Vocabulary

         The biggest challenge I see in building vocabulary is the stark class difference that exists in the US today. As the Lane article points out, children who come from a low socio-economic background have incredibly less exposure to new vocabulary. I found it so interesting that only 10 minutes of free reading a day can increase 5th grader’s number of words read by over 600,000. If that’s not motivation to get your kids reading, I don’t know what is.

         The unfortunate thing about the class issue is that we as teachers sometimes feel helpless to change it. We can’t go into the homes and convince parents to use better vocabulary because often times these parents don’t have a good vocabulary bank either. That’s why I loved the idea in the “Vocabulary Lessons” article about doing “circle time” at the beginning of the day to improve vocabulary. The way she moves throughout the year from simple words to adult words is a great way for children to learn new words without feeling like they are just memorizing fancy words.

      I read this book a few years ago and both of these articles reminded me of it. It talks about a study done by researchers who literally went into the homes of children of different classes and counted the number of words they spoke. It's a really interesting book and if you have time to read it, I definitely recommend it!

Click here for a summarized page of what the book is about.

Click here for the book!

Comprehension

        I'm so glad we're spending so much time learning about comprehension. I honestly didn't realize until we did the excercise in class where we answered the fake comprehension questions about the nonsense paragraph how easy it would be to be deluded about how much a child actually comprehends. The questions we were asked were very easily answered by scanning the reading and plugging in the answers where they went. They did not in any way measure how much we actually understood.
      The comprehension matrix is something that I definitely want to employ in a future classroom. What I liked about it was that it not only focused on how much a child comprehends, but it stretches them in other aspects of their reading acquisition. It's such an easy tool to make sure students get it.
       The book also had several great options to prime kids comprehension. My favorite was the "Oprah interview." Oprah is a master at squeezing the most information she can out of a person, and using the format she uses on the show to ask a child comprehension questions would be perfect to make sure they understand.

She asks why certain things happened.

She asks participants to expand on what they know.

She asks agreement and disagreement questions.

     By treating a student like they are a book character on the Oprah show, a teacher can have a solid idea of whether or not the child understood what he or she read. It makes me wonder:

Can you remember ways that your own teachers provoked comprehension while reading?

Fluency Activity - Reader's Theater

Readers Theater is a performance of a literary work by an individual or group, wherein the text is read expressively, but not fully staged and acted out.

Note:This practice allows teachers to assign reading parts based on level of fluency.

Notice how expressive these kids are when they read!

Examples of a readers theater scripts can be found by clicking here, http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm.

 A lesson plan that is pre-planned can be found by clicking here, http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/readers-theatre-172.html?tab=1#tabs

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Step 1: Introduce or review the nature, purpose, and procedures for reader’s theater with the class. Step 2: Assign students to individual parts by having them volunteer or audition. Parts can be assigned by students within groups and can rotate from one performance to another.	Have students practice their parts on their own, in their group, under your guidance, and at home.	Have students practice their parts on their own, in their group, under your guidance, and at home.	Have students practice their parts on their own, in their group, under your guidance, and at home.	Invite students to perform their scripts for an audience, usually their classmates, but others can be invited as well; schoolmates, parents, and the principal. Try to make the performance a special event. Many teachers turn Friday afternoons into a “classroom readers theater festival” at which many repertory groups perform their scripts.

Fluency

What I noticed most about the readings today was the emphasis on “meaning” in fluency. I’ve noticed with my own reading that sometimes when I read out loud I have no idea what I’ve actually read. For children who are well below reading level, this concept greatly applies. In this case, I like the emphasis that both readings put on rereading for understanding. Rereading not only increases the amount of exposure to new and old words, but it gives children a chance to improve the three elements of fluency. Repetition increases accuracy because it allows for teacher correction. It allows for the second dimension of automatic processing because the children need to work less and less to understand text without effort. Lastly, when a child can accurately read a book and he or she has high automatic processing, they can focus on improving prosodic reading. 

This hand out I found would be great to give to parents to increase their understanding of what I am trying to accomplish in class, as well as encourage them to continue teaching in the home. 

Click here if you want to see the site where you can download this!

