Module 6: Instructional Challenge

Next year, you will be teaching in a school where the vast majority of students did not meet standard on your state's criterion-referenced test and where more than 75% of the students are eligible for free and reduced-price meals. What are some specific universal literacy strategies you may implement to ensure students success? Include both in-class examples and things you could do outside the classroom. 

            I believe that the most important aspect of universal literacy is to simply read to and read with the students because “being read to helps children understand the purposes and pleasures of print as well as learn the language we use in stories- language that we don’t use in our daily conversations with children” (Weaver, 2002, p.368).  Studies have shown that students who are successful in school programs were read to often when they were younger. The more experiences we give children with print, the more word familiarity they are going to have when they are attempting to decode unknown words because most people will decode words through analogy compared to the “sound it out” strategy.

            However, along with reading experiences, the students need to be equip with adequate reading materials. Students need to be reading books that are on their specific reading level as far as not too easy but not too hard because this way the students will still understand the meaning behind the text but they will also be learning new vocabulary. As well as appropriately leveled text, the books need to be predictable compared to decodable “because children use language they already know in order to read, the unnatural syntax of decodable stories makes it more difficult, not easier, for children to read” (Weaver, 2002, p.367). Students also need to have the appropriate background knowledge in order to understand the circumstances that are being discussed in the book they are reading. So, when the students are participating in read-alouds, shared reading and guided reading it is important that we show the students different things that they may have never come in contact with in their lives. By learning new topics and concepts through reading the students will keep building upon the knowledge they already have and various things they have previously learn through text.  

            Studies have shown that “children in the affluent neighborhoods had more age-appropriate books in their homes than the children in the impoverished neighborhood had in their classrooms” as well as their homes (Weaver, 2002, p.375). Therefore, it is vital that we give our students access to a variety of books in order to improve their reading skills. This could be through the classroom library or various send-home activities such as a book in a bag. For a book in a bag students will be able to take home a book as well as various corresponding activities that would be completed and brought back to school. This gives the students access to books while they are at home and activities they can do with their family. 

References

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

Module 6: Reading Reflection

Does any of the information presented in Chapter 15 influence your personal philosophy of reading? In what ways? How has your perspective this changed since you took the DeFord TORP a few weeks ago?

           Chapter 15, as well as the rest of Weaver’s book, as completely changed my personal philosophy of reading. In my undergraduate program, I had to take two classes called “Children’s Literature” where all we basically learned about was phonics instruction. It was one of the most difficult classes for me simply because it was hard to understand. I did not feel as though I could think it terms of phonics rules and specific phonics “lingo”. Even while I was writing my original philosophy, I had to keep referring and rereading from my text book because even though I had an idea of phonics I really did not truly understand what I was even trying to convey. Now, I completely understand why because Weaver stated that it is even hard for adults to understand phoneme segmentation because it is not how we read. There are so many different things that go into reading besides being able to sound a word out. The main and most important thing that changed for me can be summed up when Weaver states, “As children have more and more experience with print, development proceeds, not from part to whole, but from whole to part: from being read to, to being able to read; from an understanding that print represents speech to being able to match spoken words to print words; from perceiving print words as whole units to being able to analyze print words into units that represent onset and rimes” (2002, p.369).

            Children need to be taught comprehension and reading strategies through observation because we cannot simply tell students the rules and expect them to understand and implement these rules successfully. As their teacher, we need to set the example by showing them how to use the tools while they read and why they are important. “Teaching reading strategies helps students-and even us, as teachers- to read more deeply, to probe a text more thoughtfully and thoroughly. Teaching reading strategies helps readers not only engage with and understand text, but make connections with other texts, the world and their own lives” (Weaver, 2002, p.329).

