In this class we covered some of the most important strategies for teaching reading in the early stages. We applied some of this knowledge in looking at children's magazines and creating impromptu reading lessons. We discussed some aspects of designing a lesson and everyone was able to put together worthwhile activities that were multilevel and flexible. Great work everyone!
As promised, here's the Hinky Pinky website: http://www.beavton.k12.or.us/jacob_wismer/leahy/2001/hinkypinky/hinkypinky.htm You can also have a look at our class website for many more links to sites dedicated to particular areas of reading: http://www.sfu.ca/~smbarber/resource.htm
For homework, please read Chapter Five in CMCM and the handout, Chapter 13 in R&P. Please fill in the other handout, and match stages of reading with activities (front side of paper). You can look through the readings and fill in concrete activities. Next time we will share what we've found. Also, you can send me a rough description of your topic for your paper in the next couple of weeks. I will look at drafts anytime before the due date, June 29. Lastly, please bring your textbook to class next time. See you next Monday.
For homework, please read Chapter Five in CMCM and the handout, Chapter 13 in R&P. Please fill in the other handout, and match stages of reading with activities (front side of paper). You can look through the readings and fill in concrete activities. Next time we will share what we've found. Also, you can send me a rough description of your topic for your paper in the next couple of weeks. I will look at drafts anytime before the due date, June 29. Lastly, please bring your textbook to class next time. See you next Monday.
Leah Pells
ReplyDeleteMay 26th-2009
Bog entry for lesson 3:
Last night’s class was very helpful in giving so many great lesson ideas. I enjoyed everyone’s presentations and all the great ideas that were generated, and quickly.
One idea I loved in the handout, Chapter 5, was Action Phonics. I am a very physical person and I believe in providing children with as many opportunities to move around in class as I can. I am a HUGE DPA lover, and so any type of lesson I can provide that lets the students move, is one I want to try. The action phonics is a great way to generate new word sounds by saying the first letter and then the word, which is an action, and then the students get to do the action of the word. I love it. The moving tends to help students remember the letters and sounds. Cunningham (1987). It would be a fun, hands on activity for the students who have a hard time sitting still. Plus you can get a bit of DPA in. You can even play some music in the background to help gets the kids really moving and into it.
I also really enjoyed the idea of using rhymes or such books as Dr. Seuss to help develop phonemic awareness. My son had me read a book called “Go Dog Go” by P.D.Eastman to him about a thousand times. The book has many simple one syllable words that rhyme, and after awhile he would recite the lines to me as I read. What was great were all the sounds he was learning and saying. The idea that one can read a book like this to a young reader and ask them such things as which words rhyme? What words sound the same or have the same sound at the start of a word. There are many engaging ways to help a child love reading, and these rhyming books are a great start.
Thanks again for all the great ideas people came up with last night; I was busy jotting things down for when I am TOC-ing this fall (hopefully). Thanks to everyone for a great class.
Cheers,
Leah
When you think about phonemes, morphemes, and multi-syllabic words it is interesting to consider the problems that we ran into when we were pronouncing them in class. Words like derivational and multi-syllabic no longer seemed to slip off the tongue with as much ease as the alliterative repetition of the onset in “big brown bear” or “magical Mickey Mouse”. Considering this, think about how hard it would be to deconstruct and decode these words in the primary elementary, intermediate, and high school grades. You would be waiting to read aloud in class, your throat may close up, and you would feel beads of sweat run down the sides of your face. You are nervous. While other students are reading their part, all you are focused on is trying to decode the words in your section that you have to read aloud to the class. As teachers, how do we take the pressure out of read alouds? How do we make words easier for students to pronounce, or at least alleviate their fears in class?
ReplyDeleteAnd when thinking about phonemes, why do the letters of the alphabet have to sound like they do in the English language? The letters of the alphabet sound one particular way while they are alone; however, they change depending on what other letter you blend the letter with and, even then, the same blend sounds different with the accompanying vowel. How could we explain this to students without using ‘magic’? Magic in that the explanation of letter sounds would simply be, it sounds the way it does because the creators of the English language decided that. It would be interesting to come up with an answer for all the “why’s” to that question.
