Next week our first four groups will present their Reading Lessons. Those groups should e-mail me one copy of their lesson plan on Tuesday. Also, I had one request for a TV/DVD player for next week. Please let me know if there is anything else I should get. Looking forward to seeing the lessons. Maybe we should do them at the beach!
23 comments:
Educ 473
May 31, 2007
Blog 4
The video presentation did provide good examples of students who were in engaged in developing phonemic awareness, both at home and in the classroom. I was impressed by the overall gist of the video presentation, that gave concrete examples to support active learning. However, I was not clear about the audience that this video was intended for. As Sue Barber mentioned, the well-respected researcher who made the video, was giving a presentation of her research using real-life examples. I wanted a more in-depth
discussion of the teaching reading strategies, than those which were given in the video. I suppose that this is the hazard of becoming immersed in the research articles. I have to switch mental gears, and adjust my thinking, so that I can enjoy the simple process of observing for the sake of observing.
It is of interest to me that there are not very many similar video presentations available. Perhaps we can look at implementing some video presentations of our own, using authentic BC classroom examples
I first began to discover how much early learning can influence language and reading development when I began teaching a Baby and Toddler Music Class. I was somewhat skeptical at first, wondering what children between the ages of 6 weeks and 2 years could learn from a music class. It didn’t take long, however, for me to change my mind completely. I was astounded by these children! The class consisted mainly of nursery rhymes and other children’s songs with patterns, repetition and rhyme. A parent or other adult brought the child and participated in all of the activities with their child. Within weeks, they children started imitating the sounds of the most familiar songs. Even children who could not yet speak would make the rhyming sound that came at the end of each line in a nursery rhyme. By age two, they could often predict the pattern to new rhymes! I realize now that I was watching them develop their phonemic awareness.
However, while I do acknowledge that early learning and pre-reading development as a significant influence on a child’s early reading ability, I do not agree with the statement the video made that a child can learn to read to the extent “exactly and only” of his/her pre-reading development. I realize that this video was likely created to encourage parents to read with their children at home, so this charged comment was probably made with this in mind.
I really enjoyed watching the video in week fours class because it gave me lots ideas of what I cloud do in a primary class. The activities that I liked were putting down and saying a letter and having the students draw it, the pocket chart were the students had to match the sound with an object, putting the alphabet in order and so on. I would love to teach kindergarten therefore I love to see and learn about new activities that I could implement in my future classroom. I found this video to be useful even though some of our views of reading have changed. I think it is important to make videos like this to show how kids learn best and what they need. I hope more people will make videos like this to help the next generation of teachers learn how to teach reading. I find it valuable to see it in action rather than just reading about it. During my module work in my practicum we did see some other videos which discussed some aspects of how children learn best.
I also loved the idea to do some kind of experiment or magic trick to introduce the class to a new book. This is such a great idea to really pull students in and engage them to try and figure out what it going on. This is an excellent hook. I have done small science experiment for my classes but I have never done this to introduce a book or a novel. I will definitely be thinking of ways to get my students engaged prior to reading a novel. This would also be a great way to have them predict what a story or novel or video would be about.
The video in class this week highlighted some key issues in my development as a teacher. I have been struggling with the idea surrounding Provincial Exams and Adequacy Testing. Where does this fit in the classroom? In the video the presenter spoke to the fact that we should be making better readers in order to help students do better on the district-wide tests. My thoughts are that if we have a curriculum that has a goal to teach towards the adequacy tests, we are not taking the time to understand our students. Not every student will learn at the same rate and understand in the same way. Therefore, how does a test that happens at the same time for all students give a representation for the general reading knowledge of students? We need to be careful as teachers in our goal development to be sure that our main goal is to teach individual students, not to teach a group of students in a generic way that leaves some studnets behind.
I did enjoy the video and the ideas that it presented. Very useful for classroom activities. I also thought that is was great that there was a general cry for parents to become more involved in the reading development of their children. Teachers cannot take this burden alone and must work with parents to make learning a lifelong process.
