Blog #10 Homework Rationale

 

Homework should be given as practice or review of skills already taught.  According to Hill and Flynn, students should be able complete homework almost independently (p.78).  If parents are needed to help teach the homework then it is not at an appropriate level.  Homework expectations need to be clearly communicated with students and parents so that they know what type and about how much homework they can expect and what the consequence is for not attempting homework. 

For my second graders I do feel that independent reading time is very valuable as they are learning to be more effective readers.  I do expect that students read each night but I do vary on the reading students do according to their level.  We spend a lot of time discussing what the appropriate book level is as we choose books.  I give them the choice of what type of book to read as long as it’s an appropriate level.  We use Accelerated Reader at school so my homework also includes getting ready for an AR test at least once a week.  I tell my students that my main goal is that they learn to enjoy reading and understand what they read.  I also let them know that it is still reading if they are reading with their parents or are read to so that they can have choices and be motivated to read at home.  I like to incorporate technology sometimes as well so I have used Starfall and Tumblebooks as options for reading, especially for specific students that might need support.

I also give math homework most nights.  I usually give a few problems practicing the skill we did that day.  There are nights where I switch out the Everyday Math worksheet and have them practice math facts in whichever format they choose.  They all have passwords for Xtra math and I provide links on my website if they choose to use the computer, but they can use flashcards or do them orally as well. 

As a parent I know there are times where we are doing homework in the car on the way to sports and I appreciate having the flexibility of practicing math facts and reading in a way that is beneficial for my student and workable with our schedule. 

It is my belief that students should not have hours of homework each night.  I want my students to have time to recharge and be kids at home therefore I don’t want to assign large amounts of homework that will be busy work. 

Finally, I do differentiate homework for specific students based on their needs.  For some of my students their reading homework is working on sight words or Florida Interventions with their parents.  For other students they may have their own math goals and I will change their work to fit their needs.  By checking their homework once it is returned to me I can see if what I’ve given is appropriate.  I let parents and students know that no student should be spending two hours doing homework and that if there is an issue the student should let me know so we can look at it together.      

Blog #9 Fiction and Non-fiction

Fiction and non-fiction books have distinct features.  There are specific features that might help ELL students learn English. 

Non-fiction has specific text features that can be taught independently and will therefore give the student background knowledge of that feature and why it’s a part of non-fiction.  If they student knows the purpose of the feature it will help them to focus on the content.

• Index
• Glossary
• Table of contents
• Captions
• Heading and subheading

Non-fiction may be more straightforward for students from another culture and native language.  Background knowledge and vocabulary may need to be front loaded so that the student has time to see pictures and have a concrete idea of what the content will be.  I see this as a benefit to non-fiction text, because it is concrete and with the technology today it is not difficult to find pictures and explanations to help ELL students become familiar with the topic. 

The one disadvantage to non-fiction that I can see is that when children are young they are often read fiction books so they may be less familiar with non-fiction formats and therefore more hesitant. 

Fiction texts have their own set of text features that can be taught, however they may not be as concrete as non-fiction.

·     Character

·     Setting

·     Beg/middle/end

·     Problem/solution

I think that even native English speakers can often have trouble with problem/solution because it does require the reader to make inferences from the reading.  Another thing that we ask student to do is tell us the author’s purpose, which is very difficult for students.  It is something that needs to be taught and I think can be looked over when teachers read because they focus on other aspects.  For ELL students it means having to understand the language and vocabulary but then go a step further and try to infer in a language that is not their own. 

Illustrations are usually helpful with fiction but again may not be as concrete.  They are there to add to the story and the pleasure of reading it, but may not give as many clues for an ELL reader.

One advantage I see to fiction texts is that they are often read to students from a young age and so students may be more familiar with them.  Also, I think that fiction can be fun and humorous and might be engaging for students.

Blog #8 SIOP lesson

I observed an SIOP or Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol lesson and saw that the teacher did include many components from the SIOP checklist. 

