Prominent Theorist Paper

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qfwQ6ydg_Jo-bIX6NAqTwfz8t6cv4yHlardK3XTsowk/edit

Module 4: Activity 2

Which NRP topic area(s) or “missing pillar(s)” that Allington describes do you find to be most vital for children’s literacy success? Why? 

      I feel like the majority of these topic areas and "missing pillars" are important to children's literacy success, however there are a few that stick out to me as the "most vital". I feel as though the comprehension topic area is important because to me it also encompasses fluency. Being able to understand, comprehend and absorb different forms of text leads to fluency because it enables the student to be able to read and become familiar with various words. Fluency stems from the recognition of words and their meanings. However, giving student's "access to interesting texts and choice" and "matching kids with appropriate texts" also encourage and support comprehension. The more a child is interested in the text they are reading the more likely they will be to continue reading and therefore gain more word knowledge. Students need to understand that reading not does need to be always related to their school word; reading is something that can be fun and relaxing. Reading should not be something that is seen as a chore. There are so many different forms of literature that students can discover that could potentially spark their interest and it is important that we give them access to them. It is also vital that we match students with appropriately leveled texts because if the child does not understand what they are reading, then they are not truly "reading". The text needs to be on the student's instructional level so that they are still able to understand the content within the passage, but they are still getting access to unfamiliar words. If the student understands and is familiar with the majority of words then they will be able to tap into their previous content knowledge and use other reading strategies to determine the meaning of the unknown words.  

Module 4: Activity 1

      Let me start off by saying that was a very moving video. This video reminded my so much of my "struggling" readers that I came across in my student teaching. I could not imagine not being able to read for such a large chunk of my life. It was obvious that this was something he was truly passionate about learning and was therefore pushing himself throughout the experience.

      While watching Robin during his reading sessions, I noticed that he was practicing reading and writing short simple sentences. He would read what he thought he saw, but when something did not seem to make sense he would reread the sentence to determine what the unfamiliar word was within the sentence. For example, when he was reading in one of the books he was saying "gave" instead of "give", but soon realized that the sentence was not in the past tense so he reevaluated the word. Robin also read all different types of literature: bumper stickers, comic strips, newspapers, books and advertisements. Using various forms of literature allowed Robin to put pictures with his words, especially those coming from stores or his surroundings. As Robin started to progress, he realized that he could recognize certain "chunks" of words which would help him determine the rest of the word. For example, when he got his first e-mail account he was trying to read the word "congratulations". He recognized the word "rat" and "con", but from there he was able to use his worldly knowledge to see that the word was "congratulations". Even though he probably did not fully read the word letter for letter, he was able to see the word written out and mentally take note of the pattern within the word. Robin also said that he recognized chucks like "est" and "and", so these also aided him when he was reading unfamiliar words.

Module 4: Instructional Challenge

Marcus is a student who very frequently miscues by substituting words that start with the same letter or first few letters of the word in the text, but his substitutions often are not syntactically or semantically acceptable (they neither sound right grammatically nor make sense). What possible teaching strategies would you suggest to help Marcus?

      What Marcus needs is to work with a peer or teacher in order to help him "catch" these miscues. Allow him to participate in guided reading experiences, where he will be able to follow along with the text as the text is being read out loud for the class to hear. As either a class or small group, have the students, including Marcus, predict what the text is going to be about using the title and pictures throughout the book. Throughout the guided reading it would also help Marcus if you were to stop frequently to ask questions about the text, so that he will understand that the text is supposed to make sense. Marcus could also be apart of listening and reading along with tape-recorded books because he will have the same experiences with the text and its meaning. It will also be important that while Marcus is following along, that his teacher be pointing to each word being read so that Marcus "can begin to make connections between the spoken words and the written words" (Weaver, 2002, p.245). Along with guided reading, it would be helpful if Marcus participated in guided writing so that he can focus on the letter sounds and patterns found throughout words. 