Watching the video in class about those kids who practice reading at an early age made me think about how important learning for children really is. For those teachers who choose to teach students in the primary grades, it is really important for them to try to get through to those students who are struggling as readers. As shown in the video, there should be a variety of ways for students to practice reading and most importantly, recognizing the letters of the alphabet.
While I was doing my practicum with my Kindergarten class, there were many students who could only recognize under 10 letters of the alphabet. These students came from home that practiced English as a second language, and these students did not have access to learning the letters at home because their parents did not speak or read English. It becomes really challenging for these students to understand and recognize the letters and it takes them a lot longer to process the information.
Every morning and afternoon in the classroom, the students would play with file folder games. These games were fun activities that taught the kids how to read small words through picture recognition, alphabet, counting, shapes, and number recognition. I thought this was a great way for kids to learn and have fun at the same time. They really love playing file folder games and look forward to it every day.
The video discussed how students who were not read to at home by parents were ‘doomed’ in the future. I don’t agree that students will be ‘doomed’ in the future, but I do think it plays a big part in their education. I have already seen students who do not understand letter recognition or sounds, and it will be very challenging to go into the next grade without the skills necessary.
I thought the video made some valid points about the importance of developing phonemic awareness at an early age. I was most interested in the point about letting students use their invented spellings. I never thought about invented spelling as the student's thinking process of how they sound out words. I thought of it as a random guess and was quick to correct students. Invented spelling tells you about a student’s phonemic awareness. Chapter 13 states invented spellings represent children’s best thinking about the relationships between sounds in language words in writing. I had a student in grade 3 that showed lack of productivity during seatwork. At first I thought he was lazy or that he did not know how to do the task. Later I learned he was too caught up with spelling correctly and making things perfect that he would not write. It is possible in his early primary grades he had experiences with having to spell everything correctly, that now he will not write down anything unless he is certain the spelling is correct. He is capable of writing much more and when he does write he is creative. Invented spelling should be seen as growth in knowledge, not as a mistake.
I thought the activities in the video were great for developing phonics. Even though some students had the letters backwards and upside-down, I think it is important at an early age to recognize the letter-sound correspondences before the conventions of print. Once the conventions of print are emphasized, the activity where the students were in a circle printing the letter that was put down, could be done in a line so the letters are all facing the students the right way.
From the video it looks like first grade is the beginning of the future of a child’s reading potential. Alphabet category helps the child; these are abstract sounds that break the sounds up in to units. but is this natural or unnatural for a child to grasp. It is the basic logic to know these sounds and then translate into the basic words. Visually processing the letters in each word is the basic reading comprehension of learning to read.
3 factors in helping a good reader are:
1) Familiar to the letters of the alphabet
2) Awareness of language-sound structure
3) Text awareness front to back of book, picture +script= story.
Incorrect spelling actually promotes children’s spelling because they are consistently thinking about the awareness, and then they can find their own letter correspondence. I use to think this was the wrong way to help children learn, but there are factors that you have to consider such as the age of the student, their level of competence, and their self esteem when it comes to reading, If they are pressured to early on to always get the correct spelling, this might make them doubtful of their true potential. I felt like this as a child, always being told that I had to spell everything correct, and it was very frustrating because I was having difficulties to begin with at an early age.
First off, I have to say that the video for me was both hit and miss. I liked some of the ideas presented (ex. Kids using a chalkboard to write down letters, parents reading to children at home) but I was really disturbed by one thing I heard from the video. One of the researchers actually said that a child’s ability to read coming out of grade 1 has a determining factor on:
1) the success rate of the student
2) the drop out rate
3) and their income
At first, I thought I misheard this and so I quickly looked to my neighbor for clarification. But after talking with her, I was reassured of what I first heard and could not believe it. Who actually did this kind of research? Did somebody actually go around and take a sample of students right out of grade 1 and track them for their next 25 years? I completely disagree with what the researcher said and I would love to argue against her. It just seems that there is so much pressure on children nowadays to start reading and writing young in order to be ahead of 90% of their classmates. It makes me think that when I have kids that I have to buy classical music and have it playing on my wife’s stomach 24/7 and then I have to read to my child for a minimum of 4 hours a day in order to get him/her comfortable with the language. Is it me or is this too much pressure on a child that is more concerned about being toilet trained?
