Running Records Analysis Entry #7

The in class experience we had analyzing running records for Amani , Lizabeth, Wendy, and Juan was very valuable.  I have conducted running records and fluency assessments several times, but appreciated the value of conducting one with colleagues and classmates.  We were able to identify miscues and analyze them for instructional purposes.  

All of the students had errors that reflected their first language.  Juan was able to read the majority of the words accurately and only struggled with specific content words such as firehouse, officers, and hospital.  With some basic vocabulary instruction Juan would be able to correct those errors.  Amani's running record looked very different from Juan.  He missed almost all of the content words.  Juan may have been able to use context clues and illustrations to figure out most of the content words, but Amani missed nearly all of them suggesting that he needs instruction in reading strategies and more background knowledge building.  He relied very heavily on visual phonics clues rather than syntax and meaning.

Wendy was a reader who used meaning clues to figure out new words.  Most of the words she missed were words with inflectional endings like -ed and -s.  Often Wendy would correct her mistakes due to the syntax within the sentence.  For Wendy inflectional endings would be a next step in her instructional needs.  The passage seemed too difficult for Lizabeth.  She struggled throughout the passage and did not correct errors as she read.  Lizabeth would probably have a had a difficult time retelling and recalling details from the story because many of her errors did not add meaning to the text.  Lizabeth needs phonics instruction, specifically in decoding multi-syllabic words.

These running records demonstrated the importance and value of using data to inform instruction for ELL students!  It also helped me to see how simple phonics instruction is not enough for these students.  They may need explicit instruction in using pictures for meaning and visual cues when reading!

Homework Entry #10

Personally I believe that under the right circumstances with student buy-in homework can be very beneficial.  Our building just finished a book study around the topic of best practices for homework and came to the same conclusion.  

Meaningful homework is homework that is purposeful or authentic for the students.  It needs to be in support of classroom learning.  For first graders that means extending the opportunity to  practice the skills students are learning in class.  A condition for homework is that students are able to complete it individually, which means that any given homework should always have been taught and practiced in class already.  That's why I believe in scaffolding homework practice three to five days behind classroom practice. Any assignment given is used as formative assessment to drive instruction.  Students will know what they need to do differently because problems done incorrectly are identified and skills are retaught to students.

Here are other homework tenants (adapted from Hill & Flynn, 2006 and Vatterott, 2009) that I use in my classroom:

• Homework is kept to 10 minutes. 
• Parents should not need to help with homework, but should be involved in modeling, listening, and checking.
• Homework is returned for constructive feedback.
• Homework is not turned in for a grade.
• Homework is explained before it goes home with opportunities for the students to ask questions when neccessary.
• Homework assignments are differentiated to meet the needs of the students.

Our building also supports a school wide homework policy with incentives and motivation for students to do their homework.   


Technology would be a great way to provide feedback on homework.  In our school a large majority of the families do not have access to computers, so technology as a means of communication and feedback is minimal.  I know a teacher who sends e-mails to parents with homework feedback that includes a list of mastered skills and skills for more practice.  I have also heard of teachers who set up homework blogs for questions (in middle and high school). These are great ways to implement technology and homework feedback.  

 NO MORE OF "MY DOG ATE MY HOMEWORK!"
Students do not have to make excuses if best homework practices are applied in classrooms!

Graphic Organizer Entry #9

This is the graphic organizer I created to help students learn elements on fiction and non-fiction in text.  This organizer is appropriate for emerging readers and for English language learners. 

 One reason it is beneficial is because it includes key vocabulary featured in both kinds of texts (Hill & Flynn 2006).  The elements of each genre include specific vocabulary words that students need to know.  With some direct instruction students could use this graphic organizer to identify these elements in text.



Another benefit to the organizer is its use of visuals and symbols.  When students have visuals to use with identification it helps them understand the meaning and make connections (Hill & Flynn 2006).  From there students can use language to explain and interpret the symbols as well (Hill & Flynn 2006).

I did have students in my classroom use this organizer and I supplied English language learners with sentence starters where they had to fill in a missing word and other students with missing phrase sentence starters.  The students were very successful with this guided activity.  The challenges they faced were filling in the character box (may not be the best representation for characters) and fitting facts into the ice cream cone shape.  I could change the ice cream cone to a train or even make the cone the topic and layer three scoops of ice cream as the facts.  Knowing my students and their learning styles and habits will make it manageable to adapt this graphic organizer or others to meet their needs.  With more practice and some accommodation they will be able to identify these story features independently.

