Assessment and Scheduling

The articles for today were very informative and interesting. Burton and Rog's article entitled "Matching texts and readers: Leveling early reading materials for assessment and instruction" explored the need for finding material of the appropriate or "just-right" difficulty level for students. In doing this, teachers provide students with a balance between support and challenge- something that is very necessary for students to develop reading strategies and flourish as young readers. I was glad to see the reading define what a "just-right" text actually looks like. According to Rog and Burton, in a text of the appropriate difficulty level students should be about to identify 9 out of 10 words correctly. This is where instruction comes in! I also liked that the text laid out some of the factors that define a text's difficulty level. These include length, appearance and placement of text, illustrative support, complexity of concepts, familiarity of subject matter, predictability, and vocabulary. I honestly had no idea how books were deemed a certain level, so this article in particular was very informative for me. I really benefited from the carts in the reading and from the appropriate strategies that were listed for each level as well. On a more personal level, I connected with the reading because I struggled as a young reader to find books that were appropriate for me. I always felt overwhelmed by texts that were assigned to me- thus, they lacked the balance between challenge and support that the article describes.
I also really enjoyed Clay's "Running Records" book. I have seen teachers take running record assessments on student progress, and, up to this point, thought that I fully understood their use. I never knew that teachers should take a tally of errors as well as self-corrections. I like that the book highlights the idea of making it a relaxed experience for the reader. Instead of saying, "I'm assessing you on how well you can read this passage", invite the student to read to you and inform them that you will be writing a few things down. This takes pressure off of the student and makes it a more relaxed atmosphere. I can remember being tested as a young reader and, given that I have test anxiety, I would always get nervous and under perform. The conventions for recording section was very informative. I feel that this is a book that I will keep and refer to several times of the course of my teaching career.


The article entitled "Looking inside classrooms: Reflecting on the "how" as well as the "what" in effective reading instruction" looked at specific classroom practices that were the most useful for improving students' reading abilities. The article looked at grouping practices, teachers' interactive styles, balancing word work and comprehension work, and active versus passive styles, among other things. The article concluded that higher level thinking practices, active pupil involvement, small group instruction, word skill work, and coaching through scaffolding techniques are all ways that teaching styles can be improved to enable better reading. The article concluded by saying that each child needs the appropriate "full backpack" of skills to flourish in literacy. I believe that this statement cannot be overstated. We as teachers must look at the 'how' and the 'what' of a text and of instruction in order to give our students all of the skills necessary. I liked Allington's willingness to be blunt in his article "The schools we have. The schools we need." It seemed to touch on many of the main point that previous articles have, which only further stressed their importance. His article addressed confusions about literacy teaching and learning. For example, Allington looks as experience v. ability, sorting v. supporting, and curriculum v. instruction, etc. He challenges teachers to take a close look at these entities and rethink many of the features that have been set in to place since the school systems were created. In reality,  children need to be placed with expert teachers and appropriate resources to be supported in their diverse classrooms. Programs needs to be evaluated. Assessment needs to be evaluated. Allingtons ideas on school systems and bold nature of speaking made for a very interesting article. I can agree with many of the things that Allington proposed and I believe that our school systems are working towards a reform that will give students the time and attention they need.

Guided Reading

The article that I read about guided reading is entitled "Using Guided Reading with Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders" by Simpson, Spencer, Button, and Rendon. The reading explores innovative ways to implement general education practices with students with low incidence disabilities, specifically autism spectrum disorders. The model used by one elementary teacher described in this article explores guided reading practices. Her practices allow students to take responsibility for their own learning by providing them with challenging reading lessons that lead to growth in their own specific reading abilities. One of the best things about this practice is that it can be implemented easily in the general or the special education classrooms. This practice involves guided reading groups according to reading ability, interest, and diagnosis of disorder. The lesson itself is taught by collaboration of the classroom teacher and two to three paraprofessionals. The paraprofessionals were assigned to basic reading stations that students rotated through. These included a writing station, reading skills, and basic written language. Students also were granted individual time for teachers to instruct a mini-lesson, complete a running record, and test students on their sight words. This allowed student to measure progress on individual students on a weekly basis. The study concluded that teaching reading, including assessing reading levels, is not an easy task for classroom teachers but it is well worth the time and patience needed to complete a guided reading program. Conclusively, guided reading can serve as a successful reading intervention for students with ASD.