      While working one-on-one with Marcus, the teacher could tape him reading a specific text, and then allow him to listen to it as he follows along in the text. With Retrospective Miscue Analysis,  he can see where he has messed up, and understand that what he said did not make sense within the passage.  Throughout the reflection process, it is important to allow Marcus to pick out his miscues, particularly the ones that change the meaning of the sentence. This will also allow for discussion between Marcus and the teacher as he begins to explain why specific spots were an issue and then together talk about different strategies that may be effective. Along with retrospective miscue analysis,  the teacher can use a "think-aloud" strategy where the student is able to read aloud while verbally talking through the student's reading strategies. "This procedure in effect placed the highest emphasis on meaning and the lowest on whether the miscue looked and/or sounded like the word in the text" (Weaver, 2002, p.226). There are also four questions that Marcus could answer either by himself, with a teacher or with a group that will assist him in truly understanding his miscue: "1. Does what the read said mean the same as what is in the book? (semantic similarity) 2. Does what the reader said still sound like language? (syntactic similarity) 3. Does what the reader said look like what is in the book? (graphic similarity) 4. Does what the read said sound like what is in the book? (phonic similarity)" (Weaver, 2002, p.226). 

Module 4: Reading Reflection

    As I was reading through the chapters, I feel as though I at least recognized the term used for some of the aspects of the comprehensive literacy program. The one that I feel as though I have the most experience with are the literature groups. During my student teaching, my host teacher had decided that she was going to try this technique and group the students by their reading ability. There were three groups and each group would be reading a different leveled-reader book and would complete different tasks throughout their reading calendar. Each group had something called an Independent Reading Contract which had various activities that could be done with any book that would further the student's understanding of the plot or specific characters.  For example, one of the activities had to do with creating a shopping list for one of the characters if they were to go to the store. This activity made the students think about the characters likes, dislikes, and general personality. Along with the Independent Reading Contract, the students within the groups would also have different jobs they were required to complete such as "bridge builder", "discussion director", "word watcher", "passage picker", and "artful artist". These jobs were a wonderful tool to get the students looking deeper in to the text, and then allowing them to discuss their jobs with their group members in their weekly meetings. However, there was only one group that read along with the teacher during a small group meetings, and that was the "lower" reading group. All of the other groups followed their weekly calendar where they read independently and then would come together to discuss and complete their tasks. If I had had more say in the literature circle make-up, I would have wanted all of the groups to have a chance to meet with the teacher in order to see where each child stood in the reading and to clear up any misunderstandings.

      Within my classroom, there were plenty of guided reading and sustained reading opportunities, however I wish that there had been more opportunities for shared reading. It is very important that as teachers we model good reading with different read-alouds. Children of all ages can grow in their reading and word knowledge through listening to a teacher read fluently and proficiently. Therefore, this is something that I will implement more within my classroom because I want to make read-alouds a daily things that the children will come to look forward to.

        Writing (such as write-aloud, shared writing, guided writing and sustained writing) was almost non-existent in my classroom because it was not something that our school put a lot of emphasis on. The children went to a writing class throughout the specials rotation along with P.E., music, art, and technology. I do not feel as though I am experienced enough with writing as I should be going in to my first year of teaching, so this chapter began to enlighten me on activities that would help my students in their literacy experiences. In order for students to become proficient readers, the students also need to have a lot of focus on writing, so in my new classroom writing is going to become a priority. Especially because it is something that can be integrated into ever subject. Students will become involved with group and individual writing experiences as they will be working hand-in-hand with the various reading experiences I plan on implementing within my classroom.

Module 3: Activity 2

     I have heard negatives and positives of teaching students phonemic awareness through the use of nonsense words. However, one of my teachers last year was very against using nonsense words because she thought it was a waste of the students' time and I feel like I agree with her reasoning. If our end goal is to teach children to read fluently and to perceive the text, then we do not need to be asking students to pronounce nonsense words if they are not words the student is going to actually need to know. In order for our students to gain the comprehension skills they need it is necessary that we expose them to actual words and their meanings as much as possible. I understand why people use nonsense words, and its so that the student can get the hang of specific phonics rules, however, why can't we expose them to the phonics rules with actual English words?  In "Reading Process & Practice", Weaver talks a lot about the importance of focusing on comprehension instead of perfect reading especially when he states, "the time spent on learning phonics terms would be better spend reading, which, among other benefits, would give children the opportunity to read more and more words by analogy with the parts of words they already know, to come to recognize many of these words automatically after several exposures, and to internalize more and more of the frequently occurring letter-sound patterns in our language" (2002, p.103).