Lisa
I really enjoyed today’s class. It was very interesting to talk and discuss how we learn how to read and write. The basics of reading and writing are often not discussed, it is very important as future teachers to understanding the fundamental ideas of learning how to read and write. The group discussions were all very helpful. The different strategies mentioned are very useful to me as a primary teacher. It was very interesting to see how many of these strategies were fun and engaging. The child may be learning how to decode or learning how to rhyme words or breaking down different syllables in fun activities. During my practicum, I often enjoyed teaching multidisciplinary subjects. The strategies taught today can easily be adaptable to other subjects involving students to participate kinesthetically. Jenania pointed out a very important point that teaching student phonemic awareness is crucial in primary grades as it is often is associated with student’s success in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe follow-up activity on Children’s magazines was a great closure to today’s lesson because it enabled us to use some of the reading strategies we learned in the chapter and to apply it into a lesson that involves visual associations. We can activate prior knowledge, do a KWL chart and to extend it into different activities where students can go off to the library to find further discoveries. Students can work on word families, and create a word list as a class. Students can also use these words to create poetry.
Mable
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed tonight's class and liked how we discussed learning language. As a society we always talk about learning to read and write, but we tend to forget that these skills are the hardest things we will ever master in our lives. How does a child learn to read, where do they start? How does a parent or teacher know how to teach reading skills? Some of these questions were answered tonight and I am sure as the course progresses more answers to my questions will follow.
I enjoyed having group presentations to discuss and teach each other about learning language and how to teach it. It was great to get some concrete examples and understanding of what morphemes and phonetic awareness is. There was one group who talked about introducing language at centered time. I thought this was a fantastic idea because elementary students can start practicing reading and writing skills while playing house at center time or even blocks. I also thought is was valuable that one group talked about emergent learning, and that the gibber gabber and scribbles we see young students do should not be discounted but encouraged because this is emergent learning.
The closing activity was a good idea because it helped us as students and teachers put into practice what we had just learned. It was fun and interesting to work on a lesson plan with fresh eyes in terms of learning to teach reading and comprehension. I got allot of great ideas and thought it was a very valuable activity and class.
Thanks Janaya
Hi my name is Ashok and my friends call me Mr. Originality ;)
ReplyDeleteI have completed my long practicum. Like everyone, I am also enjoying this class however I hate the long drive back home to Mission and sometimes feel really tired. And my coffee hangovers aren’t helping the situation. Usually I am more energetic in the afternoons and more charismatic. Anyways, I digress; this class is wonderful in that it’s allowing me to reflect on my experience. I am receiving a lot of good lesson ideas as well and I can already see how I can adapt and use theses ideas in my teaching. Anyways, I do not want to get too sentimental. I’m still having a hard time adjusting to being in student mode and not teaching right now is hard. I learn best by doing and having done the long practicum it’s tough going through theory now. But I am very lucky to have done my long practicum first because now I can instantly see which lessons would work well and which won’t, based on my own experience.
In yesterday’s class I was responsible for pg. 87 (Sing rhymes and read lots rhyming books)… I just wanted to point out again some of the key points because there were lots of presenters and its hard to remember what everyone said. First, as a teacher you should pick a book with lots of rhyme and that students will like and enjoy reading. Second, reread it again and again. After they have become familiar with the book, stop and have students fill in the next rhyme. This will allow students to identify rhyming words. Third, we also want students to be able to produce rhyme words. So, it is vital that we find ways to have students make up similar rhymes. Furthermore, I wanted to emphasize on pg. 87 there is list of rhyme books that are helpful in developing students’ phonemic awareness.