• The students were very involved in the lesson and there were opportunities for the students to work in groups, students shared with the class, and students worked with the teacher.  I did notice there was not as much wait time as I would have expected in a class with so many second language learners.  Although the wait time was short, the students did respond well to the teacher and each other. 
• Another component I noticed was use of realia and visuals to help students understand the content of the lesson.  An example of this was when the teacher was talking about adjectives and how to describe a spoon and she had a white plastic spoon to display and then talked with the students about how to describe it.
• I did see her use background knowledge to build on the content she was teaching.  An example of this was when she spoke with her Russian student about using plants where he came from and the type of area he lived in.  During this part of the lesson she also used realia again by having a plant there for them to look at.
• The students were reading, writing, speaking, and listening throughout the different parts of the lesson.  She also incorporated movement a couple of time throughout, like when they reviewed the raising hand rule and talking about grammar.
• During math the teacher incorporated group time and hands on activities by having different games set up to practice math skills.  They had to read their directions, speak with each other, and work together.
• I also observed the teacher taking advantage of teaching and clarifying opportunities, like when they stood up and reviewed prepositions.

Overall, I thought the lesson was very good and did show the use of the SIOP techniques.  There were language and content goals that were clear for the students to understand.  Important vocabulary was explained and connected to something meaningful to the students.  She reviewed rules orally and had visual reminders as well.  There was interaction going on between the students and with the teacher.  The students had opportunities to speak, listen, read, and write throughout the lesson.  Although the pacing was fast, the students were engaged and held to a very high academic standard.  There were hands on activities, visuals, and realia incorporated into the teaching as well.  Each of these components helps instruct the different learning styles that might be in each room, specifically our ELL learners that might need the scaffolding this type of environment provides.

Blog #7- running records

I was able to observe a running record and miscue analysis on two children.  The first student is a second grade student that comes from a Polish speaking background.  The second student is a native Spanish speaker.           

The first student is fluent enough that I was unable to hear any miscues that seemed to be language related.  He was reading on grade level and during his running record did not have any miscues that disrupted syntax or semantics.  He did self-correct all but two errors both of them were graphophonic mistakes but did not change meaning.  I know from speaking with the teacher that most of his goals are in writing, so at this point I would keep making sure that the student is reading independently and continue to get him to read different content area material so that his vocabulary continues to progress. 

With the second running record the student had more miscues.  She had a combination of semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic miscues.  Most of her mistakes were graphophonic and she made sense of the story but wasn’t using the letters from the words she read.  She did self-correct or try to self-correct many of the miscues and would go back to try the sentence again.  She made a lot of insertions to try and make the story make sense if she didn’t know the word.  I didn’t notice mistakes that were specific to being an English Language Learner.  I know that several letters in Spanish make a different sound than they do in English and I didn’t notice those mistakes.  I think that this student needs to read through the words.  She is using the beginning of the words but not looking at the middle and end of the words.  This is what I would work on with this child next.  Help her learn to not give up on the word but work through the word.  It’s possible that she isn’t as sure of specific vocabulary that was in the book because English isn’t her first language, however I couldn’t find a specific pattern. 

Both students that I observed are fairly proficient with English and it was difficult for me to find errors that seemed specific to being ELL students.  The next steps I would take with both of these students are steps or strategies that I would use with all students not just ELL students.  However, I know that ELL students may need more scaffolding as the content becomes less familiar and I would need to be careful not to assume that because they did well on the running record, that they are totally proficient. 

Children's books and cultural impact

For this assignment I chose two books that I love to read to kids.  The first is Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini.  In this cute story of a moose family getting ready for Christmas there is humor and fun and a lesson of how important family is.  As I look at it now, I realize that the story may be hard for ELL students to comprehend because of certain aspects that aren't found in their culture.

• The first is that they may be unfamiliar with what a moose is.
• This story is centered around Christmas, so if they are from somewhere that doesn't celebrate Christmas, this will also put them at a disadvantage.
• Even in some cultures that do celebrate Christmas there are many aspects that may be more of an American Christmas celebration, such as the garland, tinsel, and jingle bells.
• The book also has a rhyming rhythm to it and could be difficult to understand if the student comes from a culture whose words don't take on that kind of rhythm.

The second story is If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff.  I love this story too and only now after looking at it through a different lens, can see that some aspects of the story might make comprehension difficult for our ELL students.