Module 3: Mock Memo from a Reading Specialist

             Erica may be reading at an accelerated fluency rate, but she is unable to comprehend the information she should be absorbing. This most nearly means that her reading career has been strictly focused on the pronunciation of words and not necessarily discovering the meaning behind the words and sentences. “But the students also need help themselves in understanding the nature of proficient reading, effective reading strategies and good miscues, and the fact that they need not the word-perfect readers in order to be good readers. They need to understand that the purpose of reading is to construct meaning and gain understanding from what they read” (Weaver, 2002, p. 216). She has been able recognize the visual cues, but is lacking in the semantic knowledge needed to understand the meaning in passages. If Erica is reading at a rate of 177 words correct per minute, then it is evident that she can “process unfamiliar words by analogy with familiar letter patterns, and to do so in syllables and/or smaller units like onsets and rimes” (Weaver, 2002, p.99).

            Therefore, with Erica, we do not need to be focusing on word identification, but word meaning. Something that would be helpful for her would be to implement a “Think-Aloud Strategy” which is a “procedure [that] can be used with students who have difficulty comprehending texts and typically do not realize that the purpose of reading is to understand” (Weaver, 2002, p.226). With this strategy, she will be able to see more meaning in the text through read-alouds because she will become actively involved with the context of the story or passage. As Weaver (2002, p.215-216) suggests, we need to “revalue” Erica’s reading strategies by helping her focus on the meaning within the context rather than putting the emphasis on reading the words perfectly as they are written.

            Even though the other students may not be reading at the approximate rate as Erica does not mean that they are “struggling readers”, it simply means that they read a little slower in order to gain the knowledge they need from the text. It is vital that we put more emphasis on comprehension rather than on the speed at which our students read. “Fluency must not replace a focus on meaning as the goal of reading” (Weaver, 2002, p.215).

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Module 3: Reading Response

         

          I do not agree with Marilyn Adams who claimed that “skillful readers of English thoroughly process the individual letters of words in their texts” (1990, p.108)  because further research has determined that “skillful readers” process words in letter chunks much like syllables and are able to correctly identify words with specific letters missing. Due to proficient reader’s ability to use their prior knowledge and surrounding context to help identify words as well as through the use of their parafoveal region, readers do not need to focus on individual phonics rules when they are more likely to read the word as a whole through analogy with familiar letter patterns. “Clearly, fluent readers do no process words letter-by-letter. Just as we do not comprehend sentences merely by combining the meanings of individual words, so we do not perceive words merely by combining the perceptions of individual letters” (Weaver, 2002, p.96).

            I completed the activity on page 96 that was a replica experiment from Edmund Huey’s The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading (1908/1968, p.100) where I was to read a list of letters, four-letter words and eight-letter words where I timed myself on each. It took me ten seconds to read the column of letters, eleven seconds to read the column of four-letter words and sixteen seconds to read the column of eight-letter words. I also asked one of my friends to complete the same task so that I could compare our results. He was able to complete the letter column in seven seconds, four-letter word column in eight seconds and eight-letter word column in thirteen seconds. My results of the experiment verified that of Weaver and contradict Marilyn Adams claims because if it were true that we read every letter in every word then it would make sense that it would “take nearly four times as long to read the column of four-letter words as it took to read the column of single letters…[and] eight times as long to read the column of eight-letter words” (Weaver, 2002, p.95), and this was not the case in either attempt. Because we were supposed to identify the words as fast as possible,

“it should not be surprising that words can be identified under conditions that make it impossible to identify individual letters. More than a century ago, Erdmann and Dodge (1898) determined: (1) that words can be recognized lying too far from the eyes’ fixation point to permit recognition of individual letters; (2) that words can be recognized when they are constructed of letters so small that the letters cannot be singly identified; and (3) that words can be recognized from distances at which the letters exposed singly, cannot be recognized” (Weaver, 2002, p.96)

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Module 2: Activity 1 & 2

3. We can often get the meaning from context (even though we may never pronounce the word correctly). Try it:
c. Try essentially the same procedure again. Write down the definition for these words:
    creech-a way to silently creep from one place to another
    droogs-an animal that tends to excessively drool
    glazzies- being glad to do something
    goloss- a type of water shoe
    malenky- a form of bad behavior
    messel- a large amount
    millicents- a very small amount of money
    poogly- another word for cowardly
    razrez- something used to shave oneself
    skorry- an apology
    spatted- past tense of spit
    zoobies- people who are obsessed with zoos

      After about the third word, I realized that I was making up these definitions based upon words I already know. Usually, whatever familiar word came to mind the instant I read the unknown word was what stemmed my definition. Along with an common initial word, I also thought about how that word would be used in a sentence to determine its part of speech. Without context, it was not difficult to think of a definition, not that my definition is right by any means, because I would simply relate it to something I already knew.

