Chapter 13: Word Recognition, Fluency, and Spelling

Hop on Pop
This was the book that my dad used to teach me to read. We read it every night because I liked the rhyming. Little did I know, my dad was teaching me a skill I would need for my future teaching career. For those unfamiliar with the book I have pasted a video of the book being read below.

During reading if I came to a word I struggled with like mouse but I was fine with house my dad would point out the spelling to me and ask if they looked the same. We would perform the compare and contrast method mentioned from this chapter. Along with improving my word recognition skills this book helped me with my fluency. What my dad and I were performing was repeated readings which gave my confidence a boost. This is a very easy read so it would be better to use this in the early years but as I moved on to harder books my dad could still go back and reference Hop on Pop to scaffold me while reading. I'm not saying that this is the only Dr. Seuss book that is good for this, it's just the one that sticks with me because it was used in my reading instruction, but most of Dr. Seuss's books would work for the strategies listed in this chapter. You could use them for word sorts, for sounds, or families, and his books could inspire integration of other content areas like math and science.

     The way I would extend this as a teacher is to have the students do word ladders. This gives them the opportunity to manipulate the words and play with different spellings but gives them that connection between different words.
Questions that popped up while reading:
The end of the chapter mentions creating spelling lists that are appropriate and that students can read. If a teacher is using multiple Dr. Seuss books for word study could they create a list of spelling words from this theme?
Is there some type of technology that has been developed to support these skills?
How many teachers actually follow the guidelines and strategies described in this chapter?
Do all basal readers support the development of these skills and have ways of adapting for students who are struggling?

Chapter 12: Getting Started in Instruction

Effective Reading Instruction Article
This entry connects ideas from the text and the above article that I found online.
After looking over the chapter before reading it I saw that part of it discusses a KWL chart which gave me the inspiration for part of this entry. I didn't have enough room to explain things in further detail so below you will find an expansion and connection between ideas.
Familiar reading: Confidence builder, warm up for instruction ex) repeated readings- the teacher chooses short text or section of text for student to read over and over
Guided Reading: support student in development of new reading knowledge, as well as support reading comprehension. ex) KWL chart- modeled above- excellent way to activate background knowledge.
Guided Writing:  support student in development of new writing skills and provides opportunities for practice. ex) interactive writing- teacher shares a pen, literally and figuratively, with one or more students as they create a written text collaboratively. Can take any form such as: lists, notes, letter etc. but must have real purpose and audience.
Word Study: Students learn the structure of words and relationships. ex) word sorts- students are given pictures, words, or sounds and they must sort them according to the relationship or structure requested. A great and fun way for students to visually see the relationships.
Sustained Reading and Writing: promote power and fluency. ex) Sustained silent reading- students read independently for a certain amount of time. Dialogue journals- written exchanges between teacher and student just like a conversation, spelling and grammar are not corrected, not graded.
From the article I read the author gave an outline as well: The Six T's.
Time: R&W versus stuff ratio: the exemplary teachers from the article had their students reading for as much as half the school day. In the sustained silent reading section the text emphasizes how important it is for students to receive that independent reading time to extend their reading and practice reading strategies on their own.
Texts: Students need a rich supply of books they can actually read. When students had texts that they could read their motivation to read shot up. This ties in with the section of the chapter talking about the literacy environment and materials. Materials have to be challenging but appropriate, but there also needs to be texts that are easy reads for students to raise their confidence levels and motivate them.
Teaching: In the classrooms the author went into he observed that most of the teachers were not using the scripted manuals a lot of schools require. They were also not using drill and practice worksheets. In the article the author states that this type of instruction is of little benefit to all but the few students who have already mastered the skill. If you give a students a worksheet to fill in the missing vowel, only the children who already know this will be able to fill it in, and the students who don;t know how to fill it in will not learn by filling out the worksheet. The worksheet is an assessment not an instructional tool. This section was very important to me because I feel like most school districts rely too much on drill and practice worksheets, and that is not effective instruction. The author wrote that the teachers he observed were modeling useful strategies such as decoding strategies, composing strategies, and self regulating strategies. This part of the article would tie in perfectly/ be a great way of introducing the lesson framework.
Talk: As stated in earlier chapters the idea of emergent literacy and the importance of the development of language and socialization between students is important for reading proficiency. The author observed the teachers encouraging more talk both student to student, and teacher to student. The type of talk was different as well it wasn't chatter it was problem posing, problem solving talk that was related to the subject material they were learning about.
Tasks: Another aspect of these teachers classrooms that the author observed was they used longer assignments and put less emphasis on filling the days with small short tasks. They worked on writing tasks for ten days or more, they read whole books, and they did individual and small group research projects. All of these activities integrated multiple content areas. Under this section the author introduces the idea of student choice playing a big role in student motivation and engagement. In these classrooms most of the teachers gave the students a choice of what they wanted to do or which book they wanted to read during SSR.
Testing: This is the last T of the section. In the classrooms observed the teachers graded based on effort and improvement rather than on achievement. The author also emphasized that the teachers did not do any test preparation for standardized tests. They believed that good instruction lead to enhanced test performance. They also believed that assessment should be used to evaluate teaching strategies to make sure their instruction is giving the students everything they need.
After reading the chapter from the text and the article they both weave in and out of each other. I will be using both in my future classroom to remember how to create effective instruction.

Week 4

 This week included readings of chapters 7 and 11 and in class we watched a video introducing us to John Sinnett and his kindergarten class. This video connected a lot with chapter 7 and this idea of emergent literacy. There were a few things from this video that I connected with chapter 7.
     The first connection I made was when Mr. Sinnett said "If they are ready to start reading they should be reading." This reminded me of the section in chapter 7 talking about readiness and how instruction in reading would not occur until they believed they were ready to read. These students are in kindergarten and they are already reading. In our class notes we discussed that students actually come in to school knowing things about language, and writing and reading. They know that the words on the page have meaning, and that letters have sounds that coincide with them, and they understand that reading is done left to right across a page. But as teachers we must emphasize these skills.

     Another thing that stuck out in the video was the morning message they
completed. The picture up top is an example of one similar to the one in the video.
He created an interactive morning message that extends the learning, so students aren't just reading anymore, they are using context clues, and different reading strategies to figure out the missing words and letters. Another way to include interaction in the morning message is to include an activity at the end like the second example of a morning message. In one of my field placements my cooperating teacher did this along with the interaction included in the message. The kids enjoyed this very much, they were all involved and loved making the corrections to spelling, grammar, or word order. They all felt very accomplished afterwards. The morning message is also a great opportunity for a teacher to model reading. Mr. Sinnett was doing this in his classroom. He used a pointer as his anchor and showed them direction and reading strategies.

     Something else discussed in the chapter, class, and the video was the idea of temporary spelling. In the early years it is important for teachers to encourage attempted writing. In the video the students were writing in their journals. Using their drawings as their plans they wrote a sentence about the picture they drew. Meanwhile the teacher encouraged them to write down all letters that they knew might be in a word or the letters they hear. He was not looking for correctness he was just looking for the fact that they recognize that each letter has a sound, and that what they are writing means something to them. He states that if after they have written and they can say what the words they wrote mean, he is a happy teacher. It is important for students to understand that there is meaning behind the words they see in a book, and this was a great strategy to use to help them see that. I will definitely be using a lot of the strategies he used in the video, especially the morning message and journals.