The video for me was informative as it introduced me to new games and activities that I could use in a classroom but that’s it. I think there is too much variety in classrooms nowadays to ever come up with a generic video that puts all reading and writing ideas into a clean 45 minutes. I totally agree that because most of us are planning on teaching somewhere in British Columbia that those videos that show us classrooms that we will someday be teaching in will benefit us far more than classrooms that have no link to us. It’s just like reading for kids, unless it provides a link with personal interest, how interesting and useful is it?
ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Going through Chapter 5 of CMCM prompt me to think more about activating prior knowledge not only when children learn how to read but also when they learn anything else. It can be easily expanded to us student teachers learning about reading and writing in elementary classroom. We already know some of the topics in this textbook, some are never heard of, but some as presented in the new context activate our prior knowledge and form new connections, which enhance the overall picture of the discussed theme for us.
As an ESL person I relate to many of the vocabulary learning techniques myself. For example representing word meanings multiple ways is the idea that I explore a lot on my own. I have my own rule of three when it comes to acquiring a new word to my vocabulary. First I would detect the word from spoken language most likely on TV or radio (media). I would have probably seen this word written many times before and ignored it till the moment I stumble on it myself (direct experience). Then I make a connection between all of the past experiences and check this word in the dictionary to make sure I fully understand the meaning and also verify spelling. This is usually my happy moment that I have learnt a new word without any particular effort.
Another subject so close to my heart is selecting vocabulary for special attention. I have been many times present in the classroom when teacher was reading the story to the class and examine each of the unfamiliar word to the listening children. They were very unhappy about it, because all what they wanted was to know the rest of the story without the interruptions. As a result of this intensive introduction of the new vocabulary they were gradually loosing the interest and acting out. After reading Chapter 5, I am now more aware that they were probably quite capable to understand a lot from the context with only key words introduced before reading the story. Detecting the teachable moment in the classroom is probably more art than science.
Erin. M.
EDU 473
CLASS 4: Several years ago I met a fellow who had immigrated to Canada from Germany as a young man without knowing much English. We had a wonderful conversation about how he had studied English. He explained to me that one of the best strategies for him was when his teacher taught him to see the shapes and patterns of words. Once he was able to see these shapes and patterns his language fluency increased tremendously. I am still very good friends with this man and I love to hear him speak English. In the video the reading and writing technique, discussed above, was geared to young children. But, as professionals we must not discount this strategy when teaching the upper grades, or adults a second language or an adult literacy program/course.
Like other have mentioned in their blogs I too disagree with the comment on how well a child reads and writes depends on his pre-reading development. Pre-reading development does play an important role, but I feel that if any learner, no matter what age, who wants to read and write fluently and/or for enjoyment they will succeed at their goal. Several times I have had retired men and women from Asia in my ESL classrooms who have come to Canada on their vacation just to study English for enjoyment. They never had time to devote any serious study time in their younger years as they were busy with their academic/employment careers and or families. I know I am stepping away from the focus on young children, but the theories, methods and activities we have covered thus far can also be applied to the upper high school grades and adult learning.
The video in class made me first of all miss teaching and being around students again, but also made me see how many steps are involved working up to learning to read and the importance of family involvement in a child learning to read. I think the video did raise some questions as to if there is a magic age that children must be reading by for them to be successful in the future. I found myself thinking about what that says for children who immigrate here after grade 1 speaking a different language.