Besides this, my favourite section from the readings was on pg. 99 “making words.” Using pocket chart with a name such as Martin and identifying the various different words that can be made from those letters is a easy lesson I feel I can do instantly. And actually in my Education PE class I have to do a unit plan that integrates other subjects and this type of activity has allowed me to come up with an idea that will help me include my theme into Language Arts as well. I do not want to reveal my lesson idea but I can share it near the end of semester.
Honestly, L.A. didn’t use to be one of my favourite subjects. It used to feel boring and I had teachers who didn’t really make it fun or exciting. It used to feel more like a chore and there was always a fear of trying to be perfect and pleasing the teacher. But now as a teacher I am developing more of a passion for it. And I think my passion and enthusiasm will transfer over to my students.
God Bless and see you all next week…
p.s. some of you asked me how to get the notes. First, type in and go to http://www.sfu.ca/~smbarber/educ473.htm second, click on left hand top side “2001 Educ 473” and third left hand top side click “syllabus” and then left hand top side click notes.” I hope this helps…
your truly Ashok K. :)
I really enjoyed last night’s class. Being able to brainstorm and create a lesson plan with a partner was great. In all of our experiences so far during PDP, we have gathered a bunch of strategies and I respect how our class is willing to share these ideas with one another. Last night, the lesson plan activity I thought was very helpful (I wish I had taken this class before my 405). My 405 experience was awesome, but I found it difficult sometimes to think of different ideas to help my students connect with our readings. I had used different approaches to the ideas we shared but there is so much more we can add to our lessons, thank you everyone for all your ideas, I am now very excited to try these in the future!
ReplyDeleteI have to be honest, I think 473 is the only class of mine that I feel is relevant for my future in teaching (I do not mean to be harsh). I am learning a lot in my other classes but how our class is run and the activities we participate in, I am benefitting a lot more because Sue created a hands on and teaching environment. For example, I agree with Janaya’s blog post in enjoying our group presentations last night. This opportunity had us speak/ teach in front of the class which builds strength in talking in front of a group; and secondly, it clarifies our readings by having us talk as a group about our ideas and being able to hear others thoughts on topics that we may have had trouble understanding. This helps me as I always have questions when I finish reading new material. Thanks for your help class!
Have a great week!
I remember overhearing a conversation in my daughter’s grade one class last year where a parent was asking the teacher what the trick was to helping kids learn how to read. Her response both tickled me, and left me slightly terrified at the prospect of becoming a teacher of reading. It was simply, “Magic”. I am happy to have finally learned the recipe behind the magic – phonemic awareness. It was reassuring to know what it is, and know that I know it. Magic would be harder.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned before my son has a fixation with Harry Potter and we are always reading it… so when I ponder things about education it often sneaks in there. With that disclaimer I wanted to mention how interesting it is that Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry takes students once they are eleven. This convinently means that most of the students are able to read well enough to read the huge books required in their magic courses and do the necessary arithmatic and mathematics to make correct potions etc. Not once in all of Harry’s Hogwarts schooling is he taught how to write or read better, he is simply handed huge texts and required to read them for understanding etc. I found it interesting to think that this may be the cases in many of our “muggle” classrooms where we forget about teaching language skills – reading and writing – and only worry about curriculum and subject matter when really they can go hand in hand and one is not more important than the other… which brings me to my next point. I was very happy to see in class today that we took magazines and brought them into our lesson plans. Too often I have heard parents and teachers complaining that all boys read are magazines and comic strips and that these should be avoided like the plague. It was nice to see that we can and should bring in things that are a shorter read that interest our students and not do them a disservice. I think that all of the lessons we came up with would be fun and engaging and I would be happy to be a part of all of them. So yeah for magazines and ‘alternative’ forms of reading material! I applaud your presence in the classroom and your inclusion in this course!
I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s description and explanation of their group’s section from the textbook. I think that presenting all of these sections was really helpful in understanding and retaining the information. I always find that I do not take very much from just reading the textbook. These presentations really solidified the information for me. It was interesting to hear the different ideas and strategies about phonics and spelling and how they affect each other. The textbook offered a lot of strategies and activities for teaching students these two important concepts.
