Don't Just Remember- Understand Instead!

Though I really enjoyed both the Allington and Pinnell articles this week, I personally connected with Allington's take on understanding vs. remembering. Allington talks about what he calls "confusions" that have made it difficult to change classrooms (and schools) for the better. Understanding vs. remembering is one of these confusions. This is the notion that we have "confused comprehension with question-answering." This sad reality directly impacted my learning experiences while I was in grade school. I specifically remember getting caught up in the details of the stories I read because I knew those questions would arise on my Accelerated Reader tests. This problem of asking known-answer questions undermines the opportunity for children to demonstrate their understanding of what they read. There is no expectation to grasp meaning, to comprehend- simply an overemphasis on reciting facts. This issue stems from not teaching proper comprehension strategies and not holding children accountable through meaningful assessment. It consequently runs deeper into other subjects in the curriculum. Of my own education experience, I realize that I never knew how to "learn" until college. My studying strategies were filled with memorizing pages of notes and making flash cards- remembering at its finest. I only hope that I can help foster a different experience for my future students.

A better way to assess reading understanding!

Running Records and Other Things!

I would first like to reflect on the Running Records book. I found this brief review of recording/scoring procedures to be both informative and complex. I agree with Clay when she suggests that teachers should not implement running records without some training from another knowledgeable teacher. I realize the usefulness of using a recording strategy like this, but I doubt I would be able to use it effectively without lots of practice. I like that the end result is both informative to the teacher (in that it provides evidence of how well the child is directing her knowledge of letters, sounds, and words to find meaning in the text) and evidential to the parents. Although they may not understand the format, parents like to see proof of your concerns for their child. Having records such of these shows that you have spent time alone with their child and are not making generalizations based on the class's performance.

I also read the Rog and Burton article. I really liked the section about developing a leveling system. I had never considered the reality that each publisher uses its own leveling system, making the levels less uniform and reliable. The article says, "readability of a Level 3 book from one program might not compare to that of a Level 3 book from another program." I decided to research this further for myself, and I found this:

This is a DK Level 3 Reader- designed for 2nd grade and above. I could find little information on the criteria of which it was leveled as 3.

This is a Scholastic Level 3 Reader. The only specifics given are grades 1 and 2 or ages 6-8. No characteristics of the text were found.

As you can see from the examples, there are variances in the grade level (grades 1-2 vs. grades 2+). The fact that we as teachers cannot always rely on the leveling systems when trying to find the "just right" book is a very important realization.

Guided Reading Teachers

I selected a guided reading article called "Guided Reading: A Research-Based Response to the Challenges of Early Reading Instruction" by Anita Iaquinta. This article really served to define and describe the key elements of guided reading, explain why guided reading is important, provide an example of a guided reading lesson, and most importantly, define a teacher's role in the guiding reading process. I really enjoyed this article because of the emphasis it put on the teacher in the guided reading dynamic grouping setting. The article uses words like "prompt, guide, direct, and monitor" in describing the teacher's role. In other words, the teacher should scaffold in a guided reading setting so that the students continue to expand their zone of proximal development. It is also appropriate to use direct teaching to "explicitly teach reading strategies at the students' individual levels." In the end, guided reading promotes good reading habits and strategies that children can use when reading individually.

I witnessed a guided reading session when I visited my mom's school. I was amazed at how efficient the session was and how receptive the children seemed. A hard working teacher and fun, effective materials are a must! Pictured below is the area where the guided reading took place. I was asked to refrain from picturing the students so just use your imagination!

She had already put away the books, but the finger pointers were used in both the reading and this exercise, which the students did at the end. The word work exercise at the end of the guided reading lesson featured manipulating letters, sounds, and words from the book on their individual magnetic boards in order to practice phonics.