• The idea of eating cookies and milk as a snack is something that may not be familiar at all to students from a different culture.
• Using paper and crayons to just draw a picture is also something that students from other cultures may not have experienced.
• This book does have characters but doesn't necessarily follow a common story path with a beginning, middle, and end.  This pattern in the book might be unfamiliar to children from a different culture.  
• Some of the words and phrases might be unfamiliar and talking about items that they don't use in their culture, such as nail scissors, milk mustache, and refrigerator

Both of these stories are wonderful books with fun illustrations, but both books may need a lot of front-loading of vocabulary and traditions we have in our culture in order for our ELL students to comprehend the meaning of the texts.

blog #2 Writing Instruction I Received

As a young student I remember writing in school, but don’t remember learning how to write.  From what I do remember, I was not ever taught grammar explicitly.  I was taught what nouns and verbs were, but don’t remember learning other parts of speech specifically.  I don’t remember ever learning how to diagram sentences or how to construct a good sentence.  I do remember one teacher showing us examples of paragraphs that she would construct.  As I got a little older, I remember being given a topic that we were to write about, and being expected to do an outline, rough draft, and final copy.  Peer editing or collaboration with peers was not part of our writing instruction.  

I would say that this takes on more of an acquisition view although there was no peer interaction and I’m not sure that the writing was always authentic, but more scripted.  Another aspect that I would say followed the learning view more than acquisition was our weekly spelling tests.  We were given a set of words each week that we would practice for homework and test on at the end of the week.

Looking back at my own writing instruction I think there could have been more of a balance between the two methods.  I do feel that acquisition allows for more authentic and creative writing, however I do think that students need to learn the different parts of speech if they are to be successful with academic language.  I know that for me, writing academic papers has always been very difficult because I don’t know when I’m making grammatical errors.  I also have found that I have a very hard time peer editing for people because I can’t find their errors.  I think there needs to be a balance between learning and acquisition tasks so that students can explicitly learn certain skills, but then have many opportunities to practice and go deeper with authentic reasons for reading and writing.  

Blog #6 learning vs. acquisition

When looking at the difference between whether certain tasks were learning or acquisition there were a few times where I was uncertain which to choose and really felt that depending on how the task was presented, could possibly be both.  There were a couple tasks in particular that I struggled with.

The task of making a Venn diagram to compare two stories, I put (A) because I was thinking that the students really had to use higher level thinking to look at specific aspects on two stories and determine how they were alike or different.  To me this could take on looking not only at characters in both books, but also plot or problem/solution.  I think that it is really asking the student to go back into the text and pull out information that might not be surface knowledge.  Each person can get their own meaning from the texts and their Venn diagrams could take on different aspects and meanings depending on the directions and guidelines given.

After discussing this task as a group I did add the (L) because my teammates did bring up that many times the teacher assigns the books so there is little choice for the students.  The part of the story that is to be compared might also be teacher-chosen and the students might be limited in what they are able to construct meaning from and therefore might be comparing surface knowledge information.

Another area where I was unsure was the task that said to work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences.  I felt this was (A) because the students are using background knowledge to create meaning from the cut up words.  Working in pairs allows the students to talk about how the words can fit together and use their combined knowledge to make complete sentences.

Again, after speaking about the task, I did add an (L) because if the chant is something that is memorized or known very well then there may not be as much meaning needed to construct the sentences, but more recall of the lines of the chant. 

After completing this assignment, I can see that there are many tasks a teacher can assign that can take on both learning and acquisition depending on how the task is assigned.  I believe that there will be both types of teaching going on in most classrooms.  Some things need explicit teaching and phonics instruction does help with decoding.  It is also important to teach strategies that students can use when silent reading in order to help with comprehension.  I think that balanced literacy instruction doesn’t use just one view of writing or reading, but uses the strategy that will best suit the students and goal of the lesson.       

Reading texts of different languages

I chose one book that was about how babies are conceived and born. I recognized some Spanish characters like the upside down question mark.  I also recognized the ‘los’ and ‘Ninos’ in the title.