After reading A Clockwork Orange I formulated different definitions:

    droog- a friend
A droof is a friend because the character Alex mentioned talking to them about what their plans were for the night.
    skorry- fast or quick
Alex mentioned that people may not remember what "mestos" were like because "things are changing so skorry these days and quick to forget". The "and" in the previous sentence lead me to believe that the two phrases were correlated and with "quick" being a familiar word I determined that the two words were similar.
    glazzies- eyes
Three girls with brightly colored wigs with matching make-up. The make-up was "rainbows round the glazzies", which led me to believe that their surrounding eye make-up was rainbow colored.
    spatted- dated 
The girls had male names attached to their clothing which meant they had "spatted" with those men before the age of fourteen. So, this led me to believe that the names were spatted on them because it was the first guy they dated.
    messel- feeling or emotion
Alex explained that after you drank the moloko that you would have a messel that everything was in the past. This reminded me of the word feel because you could feel like something was in the past.
    goloss- voice
He said that the singer's goloss was essentially filling the room. When I think singer, I think of their voice. So, their voice, or goloss, filled the room.


7. Pronounce the words aloud quickly, without struggling over them.

a. I did not try to sound out the words letter-by-letter because if i was to read the words quickly as the directions said I would not have time to spend significant amount of time on each letter. Also, if I did do it this way, the word I was trying to say would not necessarily sound like a word, but a broken up mixture of sounds.

b. I tried to read the words in syllable chucks because even though I did not recognize the words, I was able to identify or recognize the majority of the syllables.

c. I tended to try to read the words all in one with longer words, because I would start by breaking it up into syllables, but by the end of the big words I would just glance at it and say something they would have been similar. However, when I did that I noticed that I added or omitted several letters within the word.

d. I do not think I know the full definition of each of the words, however, by looking at the prefixes and suffixes I could possibly determine a partial meaning. For example,  the word "submandibular" begins with the prefix "sub" which most nearly means under or secretly. The word "extravaste" begins with "extra" which reminds me of extracurricular which indicates to me that "extra" means to go beyond something.

e.Yes, pronouncing them allowed me to identify the recognizable prefixes and suffixes that I mentioned above.

f. When I encounter words I am unfamiliar with in daily readings, I usually relate it to other words that sound the same. After I have determined similar words, I usually reread the sentence to figure out its context to see if my idea of the word would make sense. If not then I simply rely on my surrounding context clues.

g. The experiment is to give us an idea of what it is like to see a word that is completely unfamiliar to us and expected to orally sound it out. This is how are students feel when they are reading a text and come to a word they have never seen before, but expected to say it correctly with the phonic patterns they have previously learned. My first instinct was not to think about the phonemic patterns within the words but to relate them to words I already know combined with the context of the word's surroundings. When teaching children how to identify unknown words, it is important that we teach them multiple ways of identification because simply sounding the word out will not allow us to determine its meaning. The student should see if the word may relate to another known word, and compare that to the rest of the sentence. Allow the student to guess and check and they go through this process until they determine a word that most likely fits within the sentence.

Module 2: Instructional Challenge

Take a look at the following examples of children's dialect-based miscues while reading and the difference between the child's original response (OR) and expected reponse (ER). Then answer the questions that follow.

1.	OR: It my little monkey here.	ER: Is my little monkey here?
2.	OR: We got to tell.	ER: We've got to tell.
3.	OR: Frog look at Toad calendar.	ER: Frog looked at Toad's calendar.
4.	OR: A word what sounded good.	ER: A word that sounded good.
5.	OR: hisself	ER: himself
6.	OR: I can come to your party?	ER: Can I come to your party?

Are these children's miscues evidence of proficient or non-proficient reading?  Explain. If you were teaching children who made these miscues, what, if any, assistance or teaching would you offer? 

