doing in class. This is a good way for the teachers, parents, and students themselves to see their work all together and too see where they began in the beginning of the semester and where they are now. I love the student portfolio that we do for this class because I am able to refer back to my lesson plans, blogs that include interesting readings, and work that I have completed in class. This not only benefits me now but also in the future.
I like how the readings for this week gave examples on how to handle language learning students during read aloud lessons. I just mentioned this is my seminar class this past Friday. I have a student in my practicum that speaks Russian. Although he has gotten better during read aloud time, I worry that he does not comprehend the material. He was moved from his spot on the floor because during read aloud he would play at the computer table and would not pay attention. It worries me that he is not getting the help that he needs and the article Storybook Reading for Young Dual Language Learners is a great article to give to my cooperating teacher, so that she can have ideas on how to handle this certain student during her read aloud lessons. All the suggestions in the reading were excellent but I personally think that two of them would work best for the student in my practicum class: Read the story several times a week and using the student’s home language to facilitate story comprehension and English vocabulary acquisition. I think that this would be beneficial to the student and the teacher as well. This would prevent less frustration, comprehension, vocabulary, and comfort for the student.
This chapter in our Literacy Development in the Early Years book, has to do with writing development. This chapter was able to connect with my practicum for kindergarten. The book discusses how writing is categorized in six ways. One of them is writing via drawing. At the end of my day in my practicum class, the students wright in their journals and they can draw a picture of what they learned. Sometimes the students will draw, instead of writing the words that they are trying to say. Since my first day of practicum, I have seen an increase in their writing and the process of their writing. This chapter also discusses how a writing center can benefit the child and make them feel comfortable while reading. My practicum has couch cushions on the floor and book shelves with a lot of books. This helps students feel relazed and comfortable and gives them a variety of reading material to read individually or among friends. I really liked how the chapter talks about kindergarten and how the process of writing is important to them. I enjoyed reading this chapter so that I can correlate it with my kindergarten practicum.
This week’s readings, were very interesting! The ABCs Chapter reading informed me about how important it is for children to understand and know the alphabet. In the beginning of the reading, it discussed how the alphabet is more than just 26 letters but children also have to distinguish between the capital letters, the lower case letters, how some of the letters look very familiar, and lastly, how some of them sound similar. As an adult, you don’t realize this but for a student this may be very difficult to wrap their mind around. Learning and comprehending alphabet knowledge will help students succeed more with reading and writing as they grow older. If students are able to write the letter, sound out the letter, and read the letter, they are more likely to spell and compose as they learn to read and write (ABCs Chapter, pg. 5). This article shows many examples, games, and lessons on how to implement the alphabet throughout the school day, so that the students become stronger readers and writers. With understanding the alphabet, students become more aware of the word and print. Literacy Development in the Early Years, Chapter five discusses the importance of how the alphabet leads to reading the word and comprehending the print. Overall, the readings implied how significant it is for students to become aware of letters and how knowing the letters of the alphabet will help them better succeed. We as educators need to be aware of the importance of the alphabet and be sure to use it in everyday activities for our students to better succeed!
I enjoyed reading the two articles on how phoneme awareness has a significant relationship with success in beginning reading and also how spoken language skills can be substantial when it comes to reading. Both articles consisted of case studies. The Smolkin and Donovan article case study focused on how the teachers read alouds reflected the categories as those suggested by more systematic but decontextualized research (pg. 97). The Morris article suggest that phoneme units within oral language plays a significant role in learning the alphabet. This is backed up with many questions asked, research, and observation of the students being tested. All in all, the two articles suggest how important reading aloud and phoneme awareness help enhance the student’s growth in learning how to read, becoming a stronger reader, and learning the alphabet. My third reading for this week, was chapter one in our Literacy Development in the Early Years textbook by Morrow. This chapter discussed the literacy development of children and how they begin to recognize sounds and words when they are infants and how that continues to develop throughout their years of growing with the interest of the child. This chapter also discusses many theories used for teaching children. In all my readings for this week, I learned how significant it is to be child-centered and how teaching one thing, like phoneme, benefits the child in other areas of learning. It is important for students to become aware that what they learn one day, will help them succeed in further lessons taught.
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AuthorMy blogs are based off weekly readings from my Early Literacy Development and Acquisition Class at James Madison University. Archives
November 2015
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