• I was completely overwhelmed and really used the pictures a lot to even know what details the book went into.  I could tell when picking it up that it was about a mom having a baby but didn’t know until really looking through the pictures that it was also about how they are made.  I knew this when I saw the more technical pictures. 
• As I looked further at the text and not just the pictures, I did notice words that looked similar to English: bebes, mamas, and septiembre.
• As I got into the technical parts I did recognize the word huevo and knew that it meant egg, which I only know from restaurants.
• This book, although written for children, seemed quite information heavy and although there were pictures, it was quite frustrating trying to figure out what the information was saying. I knew since it was non-fiction that the captions were talking about the pictures so could guess at what that chunk of words was talking about.
• I would have liked to have a dictionary to translate or another person to bounce ideas off of.  It was something that was hard for me to just put down because I wanted to figure it out, but it was also driving me crazy.

The second book I chose was a Korean book so there aren’t any letters, it is all characters. 

• The pictures helped me see that it was a book labeling different nouns.  I do recognize the same characters from page to page with the same couple of words appearing on each page. 
• I am struggling with the fact that I can’t figure out what the words are and just keep seeing those two and can name the objects but can’t tell what those words are.  In my mind it could be a couple of things.  I think it is a repeating text, just from my knowledge of books and the appearance of the words.

After looking at these texts I realize that as a teacher I must be aware of my ELL students and what background knowledge they may or may not have on the subject we are studying.  I found that I was relying almost totally on the pictures in the text and adding my own meaning using my background knowledge on the types of text and the subject.  I would have loved to have had a peer to talk with and realize just how important it is for ELL students to be able to have someone to help and share ideas with.  I was very glad I didn't have to get up in front of anyone and have to explain my thoughts on the text or have to try and read it aloud.  The more I'm learning about our ELL students, the more I'm in awe of how they get through each and every day without shutting down or giving up.

After speaking with a coworker about her philosophy of teaching literacy, I found many areas where our thoughts were the same.  Both of us felt that in order to teach literacy successfully teachers must have use an approach that includes each component of reading as well as incorporating writing.  There must be differentiated and explicit instruction.  Therefore the literacy program used must take into consideration the teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  In second grade we hope that the students already have a solid base with phonemic awareness and we hope to make sure that they can then use their phonics skills to increase their fluency to become readers who no longer learn to read but can read to learn. 

• She stated that she believes that small group and whole group instruction is needed to successfully differentiate for every student in the class.  I agree and feel that in order for students to get the targeted instruction they need, especially at a young age where their knowledge of phonics can vary greatly, teachers must be able to instruct to small groups some of the time.  
• We both feel that students need to have the opportunity to have choice and use authentic reasons to read and write in order to be engaged in their learning.
• Assessment needs to be used in order to drive instruction and measure learning
• Students need to be able to get exposure to different genres of reading and writing and must have an opportunity to choose what to read and write 

I agree with many of the aspects that my coworker felt were necessary in order to successfully teach literacy in today's classroom.  The conversation made me reflect on the difficult task of teaching literacy and how important it is for teachers to stay current on best practices.  I believe that it is important for me as a teacher to show my students that I continue to learn as I grow older so that they know it is something that never stops and that we can always grow.  I also want them to enjoy reading and writing and see the magic in words and language.  I need to take the components necessary to teach a balanced, differentiated literacy program and figure out how to incorporate the love and passion for learning into it as well.  This is something that I will continue to try to achieve for each of my students.

Blog #3 oral language and the reading process

Oral language is something that all children, regardless of culture or language, use from a very young age.  Young children use oral language for things that they need or use in their everyday lives.  Freeman says that although children aren't given direct instruction, they quickly learn how to communicate in the environment that they live in.  As children get older, they begin to understand that they need to use language in different ways for different situations. 
It's this development of oral language that can then help children when learning to read.  Children can use their background with different ways of using language to make sense of the text that they see written on the page.  As young readers, oral language helps connect a sound with the grapheme it goes with.  As readers grow they begin to use their knowledge of language to make meaning of the different types of sentences they come across.
Not only can oral language help children learn to read but reading can also enhance a student's oral language.  The more types of text that students come across, the more they can use oral language in different contexts.  Gibbons states that not only is it necessary to have the right grammar, but students must also be able to determine the appropriate language and context needed for a particular situation.  Children can learn a lot of vocabulary from the text they read and increase their knowledge of how and when to use it. 
Oral language and reading go hand in hand and each one can help improve the other.