It was amazing to see how quickly everyone put together lesson plans and came up with some worthwhile reading activities for their grade levels. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Reading Lesson presentations in a couple of weeks.
As promised, here's the Hinky Pinky website!
http://www.beavton.k12.or.us/jacob_wismer/leahy/2001/hinkypinky/hinkypinky.htm
23 comments:
Educ 473
Designs for learning: Reading
Melinda M. Park
Summer 2007- Reading Blog 3
I really enjoyed the reading lesson presentations, and admired how we each contributed ideas from our unique perspectives. Just as "feeling is the energizer of reading and writing"p.74CMCM, the positive energy of our diverse approaches to different methods in reading instruction also energizes the learning experiences for students.
It is interesting to note that although poetry has been identified as an effective method for furthering reading development, that it is often "...neglected and under-used in ...and viewed by many teachers as difficult and unfruitful"(Benton1992...) I am very interested in using more ideas for using poetry in reading instruction, since I have avoided this genre myself in the past. The lesson for teaching rimes to improve word recognition in Chapter 5, Onsets, Rimes..., gives clear step-by-step instructions for using poetry to teach two rimes per week.
Erin M.
EDU 473
Many of the strategies and activities we presented and discussed last class can be used at the higher grade levels (8-10), especially for students with learning disabilities and mixed level ESL students in the same class. I am constantly thinking about these students in my designs for learning classes as I had several in each class during my 405 practicum. I would change the language and level of difficulty in order to challenge the child. However, the idea to create enjoyment and motivation, when learning words and increasing fluency, in reading and writing is the main objective without pushing the student too hard. Thus, there needs to be a balance and I am interested in finding this balance and maintaining it in order to help my students reach their academic potential.
The rough lesson plan activity was a great way to activate our knowledge and spontaneity in developing a quick lesson plan. As teachers, using our spur of the moment ideas are necessary when they come into our minds, especially when lessons go sideways.
The beginning of chapter 5 in the CMCM text reminded me so much of my practicum class. The authors discuss activating prior knowledge before presenting a new idea or reading passage. This helps to increase motivation as students see that the information or story is connected with their world, and that they may learn something new about it. When I was teaching, my SA always reminded me to make the learning relevant to my students. They need to know why this is important to them, and how it is connected to their daily life. While some children are simply eager to gobble up knowledge, most need to understand the purpose, particularly in the older grades. I think that activating prior knowledge is a foundational principle that is important in all areas of the curriculum.
After last class I am looking forward to seeing the presentations on reading. I am constantly amazed at just how creative teachers are and what lesson plans and ideas they can come up with in 5 mins. For me teaching is all about sharing ideas and trading little secrets to benefit students. Holding on to valuable teaching techniques is a complete waste of time. I find the CMCM text o be full of usefull tips and suggestions and find myself constantly reflecting on how my students would react and enjoy these various strategies. In the end though I feel that FUN, EXCITEMENT, PASSION, and ENERGY are key elements to a great reading program. Listening to my peers own past experiences with reading and the textbook it is evident that a teacher must create a positive atmostphere around teaching within the classroom and allow students to be creative and have fun. Following rules and guidelines will only get you so far and may in the end create a negative environment where students will not enjoy reading and we really do not want that :-)The only thing I stuggle with from time to time though is everything we are learning now to teach elementary school and highschool and how to better the reading program, why does it not trickle over to University? I know, I know we are adults now and have to accept reading pages after pages but really what enjoyment are we getting out of it?
EDUC 473
Christine Fletcher
Oops...I published the wrong copy...sorry everyone for all of the spelling errors in my Blog entry. :-)
I was brought up on children’s magazines. First it was Teddy Bear, after that Cricket, Little Flame, Teens Word, My Best Friend and as I reached university Science Problems. It feels awkward when I try to translate these popular Polish titles into English. However my point is that I still easily recall the excitement of the moments when my Mom was bringing home the new issues of my favourite Teddy Bear magazine. There were plenty of interesting things in there, but I was always starting from the last page with puzzles, riddles, brainteasers etc. When I was done with them I rushed to the section with the next chapter of the “to be continued” story. I was always anxious to know what had happened to the main characters of the never ending saga. Then on the cover I could read the humorous cartoons. Middle part on the magazine had the cut-out section with games and little art projects. There was also a geography segment with some interesting searches from all over the world. Page with the current events was reminding me about upcoming holidays like Christmas or Mothers Day. Little poem placed in the opening part of each magazine was a good source of ideas to make my own birthday cards. I love this magazine and I remember that it was available on any newspaper stand in town.
