Check for Understanding- Frey and Fisher

One of the things that stood out to me in this week's articles was in the Frey and Fisher article "Identifying Instructional Moves During Guided Reading."  I particularly liked the questioning to check understanding part of the article.  For me I always thought checking for understanding just meant talking about the text and seeing if they students were grasping what it was about. However, the article points out that there is 6 different types of questions teachers should be asking to check to see if students are understanding what they are reading.  I really like table 2 that was included in the article and hope to incorporate it into my portfolio- it breaks down the 6 types of questions (Elicitation, elaboration, clarification, divergent, heuristic, inventive).  I really liked the inventive questions- it allows for students to use what they know from the text to be more creative and think outside the box.  I think this type of question would be great to use is a writing center because students could take what they have read and go even further with it.

Assessment

For this weeks articles I read the two Cunningham and Allington articles.  First, I found the information on how to determine reading level very insightful! I never really gave much thought to how I would assess student's reading level- guess I just assumed tests and exams would cover it.... man I was wrong!!  I will definitely have to keep these strategies with me (on page 207)

I also really enjoyed the part in chapter 11 about the struggling older student tutoring the younger struggling reader. I think this is a fantastic idea because sometimes students need to work with other students because they can give a different point of view, one that the other student might understand. I know for me just talking to another student can help me better understand something when I haven't the fainted idea when the teacher is talking to me :) I think having the older student help the younger student with reading is a great way for the older student to practice using any strategies they have learned when reading!

Guided Reading

 The article I chose for my guided reading article was "Guided Reading: A Research-Based Response to the Challenges of early Reading Instruction" by Anita Iaquinta.  Thought the title of the article sounds like it would be kind of technical in explaining what guided reading is, however it does a great job at spelling out what the purpose of guided reading is, how to implement it in the classroom and the what the teacher's role.

What I  liked about this article is it gives tips on how a teacher can run a guided reading effectively; it gives many, many prompts that can be used by teachers as students read aloud in small groups. in hopes that they guidance by the teacher will give the students the ability to use the strategies on their own. 

Side Note: Because there is almost 2 whole pages of these tips/prompts to help teachers in a guided reading lesson, I would recommend checking out this article :) You can find it in the UT Database by searching for the title (just cut/paste it from here to make it easy) Use this link - http://www.lib.utk.edu.proxy.lib.utk.edu:90/ - and click on the Articles tab (rather then Books Plus) and it should pop right up! You can also try this link - http://portico.lib.utk.edu.proxy.lib.utk.edu:90/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=UTK&vl%282509551UI1%29=all_items&fn=search&vl%282509121UI0%29=any&ct=search&indx=1&dum=true&vl%28freeText0%29=Guided+Reading%3A+A+Research-Based+Response+to+the+Challenges+of+early+Reading+Instruction&srt=rank&vl%281UI0%29=contains&frbg=&tab=remote_tab&mode=Basic&scp.scps=000000117 - it might take you right to it in the database : )

Making Words is Fun!

I really enjoyed the Making Words article by Cunningham and Cunningham.  I found it to be a neat and interactive way to teach kids about making words and what really impressed me is it could be a short lesson (about 15 minutes) so it is something that many teachers could add to the vocabulary lesson every day!

I found this really neat folder- it is a Making Words folder that could be used as a center or in small groups. It had laminated letters Velcro-ed into the folder so it can be used over and over again! This particular Making Words folder can be found in a couple different places but here hare two Blogs that found pretty neat that talks about it (and gives brief directions on how to make it!)  The first one is First Grade Fresh- http://firstgradefresh.blogspot.com/ and the other is Teacher Bits and Bobs- http://teacherbitsandbobs.blogspot.com/2011/03/making-words.html.

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/293282920/

I also found a bulletin board that is used for a Making Words lesson- it is really neat to see it laid out and I hope I can have one like this in my room- and it could easily be adapted to any grade level!

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/230061539/

After reading about this type of Making Words lesson I got to thinking about other ways students could make words that would be both fun and interactive! Here are a few of the ideas that I found!

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/252329697/

Here, you can use old plastic easter eggs and attached a beginning letter (v, m, b, c) and an ending sound (-an) and students can spin the egg to make different words- seeing that just by changing one letter they can make a variety of words (something the Making Words lesson in the article does!)

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/264156098/

Another example I found was using a bolt and some washers and writing different letters on each side of the washer and then students can spin each washer to make new words. This demonstrates that a handful of letters can make up a bunch of different words (something else the Making Words lesson in the article did)

Comprehension Strategies

I found the article by Gregory and Cahill pretty interesting; I would have have thought that such meaningful discussions and thought processes could be taught to kindergartners!  I thought the section on making connections and the "Velcro Theory" were interesting, particularly the text to text, text to self, and text to world strategies. I found this site that gives some good examples of how to explain these questions to the students, http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-development/strategy-guides/making-connections-30659.htm  The site also includes some printable posters that easily explain each of the connection strategies.

I also found this poster that can be made to write down the students ideas for each of the strategies.

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/282602961/

 

How to Make Vocabulary Fun!

One thing that I found interesting in this week's readings was the emphasis on how to make teaching vocabulary fun and interesting- something "Vocabulary Lessons" by Camille Blachowicz and Peter Fisher talks about.  For example, word walls are something requires minimal preparation and cost to start up and is a unique way to engage students while learning new vocabulary words. What I like about word walls is they can be done for just about anything and are not limited to just student names or common words; teachers can create word walls to help teach vocabulary learned throughout science or it can be an interactive tool to help teach synonyms. Here are a couple examples of some word walls that I found:

founds at http://pinterest.com/pin/173724215/

This word wall is used to teach synonyms to many different words

Found at http://pinterest.com/pin/245768758/

This word wall is portable- it allows for students to take a folder with the letter they are looking at. Though this is not visible to everyone from their desks, this is a great way to have a word wall if you are limited on space!


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Fount at http://pinterest.com/pin/293787698/



Another great example for teaching kids "like" words!  Each petal is a synonym to the center of the flower

Here, environmental print is used in a word wall to help kids recognize words they might see every day and place it with the letter it starts with!

I also liked the article by Lane and Allen. I found it really neat how the teacher used her classroom duties, like "Weather Watcher" and "Zoopkeeper" to build the studnets vocabulary throughout the year.

I found this neat weather watcher guide that students could make and I think it would be neat to have the students make a new one as their vocabulary expands through out the year. For example, instead of just having "cloudy" they could change it to "overcast" and instead of "cold" they could put "fridge" or "freezing".