Comprehension and Think Alouds

The readings this week explored comprehension instruction, developing thoughtful comprehenders, and utilizing think alouds. In the chapter from our text book, Cunningham suggests that some children simply do not think while they read. This immediately stood out to me. I often read a section of text and, upon finishing the text, have no idea what I read. I must then reread and make a conscious effort to pay attention and comprehend the main ideas of the passage. Affording students adequate background knowledge about the topic and knowledge about the type of text (text structures and genres) are ways to increase comprehension. The book also touches on comprehension strategies which is very important to us as teachers. Knowing many different, engaging, and research-supported ways to carry out comprehension lessons will be key to helping your students gain comprehension skills. Literate conversations are a good way to assess student understanding and check for comprehension as well. Think alouds were also discussed in the chapter, which is a way of modeling the thinking process that goes on in your head while you read. Modeling for students will be essential throughout our teaching careers, and think alouds are a wonderful example. I really liked the idea of beginnging a book with my own think aloud for my students and ending by calling on students and asking for their personal modeling of a think aloud.
Gills article introduced ways that teachers can increase comprehension skills in the midst of the overwhelming amount of information on the topic. Gill made mention of the fact that a teacher's own understanding of what comprehension means is very important to devising the right instruction for your readers. The article also suggests that comprehension could be taught more easily if activities were broken up into three parts: prereading, during-reading, and postreading. In doing this, one is utilizing the Comprehension Matrix. This tool is intended to encounrage teachers to apply their knowledge of the effects on comprehension to design the aforementioned sets of activities for students. This will enable them to learn an abundance of comprehension strategies. I LOVED this idea because I am a very organized person, and the more things are separated into sections, the more I can focus on each section to ensure my students are understanding the comprehension strategy being used. I also liked this because it can be applied to any text and any group of readers.
Gregory and Cahill explored reading comprehension in kindergarten readers in their article. Though I do not intent to work with lower elementary grades in my teaching career, this article was quite interesting to me. The article talked about teaching comprehension early and explicitly. In doing this, students will be prepared for comprehension in their academic careers that follow (hopefully when I'll be teaching them!). I really liked the idea of using "I wonder" as a model to teach comprehension skills because young children so often wonder what things are, how they work, and how they can relate to themselves. I believe that this will make comprehension lessons relateable and fun for younger
students. The last article by Pardo explored the big picture of comprehension is afforded teachers with 'everything they need to know' about comprehension. I really enjoyed the section on teachers supporting readers as I believe this is essential to motivating children to learn. Giving students encouragement and the correct tools to comprehend (vocabulary, background knowledge, etc.) so that they can flourish academically is our job as teachers.

Vocabulary and Read-Alouds

The readings from today were very insightful and they called to mind connects that I made in my own life. In chapter 6 of the text, Cunningham and Allington introduce the topic of vocabulary by presenting three words (plastic, purple, and racket) and then asking what the reader thinks of when they read or hear those words. They follow a few possible thought patterns that one could have upon hearing those words and then bring their point home by stating, "when we see or hear words, our brains make all kinds of connections with those words, depending on our past experiences" (p 95). I thought this was a wonderful and interesting point. Depending on our world view, experiences, and associations, our words come to mean and remind us of different things. In all aspects of education, remembering that one's own experiences shape their thought processes and associations will be key for educators to reach each and every student. The chapter also breaks down how we know words, how to help children build vocabularies and create associations, and how vocabulary can be increased through reading. I like the idea of choosing three words from a read-aloud and teaching them to the class through explicit instruction or classroom discussion. Making a poster with the read-aloud words on it is also a good way to keep children thinking about these words and their meanings. I also liked the section on promoting word wonder. If a teacher is enthusiastic about reading and the importance of vocabularies and word projects, student will be excited also. This is an important point that I will definitely apply to my own classroom. My least favorite year of school was the year that my teacher taught just to teach. She did not seem to love teaching, children, or the learning process. That one experience with an unengaging and unenthusiastic teacher has stuck with me into my early adulthood. Thus, I'll always remember that "enthusiasm is contagious!" (p 114)