I think I mentioned in the class that I am running the primary grades library in Saturday Polish School. The Teddy Bear magazines are the most popular written materials that students are borrowing. I can see in their eyes the same excitement that I was having at their age. The funniest part is that the format of the magazine has not changed for so many years even though printing technology has improved a lot. It is very difficult for all of these children to read and speak with the language of their parents. But overall they are doing a good job. Colourful and well put together Teddy Bear magazine is a helpful tool for improving their reading skills in Polish as a second language.
Introducing children with the idea of reading magazines might be a very good route to take in order to improve their reading skills. Children’s magazines are usually versatile; they consist of small reading segments which could be well handled by not so enthusiastic readers. Most of all they bring in a non fiction to the reading repertoire for students. As we all know, not everybody is excited about reading a novel, but there are some adults that read lots of specialized magazines.
The next class I will bring a few samples of my favourite Teddy Bear magazine and you are all welcome to have a pick into the professional magazine for 6-year old from oversees. I hope language difference is not an issue.
Week 3’s readings and the discussions in class focused on the important point that phonemic awareness can be taught in enjoyable and engaging ways. Rhymes, game-like activities like Hinky Pinkies, and songs are a great way to play with language sounds in the classroom. Teaching phonemic awareness in a variety of methods is stimulating and makes learning pleasurable. I agree with previous posts that the activities in the readings and lesson plans shared in class are great resources we can use in our future classrooms. Utilizing our creativity, we were able to create unique lesson plans in a short amount of time with limited resources. As teachers we are required to be take the initiative, accommodate and adapt lessons, be flexible and open to curriculum ideas and meet the learning needs of diverse students. The lessons focused on an activity to teach one reading strategy. There are numerous reading strategies and I recognize reading is not an easy task to teach, but skill-by-skill we can facilitate reading success.
I enjoyed coming up with lesson plans with groups and hearing everyone’s ideas for lessons. It made me miss planning and teaching. One of the great parts of the teaching profession is the collaboration involved and it showed in the sharing of lesson plans. My 405 practicum was in a grade 4/5 class and the students knew how to read so it is interesting to learn about and see the stages of learning to read. The type of reading I was teaching involved modeling how to read nonfiction text and how to make connections to reading in novels. The strategies in the text were great, and I love the “did you know that?” boxes. I’m hoping to use some of the strategies and great book suggestions in the Learning Disabilities lab I’m in when we start tutoring. I liked that we were in groups and got to summarize important parts of the assigned reading to each other as this is a good strategy to use in a classroom since you learn best when you are teaching it to someone else. I’m also hooked on hinky pinkies now and can’t wait to use them when I start teaching again.
I definitely gathered a lot of new information from this past lesson. Again, as a science teacher, not only did I not know that there was this much involved with teaching students how to read and write, but also that there are many different ideas for how to instruct lessons. I loved hearing about all the various activities, some of which reminded me of my elementary days: word walls, reading wars, journaling etc. Some of these I remember not always being fun and enjoyable (similar to a boy’s story in one of our chapters). Sometimes certain reading activities were tedious, boring and even at times, discouraging. I never really liked the star-chart system where for every book we read over a certain amount of words, we then got a reward like a star beside our name. I was always near the bottom of the class as I was someone who would rather be doing outside activities and being a part of clubs such as Girl Guides and dancing.
Looking back, I don’t think I should have felt like I was being punished for participating in such activities. I also didn’t like how in some grades, we were told we had to read so many books per week; it felt like I was being forced to read so it definitely made it an undesirable task. Maybe it did ‘force me’ to read, but I know I was also good at the regular classroom reading and writing assignments so I don’t really know how it actually affected my ability to read and write. These feelings are definitely something I am going to keep in mind if I teach reading to elementary classes. There were, however, some memorable reading activities like making poems, writing songs our teacher would perform on her guitar and other active lessons. That is why I was really glad to see exciting new activities being discussed in the chapters like designing hinky pinkies and the acting sounds that Gareth performed. I will definitely keep these activities in mind when targeting reading and writing in the classroom.