ReplyDeleteThe follow up activity of looking at magazines and applying the reading strategies was also great! I really liked working with our grade groups to brainstorm lessons and how we could apply the reading strategies. Looking at magazines as opposed to books was a great idea. It is nice for students to get exposure to different types of literature. It provides them more opportunities to find reading that interests them.
As I mentioned in class, I worked at a daycare where we had a subscription to a kid’s magazine (still not sure which one) and the children loved it. There were so many different activities and games that involved reading and discovering. I will try to find out which magazine it was exactly and maybe borrow a copy to bring in.
Thanks for another great class!
Phonics and Spelling
ReplyDeleteThe reading for this week was very interesting and for me “new”. I don’t know if I wasn’t listening in elementary school or if we weren’t really taught different reading strategies. I know I didn’t struggle with reading maybe that is why I don’t remember? In any case I have a son in grade 5 who is a struggling reader, he would be the child that someone blogged about early when faced with a read-aloud lesson he would be busy trying to decode all the words in his section all the while anxiety would be mounting.
When I got to the nifty thrifty fifty word list I thought it would make a great spelling unit. Why not teach those fifty words in the first two months of school in grades 4 or higher if needed? This learning would help the students with so many other words getting the most bang for the learning buck! I am going to try this “unit” (still in the making) out on my boys (grade 5&3) and see how it works.
Creating lessons from the magazines was a productive exercise, the most challenging part for me was to remember to scale back all the big ideas that we immediately had and highlight a reading focus. Once we did that we started to extend it into making a poem using the new learning and all of a sudden we could see multiple lessons if not a unit. This seemed to be the same for most of us, there were some great lessons shared which could easily become several lessons. I tried to come home and write down the “Follow the Leader” idea but my memory didn’t hold. Could anyone refresh my memory about that lesson?
For PDP, I’m doing a Learning Disabilities minor (as I think many of you in this class are) and I’ve been struck by how much of the content of this course overlaps with my learning disabilities courses. What I’ve realized is how important understanding the basics of reading is. We’ve been taught the importance of scaffolding and meta cognitive learning throughout this last year and it’s beginning to become much more clear to me. It’s so important to spend a significant and thorough amount of time on these concepts, but it’s also important to continue to go back to them. As a new learner, the basics are new concepts. It’s been interesting for me as an adult reader, to go back to the beginning and realized that reading doesn’t just come naturally but there was a long process to developing my reading skills. For students that are having difficulty reading due to learning disabilities, these basic concepts require more time, effort and strategies. For our intermediate students that have moved on to reading more challenging texts, these basics are still important to help develop strategies for new words as well as comprehension.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to comment on our magazine activity from last class and give an encouraging word. While listening to all of the potential lesson plans, I was madly trying to write down all of the ideas being shared. It impressed me to see how quickly we were able to throw together really interesting and engaging lesson plans. I’m not sure how many of us would have been able to do this at the beginning of our PDP experience. It shows our growth as well as our potential. Way to go!!!
The amount of ideas that came out of the magazine activity was great. I find this extremely helpful as a new teacher as I find it difficult to think of fun and interesting ideas. So, it’s great that we are able to share and explore ideas with each other. I would use the activity my partner and I came up with in my future classes; the west coast reader Olympic research project. I enjoy every opportunity to bring in sport and athletics into the curriculum and this would be a fabulous way for students to read about an event that will soon take place in Vancouver. This lesson could also be tied to current events and cultural awareness and diversity. I would tend to highlight the Paralympics as well as I feel these athletes are truly remarkable. Being able to incorporate reading of materials that are current and of interest to many children, I’m sure would be a great success. Thanks for sharing all of your ideas everyone.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous weekend.