I really enjoyed reading Lane and Allen's article about teaching sophisticated vocabularies through the frequent modeling of vocabulary words and their meanings. I like how the article describes vocabulary as critical to reading and challenges teachers to introduce vocabulary in a robust, strong, and powerful way. I believe this stresses the importance of vocabulary skills. The article also mentions that not all students come to school with a a wide range of words that they know how to use. In teaching vocabulary, one must meet learners where they are and instruct them in vocabulary in an aggressive manner through word exposure, multiple definitions, context, and processing. The assigned article by Blachowicz and Fisher take a close look at vocabulary instruction as well. The article states, "Just as a house needs a strong foundation, so reading comprehension depends on a strong base of oral language and concept development" (p 67).  My favorite part of this article was the suggestion that teachers should create a positive environment for word learning by using activities, materials, and resources that enable students to play with words. I can remember "learning" vocabulary in school by sitting and copying word definitions over and over again. I never remembered what the words meant when I was finished and I dreaded vocabulary lessons throughout my elementary academic career. I definitely intent to take the ideas for vocabulary instruction in this chapter and apply them to my own classroom. I enjoyed the last article assigned because it relied on statistic so heavily throughout. Looking at actual statistics always solidifies concepts for me. In the article, Hart and Risely conduct an experiment on children and vocabulary use and intake. One of the most shocking statistics for me was that "in four years, the average child in a professional family would accumulate experience with almost 45 million words, an average child in a working-class family 26  million words, and average child in a welfare family 13 million words" (p 9). Thus, many students are at a disadvantage when they walk in the classroom door. This statistic was a good reminder that we must meet students where they are when they walk into our classrooms and that early intervention is key to building a child's early vocabulary.

As previously mentioned, I can relate to these articles because I hated vocabulary instruction in school. I vow to never, EVER force my students to write definitions or words multiple times and call it teaching!

Teaching Phonics

Today's readings take a close look at phonics and how phonemic awareness can be supported in the classroom. In chapter five of our text, Cunningham and Allington state that when we are reading or writing, our brains are busy at work constructing meaning and simultaneously identifying or spelling words. After much practice, this begins to become an automatic process, but occasionally we encounter words that we have never seen before. Our reading is stalled by these unknown words so we must revert to our knowledge of phonics to get us through. Pronunciation is key to making sense of these 'unknowns'. While all good readers develop the ability to come up with pronunciations and spellings for unknown words, many struggling readers do not. So, how do we, as educators, help to teach phonemic awareness? One of today's assigned articles proposes that coaching is the best way to facilitate the understanding of phonics. In the article, Clark states that "coaching is a highly effective instructional technique in which teachers craft instructional cues that enable students to apply their developing reading skills and knowledge of strategies as they attempt to complete a task" (p 440). Teachers can use general cues that promote thought or cues to promote specific action. The article included a section on learning to coach as part of a professional development effort. This interested me as I will be placed in Anderson County next year, a county that is beginning to push for literacy in a big way. Our textbook made mention of a few activities that teachers can use to help students with phonemic awareness such as using words you already know, making words, vowel lessons, and modeling decoding for students. I can relate to this modeling technique on two different account. First, I vividly remember my mother working with me at home on phonemic awareness and using modeling. We would walk through words together, pronouncing them together, relating them to other words together, and walking through out thought processes together. I can also relate to this as an adult. The boy that I babysit is beginning to become intrigued with reading and literacy. At night, when we read before bed, he sits a strives to decode words. When he gets stuck, we decode the words together. I model how to decode and relate words and then he tries. We do this together many times throughout the book. The textbook also mentions using the Wheel of Fortune as a game to facilitate phonics. I love this idea! I used to love games that turned the struggles of reading into fun as this made me much more relaxed about reading. Yopp and Yopp also look at instruction through games such as songs, chants, and word-sound games.  These games help to develop the sound structure of language for students and, in turn, promote phonemic awareness. Storytelling, rhymes, and riddles are said to be effective in this way as well.
These readings were very interesting to me. I can relate to them first-hand as I struggled through reading and phonics as a young student. My mother, a special educator in Knox County, used many of the teaching techniques  mentioned in the readings with me at home. If it wasn't for her attention to phonemic awareness, I maintain that I would still have negative attitudes toward reading and, due to these negative feelings, I would have struggled to become a skilled and confident reader in my adult life.