Meaningful Words and Vocabulary Development

I really enjoyed the Yopp and Yopp article for this week because I can relate personally to its content. The Yopps proposed that wide reading is a necessity in developing vocabulary because "written texts typically provides multiple exposures to words and an opportunity to experience words in meaningful contexts." They contrasted this with the oral language which is assisted by facial expressions, gestures, and intonation that help portray meaning, making more specific or advanced language choices not as important. While both oral and written language are important in acquiring new words, I personally agree with the Yopp's assertion that written language is superior in exposing students to rich vocabulary. Just recently I began reading children's chapter books and young adult novels for fun (thank you information sciences). I hated reading in school, and consequently rarely read in high school. When I visited my parents about a month ago, my dad pointed out that I spoke differently than in the past. I inquired about this, thinking he was referring to my accent, and he said that it was my language: I sounded more articulate. I recognize this too as I find myself using more meaningful words both in my writing and oral language. Even leisure reading serves an educational purpose- how cool!

 Consider the missed opportunities when opting to watch a movie based on a book versus actually reading it. You miss out on content (depth of plot and character development) and a chance to create your own visualizations, but especially you lose exposure to rich vocabulary. Think about the example below.

VS

Comprehension in Kindergarten?!?!

The first two articles I read this week (Gill and Pardo) were very informative, but almost identical in their description of comprehension and how to implement comprehension strategies into daily learning. I found "Kindergartners Can Do It, Too!" to be so refreshing and quite frankly, cool! I am taking a graduate course on teaching kindergarten, and we talk often about curriculum. Comprehension is present in the language arts curriculum of kindergarten, and before reading this article, I was clueless about how to teach this concept to 5 year olds. Mrs. Hope made it look so easy and fun! Although the children were not always reading the book themselves, the fact that they understood their role of activating schemas was very profound. I particularly enjoyed Mrs. Hope's Velcro Theory as a way to help her students connect and build upon their existing knowledge. I will definitely steal her "click" technique before read-aloud sessions as well!

Vocab is Vital

Of each of the articles this week, I particularly enjoyed Lane and Allen's review of the importance of vocabulary in reading and the various ways to promote vocabulary growth. I loved reading about Mrs. Barker's circle time and the integration of new vocabulary defining the roles as the year progressed. My mother works as an assistant in the special education preschool class of my former elementary school. They too have these specified roles such as "line leader," "caboose," and "weather watcher." They do not change the titles of these roles because they have children ranging from age 3 to 6. Instead, they use harder vocabulary for the older students when giving them instructions about roles. For example, it would not be abnormal to hear my mom tell a five year-old autistic child to line up adjacent to the door. And it wouldn't be uncommon to see this student grasp the meaning of "adjacent" and move accordingly, just like in Mrs. Barker's class. To me, this way of gradually building the students' vocabulary is time efficient and very effective. Even in the special education preschool class, it was a way of holding the children accountable for reaching their true potential, a means of avoiding the temptation to "dumb down" our language for children (as Lane and Allen suggest is a big barrier to vocabulary growth).

Aside from incorporating new vocabulary into existing daily exercises, you may also find this website very informative and useful! Interesting reads and materials for your benefit and some great games for your students!
Found here: http://vocabulary.co.il/blog/learning_vocabulary/category/elementary-school/

 Word Walls are great for introducing and supporting new vocabulary:

Coaching Reading

As I read this week's articles, I was pleasantly reminded of my real-life application observation I completed a few week's ago. I visited a second grade reading specialist's classroom and sat in on a small group guided reading lesson. Like Mr. Turner of the article, Mrs. Dyar coached by encouraging a struggling reader to use what he knew about picture cues to figure out an unfamiliar word. Mrs. Dyar was an expert at really stretching the students' capacity for solving problems on their own as obstacles arise in reading. This is what I was reminded of as I read that coaching teachers "enable readers to think to the edge of their knowledge as they attempt to recognize unfamiliar words" (pg. 445). In the Yopp article, one of the activities with syllable manipulation was clapping out the syllables of one's name. Mrs. Dyar used a similar technique within her reading instruction by encouraging students to "tap out" syllables of harder words. She even provided some really fun tappers which are pictured below. I found it very rewarding to see these effective strategies first hand and then read about them in our articles.

The students put this tapper on their pointer finger during a reading exercise. They are allowed to play with them at the end of the lesson. It was very effective and fun for the students.

I just thought this was a really neat picture for the teacher-coach idea! haha