       The children's miscues are evidence of proficient readers for various reasons. Examples two, three, five and six seem like they would stem from "at-home" or cultural dialect. From personal experience and after reading the text, it is evident in readers of varying dialect that they are apt to leave off contracted endings,a s in example two; leave off tenses, as in example three; pronounce words differently, as in example five; and say a statement as a question, as in example six. I actually had a friend who was born and raised in the heart of Louisiana and when she asked a questions like "can I come to you party" it would be in the structure of a statement, but because of the question infection at the end it was obvious she was asking not making a statement. Therefore, things of that nature are dialects that may effect the reading process. 

       Examples one and four may seem like trivial mistakes that had to have been made by a less-proficient reader, however, that implication would be wrong. These mistakes would also be made by a proficient reader because the reader is beginning to read for meaning through anticipation of what will come next in the sentence. With that, proficient readers tend to make the majority of their miscues in pronoun and basic words because of their subconscious instinct to predict upcoming words. 

       I would not offer these children any assistance throughout their oral reading because as Weaver states, "evidence that understanding usually precedes oral verbalization and in light of the evidence that proficient readers make miscues that reflect their predictions, their prior knowledge, and even their preferred language structures" (2002, p.74). If however, I did think that the oral language was effecting their understanding, I would simply allow the student to reiterate what they just read in their own words because that would show true comprehension. "When reading aloud, our understanding is usually ahead of our voice" (Weaver, 2002, p.76). There was another study done where Kenneth and Yetta Goodman focused on student miscues as well as their overall comprehension. It was determined "that there is 'no evidence that inability to cope with Book English is a general problem for any group' (1978, p.3-5). The students' dialect or interlanguage influence was evident in their reading, 'but it is not in itself a barrier to comprehension' (p.3-22)" (Weaver, 2002, p.76). 

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Module 2: Reading Reflection

“The major folklore of reading instruction relates to the “theory” that reading is considered an exact process. In other words, the reader is expected to read everything exactly as printed on the page in order to understand the message of the author. In general the consuming public, legislatures, courts, and too many educators hold to this theory. It is like the theory of the world being flat during the time of Columbus.”

-Robert Harper and Gary Kilarr

Without having read the chapters three and four, I probably would have said that I more or less disagree with this statement because of the situations and conversations I have been a part of with teachers I have worked with in the past. However, the reading for this week countered just about everything I have seen and experienced about teaching reading throughout my student teaching.  Therefore, I do agree with Robert Harper and Gary Kilarr’s quote that teachers most nearly misunderstand the fact that reading is not an “exact process”. According to Weaver, “experiments indicate that both grammar and meaning aid in the identification and recall of words” (p. 42). When weaver is talking about the meaning, she is taking context of the surrounding words and sentences into consideration when identifying unfamiliar words. When readers see an unfamiliar word “in context”, we are able to use the words that come before it and after it to connect the information to our own background knowledge and personal experiences in order to determine the unknown words possible meaning. For example, Weaver’s son was reading a passage, but kept mispronouncing or replace the word “gas” with another word, however once the gas was referred to as helium her son was then able to understand that the word was actually gas. “In this case, the meaning of the word was familiar to the reader, but he did not recognize the word in print until the context of following sentences triggered his own personal context, his prior knowledge of helium and its effects” (Weaver, 2002, p. 46). With that, it is important to keep in mind that “context includes the grammar of sentences and the meanings of words…Context is also taken to include the reader’s expectations and purpose of the reading…even the person’s culture and times- in short, the reader’s schemas, his or her entire background of knowledge and experience” (Weaver, 2002, p.54)

                When I was in my Kindergarten placement, I was there at the beginning of the year when the students first began to learn various letters and letter patterns, but there was only a small portion of the day where the students were read to in a whole group experience. Come to find out through the reading that that form of teaching is inadequate because “evidence suggests that many emergent and less proficient readers develop phonics knowledge most readily by learning whole words and deriving phonics knowledge from the, rather than by learning phonics first” (Weaver, 2002, p.57). Once readers begin to become more proficient, it is evident that they begin to think ahead and anticipate which words are going to be next in a sentence because they have become familiar with syntactic and semantic context and cues. Along with become more proficient and able to predict what is to come, readers may begin to make “more miscues involving pronouns and simple function words-- the so-called basic sight words. This occurs because they are reading to construct meaning, rather than to identify words” (Weaver, 2002, p.63). The important thing to understand is that when a reader is reading a text they are bringing in their own dialect and background knowledge, so instead of correcting the “absence of past tense markers, plural noun markers, third person singular verb markers, possessive noun or pronoun marker, substitution and omission of forms of to be and hypercorrections” it vital to simple check for understanding. Simply put, Weaver gave “three more arguments for the inappropriateness of exact word identification as a goal: (1) the fact that more than one word or group of words can signify a particular entity or concept; (2) the fact that we can often get the essence of a passage with its function words missing, or supply missing function words to fit the context; and (3) the fact that the precise words of text are quickly forgotten anyways” (Weaver, 2002, p. 71).