I enjoyed the chapter on prior knowledge and meaning vocabulary. I used many activating prior knowledge strategies in my 405 practicum as well as working at building vocabulary with the students. What is so great about these strategies such as brainstorming, questioning, predicting, discussing, and writing is when you have a class that has a safe community set up and students feel free to provide their ideas it can be a really great experience where everyone is involved. It also helps those who maybe don’t have as much prior knowledge of something find ideas they can relate to. One of my favorite activities I did with my students was near the beginning of our Social Studies unit on West Coast First Nations. This is a subject that I am passionate about and was determined that I wanted these students to be challenged with vocabulary that they most likely hadn’t heard of and revolved around First Nations history. I also had planned further on in the unit that the class would be working on group research projects of certain West Coast First Nations and knew they would be coming across language that may be difficult if they weren’t prepared. So what we did was create our own dictionary of First Nations terminology and in the end I had it bound and they decorated a cover for it. What I did was go through several books and find vocabulary that I knew would come up in some of their research and typed these out. I had the class in groups and they were given 4 vocabulary words with the definitions, but were to use other books and dictionaries to help them re-write it in their own words as if they were trying to explain the word to others in the class. They then retyped them, and put the vocabulary in alphabetical order into out dictionary. What was great was that throughout the rest of the unit, they would refer back to vocabulary and say, ‘”hey, that was one of the words from our dictionary”.
After last week’s class, I really developed an appreciation for the complex process of learning to read. It’s quite amazing to break reading down into all its components and into all the conditions required for successful reading to occur. The enormous task of teaching phonemic awareness and phonics has always scared me away from wanting to teach kindergarten or grade 1. Specifically, I think it’s the fear of failing to properly build these foundational skills at such a critical, formative period that scares me most. I really take my hat off to early primary teachers for their role in shaping the development of reading in their students.
In my 401 practicum in a grade 2/3 class, I was quite surprised to see that there was no reading program in place. In general, I think a great deal of time is spent on reading in K and grade 1, with students expected to be able to read novels on their own by grade 4. Although this framework might work for strong readers who have plenty of support at home and gain plenty of practice by choosing to read, I can see how struggling readers might need so many more intermediate steps. The shift in focus towards comprehension at the intermediate grades does little to serve these students who require extra practice at the decoding level. I very much regret not having taken advantage of DEAR time in my final practicum to read one on one with more students. This would have given me a much better picture of what level they were reading at, particularly because the reading involved in our literature circle time was comprised mostly of independent reading, with only short passage read alouds. Because many of my students were dispersed during reading groups based on their level, I can honestly say that I had students who I had hardly ever heard read aloud. That thought makes me very uneasy.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Educ 473
Gareth Howell
It can be humorous observing children in other teacher's classrooms. The video gave us the opportunity to see how different children act in classroom settings. The aim seemed to be to have the children learn by example and from each other with the teacher as a guide. In my practicum, teaching math to students, you have to let the individual student explore his/her answer. Even if the answer was incorrect, or their thought process was leading them down an obscure path, I found it beneficial if the student could see why what they were doing was not helping. At least they wouldn’t have me to blame for teaching them something that was incorrect, and if they can come to an ah-ha moment on their own, then they could own that moment and use it as a precedent for any future problems. Students need to be able to explore their own logic, even if the teacher may think their logic is flawed; it may bring the student to a different conclusion about a related topic, or allow the student insight into a better method. For example, when I tutored one student and we were covering the unit on grade 11 geometry, he would come to conclusions about angles based on what he saw in the diagram. I could ask him to explain how he came to these conclusions, and further ask him things like, “Do you know for sure those lines are parallel?” and “How do you know they are parallel?” or “What do parallel lines tell us about certain angles?” He would then have to explain to me how he came to certain conclusions, and hopefully see where he took a detour, or reinforce what he already knew.