Cheers, Alanna
Although I'm planning on teaching high school and did my practicum in grade 9/10, I've definitely enjoyed the material we've been covering in this class. I'm finding that even though the magazines or topics are geared for younger learners, I'm constantly thinking about ways that I can tweak and change lesson plans so that I can use it with students in my grade level. So often students in the older grades struggle with reading and understanding why and what they read. It's great to be in a class where the focus is reading, because I'm able to change small parts of the concept or lesson in order to help older students become stronger readers.
ReplyDeleteAlso,thanks for the heads up about the class notes Ashok!
-Jacqueline
ps- WOW it's beautiful outside! Enjoy the weekend everyone!
Blog #3 May 30th 2009
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone
This week I tried the “Old Macdonald” activity for developing phonemic awareness from chapter 4 of the handout. I used this activity with one of my Music Therapy groups-children in kindergarten to grade three with developmental delays. My objective for half of the class was more speech centered, while the other children in the class are beginner readers and writers. One of the great things about music based activities like this one is that they can address multi skill levels at once.
I began by singing “Old Brandon had a letter (Brandon chose the letter card ‘b’ from a pile and showed it to his classmates) be bi be bi bo. And with this letter he made a sound, (Brandon says the‘b’ sound) be bi be bi bo. With a ‘b’ ‘b’ here and a ‘b’ ‘b’ there, here a ‘b’ there a ‘b’ everywhere a ‘b’ ‘b’, Old Brandon had a letter, be bi be bi bo.” Each child had a turn to choose a letter card.
The students thought this song was really funny and they enjoyed matching the sounds to the letters and then changing the eieio part of the song. Children that were working on speech sounds also enjoyed this activity, as silly sounds are often less threatening to make for children with speech delays. Now that the students are familiar with this activity, next week I will focus on the sounds/letters that they have been working on with their teacher.
The readings this week also reminded me of some brain gym (www.braingym.com) activities that I have done with students that have difficulties in forming letters. The “alphabet 8” activity divides the letters into three groups: letters that are formed by starting on the curve and are in the left visual field (a,c,d,e,f,g,o,q,s), letters in the right visual field that start on the midline (b,h,I,j,k,l,m,n,p,r,t,) and letters u-z (from the Roman alphabet) that move to the right. The letters are practiced by drawing in large scale, over a lazy 8 while saying or singing directions such as “up, around and down”. Check out the website if you would like to order the book of braingym activities for the classroom.
Sharon
I thought the presentations were well done, covered very dense information and made it accessible for each of us. During the presentations something came to mind while listening to each group. During my elementary school experience I was enrolled in the French immersion program where every single class was taught and spoken in French. During high school, I had the same experience except I had one English class to attend. Do we need to know and perfect all these different reading strategies to master reading? I was never formally taught these strategies during school and like to think I turned out well, perhaps my experience would have been completely different. Also, I hope during the rest of the semester we are able to team up, work together and share as many ideas as possible. The lesson was a great opportunity to hear ideas that don't come up that often.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this week’s reading were really helpful. I really enjoyed the fact that there were so many activities that we could use with students that are learning about phonics and spelling. As I am taking the learning disabilities course, I think that these activities will definitely come in handy when I will be tutoring this summer. I found that this chapter was really helpful to me because I was working with a student who had been home schooled and had returned to the public school system. Her reading level was way behind those in her class and I did not feel like I had enough resources to help her succeed. When I met with the resources teacher, she had just told me to read with her and let her read me rhyming books. I found that she grew bored of reading these books really quickly and she seemed ashamed that her reading level was below those in her class. If I knew these activities and games that I know now from the chapter, I think we would have had more fun and productive times together.
ReplyDeleteWith the photocopied readings, I really liked that it had something for every age. Like most of the activities for phonics and spelling, it seemed like they were all geared towards younger primary children. I am sure that it could be used with older children who were really struggling readers, however, I really appreciated the fact that they had the activity on derivational patterns. I could imagine older intermediate children getting really into this activity, learning about what the roots to words meant, finding these roots in words and understanding what it mean. I think that it would help children to make more meaning towards learning new words because after learning the derivatives, it is no longer just a word, but a word that the child can break apart and understand what parts of the word mean. I really liked the activity and having children work it into puzzles and poetry.