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Module 1: Activity 2

 

 Corandic is an emurient grof with many fribs; it granks from corite, an olg which cargs like lange. Corite grinkles several other tarances, which garkers excarp by glarcking the corite and starping it in tranker-clarped storbs. The tarances starp a chark which is exparged with worters, branking a slorp. This slorp is garped through several other corusces, finally frasting a pragety, blickant crankle; coranda. Coranda is a cargurt, grinking corandic and borigen. The corandic is nacerated from the gorigen by means of loracity. Thus garkers finally thrap a glick, bracht, means of loracity. Thus garkers finally thrap a glick, bracht, glupous grapant, corandic, which granks in many starps. 

     A.What is a corandic?

      A “corandic is an emurient grof with many fribs”. 

     B. What does corandic grank from?

      “It grants from corite, an olg which cargs like lange.”

     C.  How do garkers excarp the tarances from the corite?

      They “excarp by glarcking the corite and starping it in tranker-clarped strobs”.

     D. What does the slorp finnaly frast?

     “A Pragety, blickant crankle: coranda.”

     E. What is coranda?

       It is “a cargurt, grinkling corandic and borigen”.

     F. How is the corandic nacerated from the borigen?

     “The corandic is nacerated from the borigen by means of loracity.”

     G.What do the garkers finally thrap?

    “The garkers finally thrap a glick, bracht, glupous grapant, corandic, which granks in many starps.”

When I first read the passage without having read the questions prior, I drew an absolute blank as to what in the world the passage was describing. However, after I read the questions I was able to go back in the passage and find words that matched what the question. I did not understand the meaning necessarily but there were specific cues that I knew I could look for in the passage. I knew if the question was asking what something was then I needed to look for the subject and whatever followed the word “a” was the answer. I could also tell after reading the questions that the sentences in the passage seemed to be set up relatively the same. For example, the noun or what the sentence was about seemed to always be at the beginning of the sentence, which led me to believe that the endings of the sentences were simply describing the noun or subject. The questions and their answer went in order of the sentences in the passage, so I knew that the answer had to be coming up in the next sentence or two.  

Even though I have never been a huge fan of standardized tests anyways, this activity really shocked me and showed me a brand new light. I have never been a good test taker, but being able to complete this activity showed me that you do not have to understand any meaning in the words as long as you know what cues to look for in different texts. Knowing what cues to look for is a coping skill for the students who are not very good readers, and the reason a lot of the children go without the help they need is because they are able to “pass” the tests given by the school, county or state. If a student fully “comprehends” a passage or text then he/she would be able to answer more implicit questions regarding the information they gained, not just the cookie cutter “what is” type questions. We need to be teaching our students meaning in words rather than just giving them the tools they need to sound out a word. 

Module 1: Instructional Challenge

      Hocked gems financing him, our hero defied the scornful laughter. “Think of it as an egg, not a table,” he said. Then three sturdy sisters sought proof, forging over vast calmness, and sometimes over turbulent peaks and valleys, until at last welcome winged creatures appeared, signifying monumental success.

1. What are the hocked gems?

            If the hocked gems are something that are “financing him”, then that means they are something of worth that he could use somehow for personal support. However, because he has “defied the scornful laughter” I think that the gems came from an immoral source as if the gems were stolen and either sold for money or kept.

2. What should we think of as an egg and not a table?

            I see him referring to the stealing or selling of the gems with the phrase “think of it as an egg, not a table” because he could have done something much worse or seen as a “bigger” deal than selling gems for money. The egg is being compared to the smaller things in life on a crime level, while the table is signifying something that is looked down upon because it is considered “harder” to looked past.