Using Sheltered Lessons Entry #8

A sheltered lesson incorporates reading, writing, speaking, and listening to benefit English language learners in the classroom throughout all content areas (http://www.learnnc.org/reference/sheltered+instruction). There are several essentials for planning and delivering a successful sheltered lesson.  They include:

• Preparing students by setting a purpose through the objective, rigor, and relevancy of the lesson
• Building background by connecting prior experiences and introducing them to new ones  (on a personal note- I believe that building and activating background may be the most crucial  strategy for instructing English language learners)
• Making lessons comprehensible by directly teaching vocabulary, orally and visually presenting information, modeling,and demonstrating or basically doing whatever it takes to help students understand
• Using explicit teaching strategies (predicting, questioning, problem solving, etc.)
• Interacting with the students and giving them opportunities to interact with their peers
• Practicing and applying new skills through hands on activities
• Successfully delivering the lesson by engaging the students 
• Reviewing and assessing through purposeful feedback and necessary reteaching
  (http://www.prel.org/products/paced/fall06/siop.pdf)

Teachers need to make sure they are considering the needs of English language learners in all content areas and a sheltered lesson plans make sure that this is considered and implemented by all teachers.  All of the components are important, but I believe that building background, explicit strategies, and interaction are extremely necessary.  The lesson I observed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REXecCISQYM&playnext=1&list=PL5651A086F796E232&index=9) demonstrated an effective use of these sheltered lesson components.  

At the start of the video the teacher engages the students in discussion of the necessary background knowledge.  She also states the purpose and objective for the students.
The teacher can also be seen interacting with the students asking them literal questions and challenging questions from the story they are reading.  She is very direct engaging the students with choral reading and rereading strategies.  The clip of the lesson is short, but to extend the lesson and incorporate more sheltered lesson strategies here are some things she could have done:

• used more visual aids (pictures and real life objects) to demonstrate the important points or vocabulary in the story
• include more peer interaction (discussing a question with their partner or reporting back to the class)
• including visual organizers and more cueing
• using hands on activities to apply the comprehension skills

Entry # 6 Learning vs Acquisition

Personally, I believe that I do a lot of things in my classroom that support both the learning and acquisition theory of developing language or a second language.  To show how the learning and acquisition theories look in a classroom here is the completed activity from Essential Linguistics (Freeman and Freeman, 2004):

 The student activities represent a good mix between both theories and most of the activities are beneficial to students.  Activities that are based on rules, studying and direct instruction support the learning theory.  The purpose is to correctly apply the rules and instruction in order to reinforce all of the learning.  Activities that are acquired from experience, practice, and different applications are acquisition activities.  Students focus on using the skills they've learned to apply to the new language.  They key to acquisition is use, use, and use in order to understand!  As observed above, some activities can fit into both categories. 


I believe that teachers should incorporate activities from both theories in order to help students learn the rules, practice them, incorporate them, and authenticate them. 

Cultural Differences and Comprehension (Entry #5, LT#2)

When I think about a reading component that is easily impeded by cultural differences it's comprehension.  Even more so---its background knowledge!  The different cultures in which students are raised provide them with different experiences and different knowledge.  However, many children's books rely on previous knowledge or prior experiences for students to make predictions or understand the language or plot in a story.

 The story Olivia (Ian Falconer) is an engaging and humorous story that children love.   
Here are four components that may cause confusion for students due to their cultural differences:

1. The story uses a lot of sarcasm as a means indirect humor.  Students may not understand this type of humor due to literal interpretations of our language.

2.  There are many ideas and phrases that are stated abstractly (i.e. She just doesn't get it).

3.  The story goes through a day of typical activities for Olivia, but other cultures may have different routines for their day!

4.  There is also some dialogue between characters without explanation of which character is talking.

To scaffold instruction for students use questioning and cues for indirect humor (i.e. What is Olivia doing?  Do we do that often?  Is that silly?  We can say Olivia is being silly here.)  It's also a good idea to use that same strategy for abstract phrases and even practice using them!  To help with the cultural routines have students discuss what they do during their day using visuals for morning, day, evening, and night, then compare and contrast!  Finally, students could act out the dialogue to gain meaning from the indirect conversations.  Often when I think of these strategies- it is not just second language students who could or would benefit from these activities anyway because they help guide meaning and they are fun and engaging.

Another story that my students always enjoy is a Halloween story we just read called Where's My Mummy (Carolyn Crimi).  More components that may include meaning in this story are:

1.  Not all cultures celebrate Halloween.  They may not be familiar with its customs or traditions or there vocabulary associated with it.