May 25, 2009
ReplyDeleteI appreciate e the practical aspects of this class. The lesson development process we are exposed to during PDP is extensive, dear old backward design, and as much as it is our foundation, I am relieved that not all of lessons need to be so time consuming. Everyone’s creativity in class was inspiring. I thought of two resources that some might appreciate. My daughters loved two girl only magazines, between ages 10 and 13. They are “American Girl” and the Canadian version “Discovery”. They are filled with inspiring stories, crafts, fiction, and many activities. Secondly, a book to build upon the lesson on bears, sleeping and time is Sleep at Last by Jill Murphy. There is a literature guide online as well at http://school.familyeducation.com/reading-instruction/resource/30287.html
This book is also a great book to piggy back your math curriculum on time. I made a big book out of it and put different kinds of clocks on each page: that is how much I love this book. I can bring it if anyone wants to see it.
Also, I bought a huge 6x6 fly swatter at a bargain store for $1! It was easy to cut out the center and I get how easy it is for the kids to isolate pieces of a word to learn to read. Great idea. As well, the ghost game was brought up by someone in another one of our classes, Learning Disabilities Lab. Very good idea to use when learning to read but also when someone is having trouble.
Unfortunately, I missed what seemed like a very valuable and fun class last week. Since I wasn’t able to hear all the wonderful lessons everyone came up with, I will comment on the readings for the week instead. In my learning disabilities lab, I learned about how important and helpful Elkonin Boxes were for helping students with sound segmentation. Reading about them in the chapter handouts we received, strengthened their importance. They give students a concrete way to segment the sounds they hear in a certain word and are very helpful for those students who are struggling.
ReplyDeleteI spent a couple of days in a kindergarten and grade 1 classroom in a Pitt Meadows elementary school. There I saw the Letter People Program being implemented. The kids loved each of the funny names and could easily recognize the letter-sound relationships. It was an enjoying and great way for them to learn.
May 29, 2009
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the last reading class. It was very useful activity that everyone presented one activity after reviewing the textbook. I think that the activities such as Riddle- Guessing Game, Ghost Talk Game, Making Words, Using words You Know, Word Sorting and Hunting and What Looks Right are valuable ideas especially for primary teachers in order to enhance children’s interest in decoding and spelling. During long practicum, I had experiences of teaching riddle-guessing game (the blending and segmenting game) for a kindergarten class. The children loved to play this game. Hopefully, I can use the rest of the activities when I work as a TOC in the future.
The magazine activity was a great way to share and explore different ideas with each other. Although I am very familiar with a variety of children’s books, I have not paid close to children’s magazines in my life. I simply thought that reading books are much useful than reading magazines because I have a bad impression about some adult magazines that are usually displayed near cashiers at stores. By looking through a children’s magazine, developing a lesson was a new experience to me. I enjoyed designing a lesson from the magazine with my partner. It was useful to learn a variety of teaching ideas from the other groups in magazine activity.
I really liked the magazine activity. I hadn't realised there were so many magazines aimed at children, especially children of such a young age. I especially like the ones that were designed to mimic grown up magazines in look and format. I can see this type of magazine really appealing to children who are eager to appear like adults and do what their parents do.
ReplyDeleteI learned a lot from people's lesson plans as well.I especially like the Action Phonics idea, which is one that I have heard of in another class and seems really interesting. Like Heidi, I am taking a learning disabilities minor as well and have seen great overlap in the two classes. It makes me realise more and more that all the lessons from both these classes can be used to help students of any ability.