3. Who are the three sturdy sisters?

            The three sturdy sisters are the various groups of people looking for the truth behind the crime. The groups of people could be family, government/police and the people who might have been fooled by the crime. When people are looking for someone who is important to them for whatever reason, they will not back down and not give up until justice has been service meaning they are “sturdy” in their quest. As well as not giving up on their search, these people would go to whatever lengths, “vast calmness, and sometimes over turbulent peaks and valleys”, to bring the investigation to an end.

4. What kind of winged creatures appeared?

            The winged creatures are truth, justice and peace. When I think of truth, I think of John 8:32 which says, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. Imagining setting something free makes me think of some sort of bird, particularly a dove. Therefore, the truth of the crime was now out in the open, leaving the “sturdy sisters” in peace. 

           If I were to read this passage with my students, I would need to determine its exact meaning before conveying my blind opinions of the passage to them. So, after I went through the passage on my own and answered the questions, I went to the internet to find out what that passage was truly about. After discovering the passage was about Christopher Columbus, everything in the passage made much more sense! Trying to figure out something like that on your own is difficult if there is not a true indication as to the main topic of the passage. So, first if Christopher Columbus is someone my students had not learned about then it would be important to give the students a mini-lesson on his goals, voyage and outcome which could be done through a short video or other lesson. However, an activity that would be neat to assign would be to allow the students to see this passage before talking about explorers, and then give it to them again to see if the things in the passage make more sense. That activity would be optimal because then the students are activating their own background knowledge with limited assistance.

            It is a much harder process if the student’s schema and the context do no match. Weaver (2002, p. 21) speaks of this while referring to a passage about washing clothes, “Clearly these ideas can be inferred from the passage, but only if you know or think that the passage, is about washing clothes- and if you know something about that process”. Therefore, if the child has no schema about explorers or Christopher Columbus then he/she is not going to be able to come up with the correct answers for the questions we answered about the passage earlier. It will be important for me to teach the students about Christopher Columbus before allowing them to go any further with the text or else the purpose of the text will not be understood.

            In my opinion, students should not spend very much time with texts that do not match their interests or schema because then reading will become more of a chore than something of pleasure. If the child does not understand what the topic is about, then he/she definitely needs to get a new text because the child really is not reading at that point; he/she is simply identifying words on a page and not understanding a meaning. There will be things within the classroom that the students may not want to learn about because it is not something of interest to them, but that is when as a teacher one must make lesson fun and interactive for the students to want to get involved. 

Module 1: Activity 1

Click on the images to enlarge them. 

Module 1: Reading Reflection

What are some of the major differences between a skills approach to literacy and a comprehensive or sociopsycholinguistic approach?

            The skills approach most simply means “that reading proceeds from the smallest units [phonemic awareness] to the largest [word meaning]” as stated by Weaver (2002, p. 34). This approach teaches reading using a “bottom-up” or “part to whole” method which means that the progression of content goes as followed: phonemic awareness, phonics, automatic, rapid work recognition and lastly meaning. Advocates from the reading such as Marilyn Adams, Frank Vellutino, and Keith Stanovich feel as though fluent readers can simply read and identify the word’s meaning without the need for the surrounding context. Along with the understanding that specific letters and letter combinations make a specific sound creating a certain word, advocates of the skills approach seem to conclude that the meaning of the word is also understood when the word is read correctly.

            The comprehensive and sociopsycholingustic approach is much more complex than the skills approach and can be seen as “whole to part” teaching. This approach claims to have four main type of contexts, all of which work together to determine ones understanding of a word or sentence: “Grammatical context within the sentence”, “semantic context within the sentence”, “situational, pragmatic context”, and “schematic context” (Weaver, 2002, p.16).  The sociopsycholingustic approach has a lot to do with ones interpretation of a specific reading either influenced by ones past experiences (schema) or within the transition of a message/concept. Weaver (2002, p.23) explains that “meaning is not in the text itself, whether the text be literary or otherwise. Rather, meaning arises during the transaction between reader and text”.