It has been interesting to me to read all this research about how children learn to read and to see the video this week that speaks to the same. A lot of the research I have heard lately speaks about how what a child learns at home and before kindergarten in regards to reading will have a great impact on their success or failure in school and in some cases even in life. This is very interesting to me as I know I learned to read completely at home. I do not remember ever “learning” to read at school. I never went to preschool so I know all of my pre-school reading “lessons” came from my mom. From as young of an age as I can remember my mother was reading to me and encouraging me to learn to read. She would always tuck us into bed with a storybook, or part of a chapter book that we were “reading” together. She was constantly reading her own books around the house as well. My brother and I were always surrounded by books an encouraged to read whatever we could. I am not sure what either my brother or I would be like had we not had this environment at home, but I can tell you what did come of this environment. Both my brother and I were avid readers throughout our youth. Once we were able to read easily on our own, we continued to read every night. Even once I was able to read on my own, my mom and I continued to share books together before bed. Sometimes with her just reading to me, sometimes me reading to her, or others the two of us taking turns. As I got older I would spend hours reading in bed at night. If I was reading a book that had particularly caught my attention, I would forgo many other activities to read that book. I didn’t care what was on T.V.; I wanted to read my book. I remember staying up until the wee hours of the morning to read “just one more chapter!” This love of reading has continued for both my brother and I to this day. I am continuously reading and still read almost every night before bed. I believe it was my mother’s encouragement and demonstration of a love of reading that has instilled this in both of her children. I am not sure that either of us would have learned so much or become such avid readers had we only had encouragement at school. I know that for some children, school is the only time they may be encouraged to read and they may not have such support at home. And for those students we most definitely must encourage them at school to read and love to read. But I also think we need to encourage parents to spend as much time as they can instilling a love of reading in our children. We must let parents know that they have much more influence over their child’s education than they realize.
After pondering over last week’s lesson, I really thought about the ESL students I taught in my grade 9 and grade 11 science classes. I recall the comment made on the video about early primary school being the cutoff point that determines if you will most likely succeed in life. Some of the kids in my classes were living proof that this is not true.
Born and raised in a city where most of the population is of European or North American decent, I had very little experience teaching students whose first language was not English. When I first began my practicum I was actually kind of shocked to see the level of English that some of my students had even though they were taking upper level science courses. I came in with a bit of prejudice assuming that all the students would be able to read and right on a fairly equal level; this was, after all, high school and surely they had been taught to read and write by now. However, to my ignorant eyes and ears, this was not true. I did however, adapt my lesson very quickly. If I simply gave some of my students a little extra time to complete their assignments, they actually did very well and some, had top marks in the class. I even convinced my school associate that one student in particular could do very well, as long as the directions for the assignment were just explained a bit slower and more precise. That student’s marks actually went up after our conversation. I also realized that there were some students who had been speaking English their entire lives, could also do well if just given more direction or encouragement. I definitely do wonder, though if other students, who were not as keen on writing or reading assignments, come from a background where they had little positive influence from home. As their teacher I basically did my best, providing a variety of activities and giving them lots if chances to succeed. I hope to keep this mentality throughout any subject I teach.
Watching the video in class confirmed yet again the importance of allowing students to use inventive printing. During my 1st practicum in a grade 1 class I was very fortunate to have an SA who saw the importance of allowing the students to use inventive printing. My S.A believed children would write a lot more in their journal entries and the entries would be more colourful and creative. As I read all of the students journals it amazed me to see just what they were able to come up with when they were not forced to write correct spelling. I believe and have seen in classrooms where the teacher requests students to only use correct spelling the entries are extremely dull and not personal at all and the students appear to be extremely bored and do not look forward to writing, and we all know that reading and writing go hand in hand. So if the students are not enjoying writing they are not reading and practising their decoding skills as often as they should.
I also really enjoyed the "hook" that Sue presented. Children love magic and or anything exciting that captivates their interest. We should all strive as teachers to make each lesson fun and exciting. If each of us were to take a moment or two to think back at some of our most memorable lessons, teachers, classes you could probably see some common trends such as passion and excitement seen by the teacher and your own personal enjoyment.
A New Appreciation For Inventive Spelling ...
I personally, have always supported and encouraged inventive spellings in my writing experiences with children. While I was aware that students would be further developing their phonemic awareness as they sounded out the words they wanted to write, my philosophy behind the practice stemmed more from a psychological perspective. I hoped that children would be more confident in their writing if they weren’t worried about spelling their words perfectly. I wanted them to be able to keep their continuous flow of amazing thoughts streaming on to the paper instead of writing out one or two perfect sentences that may have been developed around words the individual could spell instead of words they felt inside. Today I remain a proponent for inventive spelling, but have gained valuable new insight into other benefits the practice offers that will strengthen my argument for the exercise.