2.  The story includes several onomatopeias.

3.  Again there is an element of humor that is not direct (i.e. mummy is afraid of a little mouse).

4.  There is also a lot of descriptive language which is a wonderful, but complicated teaching tool.

Teaching the students about Halloween to frontload their background knowledge is a great idea!  Use videos (there is one I love on brain pop jr)!  Show them a lot of visuals and discuss what happens or dress up as all of the scary characters and give out candy---very engaging! To monitor comprehension with onomatopeias have the students act them out or uses instruments and objects to make the noises!  Cueing and questioning is always a great strategy for monitoring indirect humor or unclear concepts.  Use visualizing activities for the descriptive langauge!

Helping students comprehend text using these strategies is engaging for all students.  I also believe that it is necessary throughout all activities and content areas.  Furthermore, the students seem to apply and retain what they've learned because authenticity increases when you add in engaging activities that tie in checks for understanding!  

 

 

Language Barrier (Entry #4, LT#2)

 I chose a parent letter from our first grade reading curriculum that was addressed to parents and that was available in Spanish.  Trying to read it was extremely challenging.  Language is a natural process and when you do not have the words you need....what do you do?  I did have a little bit of background knowledge and immediately picked out the few words I knew.  I started there and tried to figure out what context the word could possibly be used in!  


At that point I began to wish I were reading a picture book so I could have some clues or visuals to at least understand the possible context of the publication.   Here is a list of basic strategies I used to try and produce meaning:

1. guessing
2. collaboration (this means I asked my husband)
3. word analysis (I tried to break down each word phonetically- by syllable, sound, part....anything to help me derive some meaning)
4. Linking words to other words they sound like

 These are all strategies that our second language students use in classrooms to attempt to comprehend new text.  I could barely accommodate for myself as an adult and accomplished reader, so this activity really solidified the importance of making necessary language accommodations for students who need them!  It wasn't until I choose a decodable reader from first grade curriculum with simple, predictable text and pictures that I was able to find any meaning in text from another language. 

This experience has really shown me the importance of developing oral language to prepare for reading and making language accommodations for students!

Oral Language and the Reading Process (Entry #3, LT#1)

The connection between reading and oral language is an important one!  Dialogue is critical to the reading process (Gibbons, 2002) and students should be encouraged to talk, talk, talk!  This is beneficial for learning in general.  For students who come from second language homes- this talking piece is most crucial.  Teacher and student interactions should consist of dialogue that requires more input from the student and more probing from the teacher (Gibbons, 2002). 

Oral language can play a direct and indirect role in a child's reading instruction and process, particularly in the area of reading comprehension.   As children learn new words and how to apply them (vocabulary) they strengthen their background knowledge and strengthen their comprehension.  Providing feedback and dialogue around conversation also helps students strengthen and clarify meaning, thus improving a student's comprehension.  

For first grade in particular, talking and reading are extremely relevant and extremely important.  Oral language and background knowledge are tied into reading readiness.  Children need exposure and application of language to interest them in reading and to prepare them for phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.  A basic knowledge of words and how words work and how they are used to convey meaning and conversation helps prepare a reader! 

My Writing Instruction Experiences (Entry #2, LT#1)

I have always had authentic and genuine writing experiences as a student.  It wasn't until my later years of high school when I slowly began to dislike writing.  My elementary teachers made writing fun and motivating.  They often allowed me to choose what I wanted to write about or be creative and publish my work in different ways.  I even remember creating a video piece where I wrote a book report and summary, but filmed it in a special location with my friends and dad, while I acted as the narrator.  I wrote a lot during school and even during my free time.  I had aspirations to write a children's novel or submit other works for publishing.  I loved the connection between literature and writing, and was often inspired by the literature I would read in school and at home.  

The progressive learning model (Gibbons, 2002) exemplifies how I was taught to write.  I was behind the driver's seat of my own learning.  My teachers served as a passenger guiding me and mapping out the different routes I would follow.  My teachers allowed me to focus on both the process and product of learning during writing instruction and activities.  

Interview (Entry #1, LT#1)

Interview with Miss Brown (1st grade teacher): October 31, 2010

Literacy paves the way for all learning.  As students become strong readers and writers, they have the skills they need to accomplish anything!  Miss Brown believes that students need strong first instruction in all five components and that literacy instruction and development begins at home.  Parents and families should engage their children in language development by reading and talking at home.

When students are ready for school they need a lot of exposure to print and language.  They also need a lot of modeling and guided practice to help scaffold them into independent readers and writers.  Language development is an on going process that stems from exposure to talking, reading, and writing.

Miss Brown also believes that student interest should be a part of their literacy instruction in order to motivate students and help them see the authenticity behind reading and writing.