             The main and most prominent different between the skills and sociopsycholingustic approach is the varying theories in how reading should be taught- whole to part or part to whole. The sociopsycholingustic side says that reading should be something that is taught by constructing meaning from words through various texts. After the text has been read and talked about as a group, then the students will begin to talk about phonics and letter formation while “the children use writing as a means of expressing themselves, communicating, and coming to know and understand new concepts and experiences” (Weaver, 2002, p. 3). On the other hand, the skills approach starts off by teaching the students the letters and their formations through various methods, then moves to recognizing individual words and reading from different forms of simple text. The sociopsycholingustic approach allows the students the opportunity to get a full understanding of the language by exposing them to different forms of one word or various meanings of one sentence, while the skills approach simply gives them the tools the students need to sound out words they may not be familiar with.

“Studies investigating children’s definitions of reading have found, too, that poorer and younger readers tend to conceptualize reading as a matter of decoding and getting words, whereas older and more proficient readers generally conceptualize reading as more a matter of understanding the text.” (Weaver, 2002, p. 4)

Another difference between the two approaches that is an outcome of the way each teaches reading is that with the skills approach the students may be able to pronounce every word correctly in the sentence, but they may truly have no understanding of the content. Whereas, with the sociopsycholingustic approach the students can read through a sentence and may get the understanding with or without knowing every word because they are able to not only sound out the unknown words, but are also able to use context clues to determine the words meanings. 

References

Weaver, C. (2002). Reading process and practice. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books.

Personal Model of Reading Theory

Personal Model of Reading Theory 

Reading is the foundation for the rest of our school careers, as well as the rest of our lives. In order to become a fluent reader, it is an essential element that needs a lot of emphasis and practice within the classroom, however there is not only one way of teaching that pushes students to achieve that level.

            In order to read, the students need to first recognize that the English Language has an alphabetic principle, which means that they need “the concept that letters and letter combinations are used to represent phonemes in our written language” (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2012, p. 409). Therefore, it is important to expose the students to the sights and sounds of words on their developmental level through appropriate and frequent whole group read-aloudswhere the students are given the opportunity to hear and see the words on each page. Reading to your students allows for vocabulary growth, but in order to insure true vocabulary development you must also make the read-aloud interactive by choosing specific words that are relatable to students’ lives and have the ability to be repeated through common themes. A Word Wall in a classroom is a wonderful way to allow the students visual access to different vocabulary and high frequency words, however, the Wall cannot just be for decoration- it needs to be interactive. The best way to get students involved with the Word Wall is to incorporate it into various lessons and even individual/group activities. Because the Word Wall would be an ever-changing visual aid and a part of the student’s daily routine, it would build the students word familiarity.

            As well as reading to students, you must teach them phonics which is “the systematic relationship between letters and sounds” (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston, 2012, p. 412).  When students have seen and begin to recognize various words is the time to break down the word into its individual sounds. Teaching phonics needs to be done in conjunction with writing. There are five stages of spelling development: Emergent (Kindergarten to middle of First Grade), Letter Name-Alphabetic Spelling (Kindergarten to Middle of Second Grade), Within Word Pattern (First Grade to Middle of Fourth Grade), Syllables and Affixes (Third Grade to Eighth Grade), and Derivational Relations (Fifth Grade to Twelfth Grade). These stages are very important when teaching reading because you must teach the students on their developmental level which could vary from student to student. Also, the students need to understand the various “rules” associated with the written language in order to be able to manipulate individual phonemes in their oral language. Full understanding of oral and written patterns with their corresponding sounds is gained through continual repetition and use within the classroom. An activity such as a word sort would be beneficial to the student’s word pattern understanding because the students would be able to group various words together according their beginning, internal or ending sound. Introducing the students to “word families” through different forms of charts is also a fun way to get the students involved in their reading.

            Once the students have surpassed the emergent stage of reading where they learned the “concepts of print”, it is vital that the students are always reading within their instructional level of understanding. If the reading is too simple for the student then he/she will not gain more vocabulary which will in turn stunts their reading progress. The instructional level of reading is the level in between independent and frustration level, therefore the students will still be unfamiliar with some of the words but they are not words that are above their understanding. The words the students do not know are words that the student will begin to focus on until they have mastered their patterns and corresponding sounds. Through instructional reading, the students will put to use all the other reading techniques from read-alouds and phoneme recognition in order to figure out the correct pronunciation of unknown words the student may come across.

Resources

Bear, D. R., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F. (2012). Words their way, word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction. (5th ed.). New Jersey: Allyn & Bacon.

Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st century, a balanced approach. (5th ed. ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.