I really liked the activity from class this week. I hadn’t really thought of how many resources there are in one single magazine. It seemed like every time we turned the page we had a new idea of how we could use it! I am sure many people found this with their magazines as well. I know as a child I loved these types of magazines as well. Chickadee was the one I found the most interesting. I had a thought about another way to use these magazines as well. Instead of me deciding what I will teach from the magazine, give them to the students and have them tell me what they would like to learn about. This way I know the children will be learning something they are interested in. I think allowing the children to decide what they want to learn about will make it a lot more fun and exciting than always being told what they have to learn with no input.
What a fun day in class last week! I thoroughly enjoy the process of learning from one another. There is much research stating that students retain knowledge best when they teach what they just learned. This was indeed true for our group last class. In the classroom I have found that when I stop talking and allow the students to interact with each other, they get much more out of the material. This goes back to making things "real" for students: if the students simply write down the information, it is just a reference to look at in case they ever need to know that info in the future. However, if students then TEACH this knowledge, they are making the information come alive and will therefore store it for future USE, not simple future referral.
I also found the lesson plan for a Reading lesson quite helpful. As learning teachers, we are inundated with so many lesson plan templates, it gets overwhelming. I enjoy this lesson template because it breaks the activities down into sections and allows teachers the freedom to perform whatever activity they assume appropriate. I enjoy the open-endedness of this lesson template and will surely use it in the future!
I really enjoyed having the opportunity to look through magazines is week three’s class. In reflecting back to my childhood I remember growing up on these magazines however I did not realize how much stuff I was actually learning. I was very surprised with how much you can do with magazines. As my group was looking through the magazine we had so many different ideas for lessons plans. I think we had enough for a whole unit. It was just amazing to see how much you can do with a magazine and how engaging it would be for students. I never thought about teaching materials through magazines. This is something I will incorporate in my lesson planning when I have my own class.
I was also amazed of all the different lessons people came up with in such a short period of time. We all had great ideas that we could easily implement in our classrooms. I also love how teachers can use these magazines to teach any age group. I think sharing our ideas and lesson plans is a great way for us to learn different ways to teach and present materials in creative ways. I look forward to seeing everyone’s reading presentations in the weeks to come.
The Role of Kindergarten: Socializing or Teaching ?
Last class we discussed the role of kindergarten. Is kindergarten a place for socializing or teaching? Should children come to kindergarten already equipped with the basic social skills and ready to learn reading and writing? Or should kindergarten be a place for developing the basic social skills and having fun? Many students come to kindergarten with no social skills what-so-ever; however, those few children who attend preschool or daycare before kindergarten will more than likely already have some basic social skills. I believe that the “purpose” of kindergarten is to teach children to get along with each other, treat each other with respect, and share. Kindergarten is like the training wheels of education. When I think back to kindergarten, I remember having fun and making friends. Children should be eased into the idea of schooling and the education institution. This first year should be all about games, fun, meeting new friends, completing small group activities, interacting with peers, finding your new “best friend”, developing conversation and communication skills, and how to solve problems. In addition to learning basic social skills, kindergarten also prepares children for a more “structured,” “academic” environment (such as learning their ABCs and 123s, developing memory & organizational skills, and the concept of reading). Kindergarten, water wings, and inner tubes all have a similar purpose: to guide children into something new and unfamiliar and practice new skills until they are comfortable to move on without them.
I was particularly intrigued by the reading section on the use of dictionaries. It was interesting to note the difference between definitions and understandings of words. This discussion really got me thinking about how I would explain words of which I have an understanding; this would likely include examples, references to related words and opposites. Then there are the words for which I would likely offer a textbook definition, which reflects my limited understanding as I haven’t yet fit the definition into any meaningful schema. This discussion forced me to reflect on how well I actually was able to develop students’ understanding of some of the concepts I taught, particularly in social studies and science. I can think back to students who had difficulty applying their understanding of concepts and now realize this was because I hadn’t sufficiently developed their conceptual understanding, despite the definitions they were able to offer.
The topic of activating prior knowledge made me immediately think of students I had with very limited English. These were students who had only very recently moved to Canada and I found it particularly challenging to find ways to more fully include them in my lessons. In retrospect, I made far too many assumptions with these students and needed to spend more time activating their prior knowledge. I thought back to an introductory social studies lesson where the topic of totem poles was raised. As a class, we had a rich discussion about what they knew and were curious about, ten minutes into which a student raised his hand and asked “what is a totem pole?” A very similar situation occurred when I used a non-fiction passage on camels to examine components of non-fiction writing. Note that it involved the same student. I couldn’t help but think about the students who were sitting and listening, but thinking the same thing.