            One thing I did get correct is that reading and writing need to be taught relation to the other in order for the students to truly absorb the specific strategies. The students will be able to see that the two, in a way, overlap because, for example, the students will be able to deeper their understanding of spelling patterns by seeing them in a familiar text and then turning around and spelling them in their own writing. The more language experiences we give our students the more the students will gain in their contextual and background knowledge. However, more specifically children need to be taught in a comprehensive literacy program where the students get varying levels of teaching scaffolding and involvement. 

References

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

Module 5: Instructional Challenge

As your school year starts, you realize that you have three ELLs who are newcomers to the United States. Discuss how a comprehensive literacy program addresses their needs, drawing attention to specific components of the framework that are particularly relevant. Then discuss any additional scaffolding you would offer to support these children's needs. 

The English language is hard to learn because there are more sounds than there are letters, so it would be hard to teach students every letter and its sound and expect them to be able to sound out these letters in isolated words. The comprehensive approach allows for phonics to be taught through the combination of reading and writing workshops. Students are more likely to remember “chunks” of words, which means we should give the ELL students as much access to the English language as possible through guided readings, read-alouds, and sustained reading, as well as their writing counterpart. Reading more and more books allows for students to recognize words, but it also allows the students to see various letter-sound relationships. ELL students need to see these phonics rules in context in order to fully understand them.

I think the best way to provide scaffolding is through various reading and writing conferences, as well as literacy groups and shared reading. With literacy groups and shared reading, the students would be given the opportunity to hear the text read while being able to see the words their own text, and then be able to reread the same text. When the students are able to read and reread the same text they will become more familiar with the content and words which will begin to raise their confidence. The conferences will allow me to see where the student thinks he/she is having an issue so that I can talk them through it or show/teach them in another manner. All students learn so differently that it is essential to have these conferences in order to cater to the specific students’ needs.  

Module 5: Reading Reflection

Where does phonics instruction fit within a comprehensive literacy program? When and how would you teach phonics?

            Weaver states that “a comprehensive literacy program is more integrative, with skills and strategies taught and used in context, and with emphasis upon the guided and sustained reading and writing of whole, meaningful texts, an emphasis that is sorely needed to help children become both functionally and joyfully literate” (2002, p.279). Therefore, phonics instruction is something that should be taught throughout reading and writing, not in isolated skills. It is hard for adults to sound out each letter in a word and understand what word they are saying, so how are we expecting children who are just learning the English language to complete this task. “Phonemic segmentation Is not a natural task, nor one normally needed for reading, beyond the ability to separate an onset from a rime” (Weaver, 2002, p.307). As we have learned in this chapter and in previous chapters, children learn best when comparing unknown words to words they are familiar with in order to figure out its pronunciation. They are also more likely to read words in “chunks” through syllables, onset and rime. “The findings of Schatschneider, Francis, Foorman, Fletcher, &Mehta (1999) suggests the following developmental order, based on a continuum of easy to difficult tasks: (1) comparison of first sounds: identifying the names of pictures beginning with the same sound; (2) blending onset-rime nits into real words; (3) blending phonemes into real words; (4) deleting a phoneme and saying the word that remains; (5) segmenting words into phonemes; (6) blending a phonemes into nonwords” (Weaver, 2002, p.311). Through the various quotes I provided and further information in these chapters it seems obvious that simple step by step phonics instruction is not cognitively effective for any age readers.

            I have always been uncomfortable with the thought of teaching phonics, but it was partially because I had never adequate instruction as to how to do so effectively. I did not think I could remember all the rules because that’s not how I think when I read, and after reading Reading Process & Practice I understand why. Phonics needs to be something that is taught daily through reading and writing experiences in order to allow the students to see the letter patterns in real life context. Various aspects of reading workshops allow for the teaching and understanding of letter-sound relationships by “recognizing letters and letter clusters, developing letter-sound knowledge- particularly an ability to read common onsets and rimes, developing ability to use letter-sound knowledge along with prior knowledge and context to make reasonable predictions” (Weaver, 2002, p.283). However, it does not just stop at reading workshops, phonemic awareness is furthered through putting these patterns to use within their writing with spelling.  

References

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

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.