Educ. 473 Week 3
ReplyDeleteApologies for this coming so far after last class – what a crazy week! It makes me really consider the workload for a teacher if the workload of the parents goes up this much in late May/June. Something to remember in future…
I have really enjoyed the resources and materials that have been presented in the class. Specifically, the discussions that come from the activities we do, and the fresh perspectives that working with new people brings. It is really important to get these insights from a broad range; parents, non parents, complete versus upcoming practicum students…it all serves to enrich my repertoire as I head off this fall to teach (hopefully!)
That being said, I have found that there is almost an overwhelming amount of concrete examples and activities in the text. I think that once this class is complete, I will come back time and time again to the text and really pull from it for specifics in a lesson or classroom. The portion of Chapter 5 that discusses accessing prior knowledge was interesting to me because as I try to think metacognitively, I really become acutely aware of how I remember being taught, and learning. I then find myself questioning whether I will replicate that particular method depending how I feel it worked for me, or if I will strike out on my own (per se) and do it my way. I really related to the way the text encouraged constant word exploration and usage. I know that with my daughters, whenever there is a word or phrase they do not know, they always ask what it means. Sometimes I don’t know either, and then it is a race between Mom with her dictionary (or her knowledge of roots, etc) and their fingers on the computer keyboard – you have to love Wikipedia!!
Thanks everyone for the great discussions, and the relaxed atmosphere in class J The blog entries are great too, thanks for all the great ideas and thoughtful/thought provoking comments!
Jennifer
Hello Everyone!
ReplyDeleteThis class, along with my learning disabilities classes, have really helped me to understand what phonemic awareness is. Since I had my 405 in a grade 3/4 class, I didn't really get a chance to see the early phases of literacy in the classroom. However, I TOC-ed in a kindergarten class on Friday, and had the opportunity to see a lot of strategies in action! It was really neat to see the kids in the class being so excited about reading, with it being supported by programs such as a 10-15 min "noisy ready" for the first portion of the class, where the parents are invited into the classroom to read with their children. They had the "letter of the week" by using the Letterland program. I know I was only there for a day, but the program really seemed to help a lot of the students remember what the letters were and what sounds they made.
I also really enjoyed the magazine activity that we did in class last week, as I think it is something that leaves a lot of room for creativity - both for the students and for the teacher. If you are looking to build your classroom resources, I know that there is an offer on many cereal boxes right now for a free 4-6 issue magazine subscription. On the adult cereal boxes, there are options to get travel/gardening/health/womens type magazines (which could definitely be a good thing to have for intermediate-high school), and on the sugar cereals there are options for Owl, Chickadee, a couple other kids magazines, or you can choose from a couple of book selections (one of which is French). It's a really good offer, and I think it is still good for another month or so. I already have 4 subscriptions on the way, at no extra charge! Ok, now I'm sounding like a commercial, so I will stop...Except for this one last thing - they are on Honey-Nut Cheerio boxes, and whatever other cereal boxes are of the same brand.
Scott wrote:
ReplyDeleteI really liked the challenge of looking through magazines to develop quick lessons that address reading and writing. I was amazed by how many ideas came out of this. I found that once our group got going we had a lot of big ideas for many different subjects and topics and it was more of a challenge to pick one to go with and develop further. Exercises like these are good preparation for real teaching when we have to come up with good content on the fly. Looking at how much our class was able to come up with in a few minutes, it really bothers me how many teachers have the kids read textbooks and do worksheets day after day. This “worksheet syndrome” is a HUGE problem in Social Studies and is a big reason why so many students dislike what should be the most interesting subject.
I found the chapters in the text so dense with information and ideas that I couldn’t grasp much of it on my own. Going through and presenting this information and lesson ideas in groups really helped break it down for me. I’m definitely keeping this text as a reference for when I’m stuck for ideas.
Thanks :)
Scott.