Making Words/Ten Important Words

      The "Making Words" technique reminded me a lot of the exercise we did in class yesterday. The exercise makes a lot of sense because it allows teachers to enhance learning in a variety of ways. It allows for hands on manipulation that is consistent with the constructivist method of teaching that we are constantly being drawn towards. It allows for repetition because children become used to a way of exercising their word knowledge through creative word making. Finally, it teaches children how the symbols of letters work together to make meaningful words. It seems like a simple concept to us now that letters carry meaning, but I think that this is one of the most difficult concepts we can teach children, and this exercise does a great job of impressing this idea.
      The Ten Important words exercise goes along well with this exercise because of its emphasis on "meaning." I think that unfortunately a lot of teachers today are missing the idea of teaching meaning to their students. They may teach addition, multiplication, or reading but they fail to explain to children why these teaching points make sense. I love that we are learning to expand the understanding of teaching as future educators.

I love the idea of this magnetic board. It's just like the paper we did, but you don't have to throw it away once you're done!

Phonemic Awareness

      Phonemic Awareness is something that took me by surprise. It's one of those concepts that I honestly never stopped to consider. I can't specifically remember how I learned phonemic awareness and now it seems so simple that it's almost hard for me to believe I never understood it - even though I know that's not true. Yopp & Yopp made three clear points to attack teaching phonemic awareness that I found very important.

1. Use child appropriate activities.
2. Phonemic awareness should be deliberate and purposeful.
3. Phonemic awareness instruction is only one part of a larger literacy program.

     I liked that the article was very child centered and "understanding" focused. The article gave many clear examples of how to teach this concept to chidlren in a way that is meaningful. I found that it strongly correlated with the "Sound it Out" article because this article emphasized coaching in creative ways. My overall impression from both readings was that as a teacher I need to be really emphasizing understanding alongside getting creative with my explanations. I think phonemic awareness is something that can very easily be turned into monotonous drilling exercises, and I like that we are being challeneged to think outside the box to help children understand. 

    This game reminded me of the lunchbox activity described in the article. The "real life" aspect to this method of teaching phonemes keeps kids engaged and on task.

What I found most interesting about both of the articles was the emphasis on concepts related to literature. It is undeniable that each child experiences literature before they actually enter school, and I liked that both articles addressed the extreme variety in reading levels that we as teachers are bound to encounter. I remember when I was a child the endless worksheets that drilled us on our reading "skills." Educators are now realizing, however, that these drills are not productive to encourage reading, and can even be considered counterproductive. The way a child learns the alphabetic concept, linguistic awareness, and phonemic awareness is directly related to how well that child reads and is interested in literature. I always imagined teaching in a classroom that used the conventional methods of alphabet drilling to teach children their letters. There are songs, posters, games, and books all dedicated to learning to recognize that a letter makes a certain sound. However, I now see that children already know how to read these letters! The can already read, they just don't know how it all fits together. I loved the idea of using environmental cues to help a child recognize letter meanings. Reading is so psychological, and I can't believe I had never thought before of the importance that just living with the thousands of products we have has on us. I will definitely be researching and employing these new and exciting reading techniques in my future classroom.

This youtube clip describes the way that environmental reading can help a child learn. If a child knows that the first word in "table" is "T" and they have seen the word "table" countless times, then they automatically know the sound T makes! It's the McDonald's concept on an even more simplistic level.

          While each reading had very different overall goals and points to make, I found that a universal theme could be applied to all three: Reading should not just take place in a specific "reading instruction time." All subjects and aspects of a young reader's life need to be completely saturated with reading if one expects a child to have high intrinsic motivation to read and be successful at reading. High order meaning construction is much more important than low order skills. This is one of those facts that I think everyone "knows" but not many people actually know to acknowledge. When we hear that understanding meaning is much more important than understanding a skill we wholeheartedly agree, but this leaves the question of why so many classrooms today employ drill worksheets and minute skill goals over general enjoyment of reading. In families like the Jones's who emphasize reading in nearly every aspect of their life, a student comes to school prepared to learn to read because he or she recognizes how integral the ability and love to read is.

          The best way that I felt was taught to describe teaching to read was the high emphasis on discussion. Teachers who are most successful at getting children motivated to read, and therefore have higher rates of literacy, are the ones who are constantly engaging their students in communication about literature. This can be small "book sharing" groups or making sure that the ratio of reading in the class room to "other stuff" is 50/50. An educator who is passionate about reading and translates this to his or her students is one who will see the biggest growth in reading development. These readings prompted me to ponder these questions:

1) In what ways did my teachers encourage reading in every subject they taught?
2) What methods would I find most effective to developing interest in every genre of book? (checklist, reading bin, etc)
3) When I encounter families unlike the Jones's, who do not stress the importance of reading, how can I motivate my children and their parents to realize its importance?