Educ 473
Gareth Howell
I’ve never taught reading before, and I don’t have a background in teaching English. I do, however, have a background in creative writing and literature courses. Since I am only a few courses off an English minor, it has always been in the back of my mind to teach Math and English, although my practicum consisted of Math only. It is new for me to learn the concepts on breaking down English so that it is easily understood by young students. The idea of onsets and rimes was completely foreign to me, but it seems like a logical way to teach words and bring in the idea of roots. By breaking a word into parts, and looking for patterns in different words, the English language may not appear to be so enormous to small children. I think children enjoy looking for patterns and figuring out similarities in all subject areas, math included. If each math concept was taught autonomously with no connection to other concepts, then a lot would be lost. The fact that math builds on previous knowledge is key to understanding how to move further in problem solving. I am beginning to see English as being like this, where the teaching can build on each lesson so students can see many connections and hopefully become more aware of the origins of the English language.
Growing up I had always taken a liking to cool science experiments and observations. My elementary school had started ordering two very popular science magazines for kids called “Chickadee” and “Owl.” I guess you could say that my initial curiosity and intrigue for science were started with these two magazines. I remember that each month they had a simple science experiment that could be done with parent supervision and simple materials. In fact, those particular magazines became so popular in my school that it was tough to get the newest issue before the other students in my class. So my dad, noticing my interest in science and reading, decided to order both of the magazines to come directly to our house. I remember doing the science experiments over and over again until the kitchen looked like a disaster area. I remember looking at the submissions the children handed in and wished that I could have my name in the magazine one day. What I’m trying to get at is that I was very lucky to have an interest in something and even luckier to have a resource that filled my interest always available to me. I believe that parents have a very important role, maybe more so than the teacher, to find out what inspires their children to learn, read, and ask questions. When teachers tell us to read, no matter the age of the child, we initially take it as an assignment, task, or something to do for marks or praise. When a parent gives you something that they know you like, they are guiding you instead of leading you. They are there so that we can never run out of those resources that fuel our curiosity. I completely agree that it is important for students to choose reading material around a topic that they are interested in. If they are given that choice and freedom then reading and learning becomes fun instead of a chore. Memories and experiences leave lasting impressions and if students enjoy something at an early age, then the task in making them continue that becomes so much easier. It is because of those children that have had bad experiences with reading that we as teachers have failed and must now look to new approaches to bring them back.
Reading log 2 – Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Psychologically, learning can been understood to be a physical biological network. Neurons activated as a network constitute knowledge/understanding. Individual neurons really have no significant meaning at all, but within a network of relationship… then meaning is attained.
The idea of activating prior knowledge then would seem to be a required element to learning as the new knowledge would have to be “added” to the already existing network of knowledge that a student has. Certainly, learning without activating prior knowledge happens, but given the fact that there already exists a structure of knowledge to build upon, why would you not?
So, when is there value in learning without activating prior knowledge? That’s an interesting question. Is there learning when someone just attempts to read or write? And, is there ever a learning experience where prior knowledge is not activated? Especially, cross skills/experience knowledges.
This reminds me of the art saying that “ All are is theft.” As an example of the idea that no one works in a total vacuum of experience and that we all use prior knowledge regardless of the explicit manner in which we are currently attempting to learn. This of course begs the question… how does prior knowledge interfere with new learning? Going back to our network of knowledge… are there methods that take advantage the structure and are there methods that do not?
Okay… so that’s a lot of thought about prior knowledge.
The text has some really nice methods for using prior knowledge. And its nice to see that they have been tested in the practical world of education/teaching, but of course now we are confronted with the fact that any of these methods may not ‘work’ for a student, and depending on the student’s prior knowledge may in fact interfere with learning. Yeck.
Week 3’s class was really interesting. I really enjoyed how we are beginning to see the step-by-step process in teaching reading. I also thought it was great to see how quickly and well we could work together. So much of teaching seems to be about collaboration. I’m glad we are able to share our ideas with the class, hopefully we’ll all leave with material and ideas we can use in the classroom.