This week I learned several things that I think will really stick with me, especially as a beginning teacher. First, I thought that the text and readings for this week were fantastic, and I really loved the message that children need to be motivated to write and read, and have their writing and reading celebrated-no matter what level they are at. I think the text did a good job of showing how students can be motivated to write and read if they are allowed to do these things for real life purposes and I enjoyed how the text connected every day classroom activities to additional reading activities that can be incorporated. My favorite was the use of grocery lists, menus, and ordering pads in a classroom kitchen station. This of course was just one idea that the text provided, but it showed how reading could be made into part of a child’s play, which I thought was quite creative. Then, I went to a family event where I shared this idea- only to hear from my aunt ( a retired teacher) that she had not only done this, but had made it into a huge classroom project. Every two weeks in her kindergarten class, she and the students would work on creating recipes for what they wanted to cook, would make grocery lists, create menus, and then with the students (switching jobs each week) would create “The Restaurant”. The students would act as either patrons, servers, or cooks and every other week would put on a lunch for each other. The patrons would read the menu (which would only have one selection on it, but would include different drink options etc, the servers would write the order, and the cooks would read the order and (with lots of help) would prepare the food. The ‘bills’ with what was ordered were also written up by the servers. This totally blew my mind, especially when thinking that this could be done in a kindergarten classroom. Did I mention that the food was actually quite amazing? Anyways, I thought that if this could be done with kindergarteners; imagine what you could accomplish with older students!
ReplyDeleteA second thing that I really enjoyed from last class was the creation of small lessons, which we based off of a page from a magazine. Listening to everyone else’s ideas shows that you do not really need a large number of resources to come up with a good reading activity. Within one magazine people in our class were generating all sorts of ideas and they were all really valuable.
Sorry for being so late with this. Intersession courses... busy busy busy!!!!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the practicality of the activities we do in this class. It seems there is always some sort of fun activity planned that can be used or adapted for each grade level. As I am just going into 405 this September, and have no idea what grade I will be teaching, I always feel like it's a mad dash to write down all these great ideas so I can use them in my classroom!
I am always looking for fun ways to motivate kids to read and write. Nothing is worse that hearing that dreaded "UUuuggghhhh!" This week, I especially liked the group work we did with the magazines; it was nice to see an “alternate” high interest, short reading task included in classroom work. I love the idea of using children’s magazines in the classroom to increase student interest and joy of reading, but also to create relevant exciting LA activities for them to do. I was astounded at how fast we came up with fairly creative & engaging lesson ideas. The idea my group came up with - making a tabloid about characters in a book, or an exposé on an event occurring in a book they’re reading (older students)—would have been especially appealing to my grade 6/7’s; they would have loved this activity, and I really hope I get the opportunity to try it out at some point! The Westcoast Reader is also a wonderful tool and I was happy to see it being used. Again, because it is real news, and models an “adult version” of a newspaper, students can perform relevant tasks across several subjects. The resource teacher at my practicum school made very good use of this publication with the older ELL students; asking comprehension questions, locating details etc.
In the readings, there are SO MANY great strategies and ideas to practice Phonemic awareness, Phonics and spelling-- some of which are new but most are a refresher-- I too, am finding quite a bit of overlap between this and my previous Learning Disabilities courses (as Heidi said). It is interesting to think about what we, as adult readers perhaps forget and take for granted. It’s important to remember that, what has become an automatic process for us was once a painstaking exercise in remembering how to make individual sounds, let alone recalling what sound should “go” with each squiggly line on the paper. It is necessary for us to step back and realize the process to truly appreciate and scaffold these skills in our students. I am thankful that working as a tutor allows me to stay in practice, as I teach quite a few beginning readers and ELL students. I regularly teach sound manipulation, sound recognition, sight vocabulary, letter-sound correspondence, vowel patterns, consonant blends and proper pronunciation during read aloud to help students become more fluent readers. Additionally, I find that covering up parts to expose the root word -- chunking words, helping students remove prefixes and suffixes and/ or dealing with smaller words within words is very helpful for decreasing "big word" stress.
Ashlea-- wow, that restaurant idea is awesome!!!!!:D