While the Chapter 13 handout last week did capture my sentiment on the topic of inventive spelling and writing stating that, “children must learn to believe in themselves as writers and to develop confidence in their ability to share what they have to say with others through writing” (156), it was very interesting for me to learn about the “speech-to-print connection” (157) that exists through inventive spelling. I will now be able to explain to parents, that the word knowledge their child develops through sounding out their own words and giving their best approximations, “[…] draws on the same underlying word knowledge as the process of reading words” (158).
I feel that if educators create an environment that supports the inventive spelling process in the early primary classroom, then we will see less children completely paralyzed at journal time for example, feeling anxiety about what to write or how to spell words that they would like to write. I do recognize that it is also important for children to eventually learn how to spell words in the correct form, and feel that this next step can be implemented smoothly and supportively in an environment that has been based on the free exploration of words, and where “idea only” writing and I would argue even journals, could still be written using inventive spelling.
What did you find your school associates practiced in their/your classrooms?
I find myself really torn about the different styles of teaching reading. The kindergarten I did my 401/402 practicum was much like the one in the video. And while I agree with the idea of inventive spelling and what not (in order to encourage creativity) I wonder where the line should be drawn. There are a couple of things in particular that concern me. I have seen teachers get really hung up on inventive spelling and discourage children from learning correct spelling during group instruction... One example that comes to mind is the word day spelled by teacher as “da” despite the fact that a few students thought it was “day.” Learning our ay spelling would surely help with reading. I think if children are ready to understand standard spelling than this should be encouraged. The same goes of lettering itself. There seems to be very little correction of any kind in the early years and many children develop bad habits. For example, my son writes his letters from bottom to top and this is starting to slow down his writing. Had his early experiences had more direction and correction, other than his nagging mother, this may not pose a problem now. It seems many children don’t hold their pencil correctly, a convention that exists because we are less likely to get a sore hand and have more precision. I am also aware that some children don’t read during DEAR... they either pretend to read books they can’t because they are embarrassed or they take the opportunity to daydream. I guess I think we as teachers need to be very aware of our students and our choices.
I wonder that if in all of our desire to respect children as individual learners, we forget that children who like/need direction exist. I agree with Denise above in the idea that many children can get lost by grade 3 or 4 when they are suddenly expected to read. And that teachers need to take opportunity to see how children are doing. I’m wondering how we can be cautious and provide the proper supports for the children who do not take to reading easily, and still preserve an open classroom which supports creativity.
I found this week’s video to be a real eye opener into an elementary classroom. Being a secondary teacher myself, I find it difficult to visualize how the theories we are taught will look in a typical classroom. I have very little prior knowledge of how young children learn or are engaged within an elementary classroom. This video gave me a more tangible idea of the students in a “typical class”.
However with that said, I didn’t like the reoccurring theme that a student who is doing poorly after grade 1 will tend not to succeed in high school or later in life. I don’t believe that this correlation can be drawn based upon sound principles. Having a significant background in statistics and experiment analysis, I know how easy it is to skew data, and draw incorrect conclusions. It may be true that there is a high CORELLATION between students doing poorly after grade one, and lack of success later in life, however that does not necessarily mean that success after grade one can be used to PREDICT a students success later in life. I found this conclusion almost offensive, especially when the speaker then suggested that a student with little exposure to print will usually do poorly in grade 1. It begs the question is a student with inactive parents and little exposure to print in the home doomed to fail in life?
During this week’s class, Sue’s demonstration of the magical goblet, followed her
reading of Harry Potter really spoke to me. I have been doing a lot of readings on constructivist theory of learning for my other classes, and thought how Sue presented her ideas really related. Firstly, she brought the reading to life through her demonstration. This triggered the readers/listeners imagination and set the stage for the information that was to follow. Secondly, Sue also mentioned how the author activates prior knowledge at the beginning chapters of every book. Relating the information the reader should remember from the previous book in the series, and how the author seems to incorporate it seamlessly. All these pints reiterate the importance of activating prior knowledge when reading, and also relates to constructivism in that readers can now build new information base don what they already know about characters, plots, settings etc.