And I adored action phonics. I think this a great approach to teaching something fairly boring. (But, I can’t find anymore information about this method, anybody know where to look?) Children need more opportunities to movement and this seems to be perfect. I have also found that when you mix things up, or teach to the different “intelligences,” kids tend to remember better. For example, I taught I science unit on life cycles, and for reinforcement I incorporated song and dance. I think this helped the kids remember...
There are so many different types of magazines available for children now. This is great. Magazines are so much less intimidating for reluctant readers. I think this would be a good resource to have in the classroom for silent reading times. We can’t assume all children will want to read a book. I recently bought my son, who hates reading, the “Bathroom Reader” for kids. He loves this because he can read just a paragraph learn a bizarre fact or a new joke. I have learned I have to step outside the box in order to find material that he will enjoy reading. Just think about how many adults never read a novel, but read magazines. One magazine I love for younger children is “Know,” a local magazine, that’s mostly science based, with lots of experiments and such for children to try. I think such magazines allow children not interested in reading for reading’s sake, to see that there can be a point to reading.
neha powar
In today’s class we discussed a lot about the inclusion of reading in the classroom and what that can look like for students and teachers.
An aspect that I found to be really true while reading the text was incorporating reading into play. I did my practicum in a Kindergarten class and I was really great to see my SA incorporate reading and writing into the student’s center time activities. The kids were introduced to writing and reading and it made it much more enjoyable for them to do so while they played with their friends. Also, my SA was allowing the students to make the choice of whether they wanted to do a grocery list for the ‘house’ or not. The kids were not restricted to having to do the list, it was their own choice. By giving the students choice, writing and reading was more enjoyable for them because they chose to do it. I had a lot of students that really enjoyed taking paper and just making pictures that they wanted to give to their parents or siblings. Then they would ask me how to write the name of their sibling on the paper.
My SA also made writing really fun for the students. They were allowed to use ‘fancy pens’ and write with them on different kinds of decorated paper, in all different colours. I remember when I was in school, I did not have the choice to write in pen or even a ‘fancy pen’ but I can see how it makes writing so much more fun for the students.
This week I was excited to learn about methods to help student learn to read and write. I hadn’t thought of or heard of even half the ideas and methods that are out there.
I think that the most valuable part of last class was actually sitting down in groups to discuss and plan a reading lesson. I was so engrossed in how to make it fun and engaging while involving the students in relevant material. When we were thinking of ideas to use for activities I joked about contemplating switching from secondary to elementary. It is amazing to think of the influence that these activities have on the education of children. It was awesome to plan how to involve reading into every aspect of the plan from language arts to fine arts it is possible to promote reading students.
Learning to read really goes beyond just recognizing ‘A’ or ‘T’ it is the basics of the sound and associating those sounds with their corresponding letter/symbol. I was thinking of myself when we went over the method of blending. I could not wrap my mind around how it really worked for emergent readers. I realized that I was looking at it from the point of understanding and knowing completely how to read and write rather then the point of not knowing how to do these things. Saying F - I - SH said to me automatically FISH but to a child who is just learning it really needs to be blended to understand.
I also was thinking about the different methods for helping students to know how to write the words that they are learning. There are so many ways to decode words and help students to learn to read and write. The debate of Phonics v. Whole language or other methods seemed so strange to me but they make so much more sense now that I have actually seen what they mean and how they could be used. As a teacher with the debate out there of what type of reading program to use or is better I say use whatever tool you have in your arsenals to teach your children and be a continual learner to look for all the resources that you can.
I found this week’s readings and lecture to be really informative. As I haven’t had the experience of teaching reading, I was amazed by the variety of techniques there were in teaching children how to read and increase their phonemic awareness. Also, it was interesting to note how different methods could be used for different stages and levels of reading, and how some methods could be altered and adapted to more advance readers, or to special needs. It is important to keep in mind that many teaching strategies and techniques we use in our classroom need to be multi-level in order to accommodate and support as many diverse students as we can.
I especially enjoyed the textbook’s explanation of how we could accommodate ESL students in our reading strategies, and how to make phonemic awareness relate to what they already know in their native language. I truly wish I knew some of these methods before my practicum, so I could have used them to support students who had reading difficulty. In one particular case, I had a student in Gr. 8 but had the reading ability of Gr. 3. Although English was his second language, he was able to speak and listen to fluent English, but he had problems reading print. I tried to demonstrate most of the concepts, so little textbook reading was required in my classes; however, reading was required to complete tests and assignments. I wonder now, what the gap was in his English training that didn’t allow him to read at a higher level. It seems to me that if an educational aid just sat down with him and performed some of these basic phonemic techniques his reading would vastly improve.