Reader's Theater

Reader's Theater is a fun and engaging way for students to practice reading fluency and comprehension. It challenges students to focus on reading texts with expression- something very central to reading fluency. Click here to explore a fun website that includes numerous reader's theater ideas and scripts.

Fluency

The chapters and articles assigned explore the important aspects of fluency and look at different measures that can be taken to aid struggling readers and increase fluency for students. Chapter 4 in Classrooms That Work defines fluency as "the ability to read most words in the context quickly and accurately with appropriate expression" (p 49). Through the readings, I learned many important components and ideas about fluency that I might not have explored on my own. For example, the text states that fluency is not something that a person has or doesn't have. Rather, children must work to develop fluency in order to become avid and enthusiastic readers who get pleasure and comprehend information from the reading. Additionally, each of the texts assigned today explicitly state that comprehension is directly related to reading fluency. In fact, Deeney's article includes this in the stated definition of fluency. Deeney says, "Fluency is freedom from word-identification problems that might hinder reading comprehension" (p 440). If a student is spending their time decoding words, they will never comprehend the text. Deeney's article also breaks down the components of fluency as follows: accuracy, rate, and prosody. In understanding these components and how they are related to reading fluency, we as teachers can help students to practice and correct fluency problems. First, teachers must make a commitment to ensure that all students are spending some of their time reading easy text. This will allow readers to read texts that they are interested in, that they have background knowledge of, and that they can recognize approximately 99 percent of the words in. Other things that we can do as teachers is set up a buddy reading program with a kindergarten class, model fluent and expressive reading, and provide opportunities for rereading. Word walls might also be a good idea help your students develop fluency. This will help students to quickly and automatically recognize these words, a skill that is central to reading fluency.
I thought that it was interesting that Deeney looked at one-minute measures so closely. I've seen these types of assessments done in the classroom, but I had never explored the measure so in-depth. The article states that one-minute measures help us to identify students that cannot read accurately and quickly. I had knowledge of this purpose before reading our text. The thing about one-minute measures that I found so intriguing was what teachers should do to get the most out of this type of assessment. Teachers should record students' miscues instead of simply slashing through errors. I thought this was interesting because in my experience with one-minute measures, teachers only slashed through misreads. It seems as though in doing this, teacher miss much information that could be used to help fix issues related to fluency. Rasinski's article touches on this as well and gives another suggestion for assessing matters of fluency. This article explores the pros of having a student read a passage on grade level and teachers judging the quality of the reading using a rubric. This way, the various aspects of reading fluency can be assessed separately. Rasinski also looks at confusing fast with fluent, a problem that is frequently seen in schools. I learned a ton from the articles that we read for today, and I am excited about implementing fluency improvement strategies in my own classroom.