I recently met a retired teacher who had been teaching Grade 1 for 37 years! I asked her what she loved so much about Grade 1 students that she didn’t want to teach any other grade, and she responded she loved seeing the progression of readers at this age. I thought about this teacher during the video in this week’s class. The video spoke about the “journey to reading success” and how by the end of Grade 1 was when you could really tell if a student was going to become a proficient reader. I never realized the importance of reading at this age group. I was surprised to see the strategies that we had been reading about work so well in a Grade 1 class. Especially that some students were already able to read for meaning, while they were visually processing each letter of a word. I could see where the excitement of a Grade 1 teacher in implementing these strategies and being able to follow the progression of each student by the end of the year. And also because there are so many strategies available, the teacher has a variety of techniques they can use to assist each different level of reader. I guess it wouldn’t be so mundane after 37 years!
I’m not quite sure what to think of this video. I enjoyed seeing how students progress and learn phonics awareness, however I was unsure if this video was created for parents, teachers, or the general public. Since I am a secondary math teacher, I don’t think that I will be using a lot of the strategies that were showed in the video, however I learned a lot from them. One day when I have my own children, I now have an idea of how developing phonic awareness “works”. I am now more aware of the complexities of learning how to read, and I think that I will be more patient with students (and adults) that are having difficulties. I was trying to think back to when I was in preschool or kindergarten, when I was trying to learn phonics and reading skills, and I cannot seem to recall the difficulties that I had (but I know there were many). I think this gap in my memory accounts for the fact that I have been taking phonics, comprehension, and literacy for granted. This video open my eyes.
Okay... sorry a little late.
Reading log 3 – Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I really liked the video we saw. It was refreshing to see that for some people the idea of children needing to learn the building blocks of a skill (phonemic awareness in this case) was not something 'new.' I also liked the fact that the audience of the video was vague. I find it strange that people need to know if they are 'supposed' to be watching something, or if what they are watching was intended to be for them. Makes you want to say ... just maybe the video was meant to be watched by everyone. Possibly, even kids.
And, to be honest, I wouldn't really use a video presentation as a main focus for a class for people under the age of ... oh, ... 13. Having worked with people in that age group, I know that they would much rather listen to a real person and that they would much rather listen and do something else at the same time. This idea of having them sit through a whole video is ...well, strange for me. I'm certain it can be done, and I guess if the lesson is to practice self-control then it would be appropriate to do so, but normally I don't think long videos would be my thing.
The practical aspects of class actives mentioned in the video were nice, and it just further reinforced my opinion that a teacher really must be creative regarding what they do in the class, and ironically, that no matter how creative you are its been done before in some manner. he he. It removes a lot of pressure from me as a teacher to know that I can just reference another teacher's experience if needed.
I also found the comment about the extent of a child's reading ability being dependent on their pre-reading development interesting. Statements of that 'generalized expert' nature tend to send shivers down my spine. I don't like the idea that such statements are used to replace living practical experience (in this case parenting experience), that they are used to instill 'motivation' into society (in this case parents) and that they are often founded on personal case study (keyword being personal) or limited supportive studies. I would have liked further evidence to support that statement, something like a significant longitudinal study of several children. I think that a study spanning 40 years with at least 200 children from various ethnic and social/econiomic backgrounds would be good.
When I think about activating prior knowledge my mind first goes to teaching science. In my classroom I am always trying to link new knowledge to prior knowledge so that my students will get a better grasp of the subject at hand. When I think though of prior knowledge and reading it makes complete sense to try and activate that knowledge to promote learning. If I think of myself personally, I read at a very high level but when I read a book about a new subject or an unfamiliar line of thought I can stumble and have to re-read passages till I understand the meaning of what has been written. If I apply that to a young child who is just learning to read then it would be very important for that child to understand and have previous knowledge about the topic they are reading and also about reading strategies.
The movie that we watched showed students interacting with reading and writing and just how different students react in different situations. As I think about school and the age that students enter formal education whether it be early in Pr-school or later in grade 1 it seems so un-equal to the ability of students and their reading levels. I know that growing up I read with my mom all the time but never really read remember reading myself till I was older. It was always a parent or teacher reading to me at a young age that I remember. This makes me wonder if it is necessary for the student to read or if it is just necessary for the student to be in an environment where reading occurs.
Post a Comment