Another part of the lesson that I enjoyed was putting together a lesson plan. Again, I have no elementary teaching experience, and was pretty lost as to how to implement a reading lesson. However, as we got together in our groups and collaboration started to occur, we were able to generate a solid lesson plan. The importance was that we all had different ideas from our various backgrounds and experiences. We then built upon some ideas to generate a fun and original lesson plan. I was impressed by the variety of lessons the entire class came up with. This also heightened the importance of collaboration within schools, just simply working with colleagues and sharing ideas with each other is a fundamental part of teaching.
In this weeks textbook reading (Chp 3) I came to a paragraph that really hit home for me. To me it stressed the importance of creating understanding as a means for learning rather than memorizing. The paragraph stated that “ having students memorize definitions of words as a means of building their meaning vocabularies cannot succeed, because understanding a word means that you do NOT have a definition stored in memory for it”. This was a big “aha moment” for me, I remembered all the courses I have taken in which I memorized definitions and methods for an exam, and then forgot everything within a few weeks of the exam. Later, I would feel disappointed in myself that I couldn’t remember or apply the knowledge I knew I had learnt just months prior. Now I realize that this wasn’t a lack of intelligence on my part, but a failing of the education system as a whole. The curriculum in general could really benefit from taking the ideas and research of teaching kids to read and applying it to education at all levels.
(REPOSTED from May 30th – sorry everyone, I certainly need to get better acquainted with technology! I had posted my first two blogs under the comments section at the very bottom of the page as I had not yet realized that there was a place to post on each of the “after class” pages that Susan creates! ☹
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Extending The Reading Experience At Home
As a prospective educator, my personal philosophy of education and learning includes the belief that parents and caregivers play a crucial partnership role in the journey through school. We have examined the great disparity that can exist in Kindergarten, between children who have arrived at school very accustomed to literacy experiences and other students who may not have had the same amount of exposure to print. While this inequality may mean that the same individuals who were not read to frequently before school will go on to receive less or no scaffolding at home, I feel that teachers can work to narrow this gap in many cases. There is a lot that we can do as educators to help parents and caregivers gain the knowledge, skills and confidence that might be needed to support their children in their reading and language development at home. I have met parents who have both the time and resources to read to their young children throughout the day, but for whatever reason are not aware of or do not fully understand the impact that this kind of activity can have on a child during emergent literacy. Other parents in similar situations have expressed to me their anxiety in not knowing what kinds of experiences to provide for, or engage in with their children at home in order to help them develop basic literacy skills. I feel that if care is taken to provide non-threatening and supportive learning opportunities for parents, many will use their new skills and understandings with their children outside of the classroom, which in turn can enhance the learning environment at school.
For some parents and caregivers, after school teas that teach how to maneuver cheerios at the breakfast table in an “Elkonin Box” fashion or offer the chance to look over some new children’s books, could be the answer early childhood classrooms are in need of. For many others however, such meetings are not a viable option. What can we as educators do, for the children that we know have no one at home to “make up their own poetry” with or “practice reading and spelling rimes” with (Chapter 5 handout)? I completed my 405 practicum in an “Inner City” designated school, and it became clear to me that while parents and caregivers are always partners in my mind, they may not always be able to be partners in reading for example and we therefore have to look for ways to lesson this discrepancy in the classroom. At my practicum school, there was a support worker who could assist children after school with these kinds of activities. Our readings do illustrate another option that many of us brought up in our group-brainstormed lessons last week with the magazines. I see a peer or buddy from a higher grade as a fantastic opportunity to extend reading experiences. In chapter four of the handout readings, the authors state, “older students needing help in phonemic awareness could be paired up with younger students”. It is clear that not only the younger students in this kind of a buddy situation can benefit. At another school I spent some time at, this kind of program was actually facilitated everyday in the hallway. The intermediate students were clearly becoming more confident in their literacy skills, and the primary students were so excited and motivated to learn with their older buddies.
There are certainly a variety of school and classroom settings. Each of us will encounter many different home contexts as well with our students. While I don’t feel that I have the answers at this point in time to ensure that children have the opportunity to extend their reading experiences outside of the classroom, awareness is always a first good step.
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