Chapter 3 - VOCABULARY

          Chapter three was a very interesting and informing chapter. I love vocabulary and love teaching students vocabulary. One of the complicating issues mentioned in the text that I most agree with is word schema. Students' schema and knowledge of words can vary greatly in a classroom. Some students may or may not have a schema of the world "safari". There most likely will be students that have never heard of the word, some who have been on a safari, and some who have heard it, but are not familiar with the exact meaning. Students’ background knowledge will vary. The important factor is that you create background knowledge of the vocabulary word or the situation to build the students’ background knowledge. Doing this will help the students in the future. For example, my mentor teacher at Oak Grove creates background knowledge of thanksgiving with her students and her co-teachers students. Not all students have had a thanksgiving dinner. Financially challenged parents they may skip thanksgiving and skip straight to Christmas to save money. So, my mentor makes sure she creates a traditional thanksgiving dinner for her students. She has done this for years. This is a great example.

This goes hand-in-hand with the four concepts that the book mentions about effective vocabulary instruction. One of the concepts is to make personal connections. You want students to think about making connections with their life or the world. It is always a great thing to encourage students to make connections, any kind. It is important for students to make connections and hear about other students’ connections. It is important to allow students to share aloud at these times. Sharing stories can build other students’ and the teacher’s background knowledge also.

The last thing that I agreed with in the text is visual representation.  Making vocabulary cards and putting them in a 3-ring binder is a wonderful idea! The vocabulary cards could vary, but I think that having the page divided into quadrants and having the four items or topics as:

1.      Definition

2.      Synonym/Antonym

3.      Sentence

4.      Picture

Visually representing something can be very helpful !

That's All! -MB

Chapter 5: Questioning!

Are questions important? I think so! Using questions in the classroom is essential to higher order thinking. Questions can be very good for prompting inquiry in students thinking. After students ask questions, I think that it is important to give the students feedback on their answers and their thinking. Another thing that I noticed in the text is the fact that students need adequate time to gather a response to a question. This reminded me of a few times whenever teachers have asked me a question and if I didn’t start talking within one second then they would say, “Well, does anyone ELSE know the answer?”. This gives me some great tips on how to ask questions, wait for response, and then give feedback.

One quote from the book was, "When students learn to classify questions and locate answers, they learn to recognize that the reading process is influenced by the reader and the text." This quotes leads me to my next topic. There were large amount of questioning strategies listed in the book, but one that caught my attention the most was the QAR strategy. This strategy allows the student and teacher to analyze the relationship between the question and relationship. It also allows the students to work into their metacognition. This is good for the students so that they can learn how they learn the best.

Question: What is the best strategy to use or is there a best strategy?

Note-Taking Chapter 7!

Chapter 7 was a great chapter! I loved reading about all the different ways to take notes and how to set students up to successfully take notes. I really LOVE the idea of structured note taking. I had a teacher that made pre-structured outlines for us to use to take notes. This was extremely helpful to me and a lot of other students in the class. I agree with the book that it is very important to prepare students for taking notes. It is significant that students are taught note taking skills. If students are not taught note taking skills then they cannot be reliable to make good notes when listening to a lecture. The “Split Page” note taking skill is a great way to allow students to take notes. I like this method a LOT!

It is important that teachers present information that the students are taking notes on clearly. The information should also be presented in a way that is easy for the grade level to understand and comprehend. Some grades are going to struggle more with note taking than others. It can also be helpful to explain to the students WHY they are taking notes. If it is something that they think is going to be a total waste of time, then they most likely won’t put much effort into it. It is a good idea to stress the importance of note taking. Ex: Note taking IS important because you will need to review this information before the test. Explain that you will not go over the same content over and over and that students should take notes so that they can remember and study what was said in a particular class period. Another thing that is important to me is ending each class or subject with a review of the content. All students should be able to answer some questions teachers might ask after reading a passage to the students.

Quote from text: "While people may have different ways of taking notes, I do believe that it's a skill that can be taught. I also believe that students need to be shown how to take notes - good notes - that they can use later."

Question:

1) How can we get students to WANT to take notes automatically?

Reader's Theater & Out of the Dust

Reader's Theater:
I enjoyed doing the reader's theater Thursday, as I always enjoy Dr. Bishop's class. Out of the Dust, in my opinion, is not the most intriguing book.  However, when doing reader's theater with the book, it makes it completely different and more engaging. When doing this strategy and many more, I personally learn a great deal more than just sitting in a desk listening to a "read-aloud". Not that read-alouds are not helpful, in some cases the most definitely are.  I just think that doing something more is a lot of times better. I really enjoyed not only doing the reader's theater, but also watching and listening to others. With this type of strategy, you are more likely to listen and comprehend more so than some others. Quote from text: "And as the dust left, rain came. Rain that was no blessings. It came too hard, too fast, and washed the soil away." I chose this quote because it reminded me of today's time. It's always too much or too little. Nobody's ever satisfied with what they have. If it doesn't rain, we want rain. If it does rain, we want it to stop. That is how it seems like it was then, and how it still is today. It also applies to allot of other things in today's society. Question: Why do we always want something different, whether it is good for us or bad for us or whether were not sure if it is good or bad?
Chapter 6:
Quote: "Graphic organizers have been shown to be a great assistance to students with learning disabilities." Page 103. I agree with this quote. I think that graphic organizers are a great tool for all students but especially for students with learning abilities. Being able to see content represented in different ways can be and is very helpful for all students. This makes me think about how in our science class for education whenever we created concept maps for students we were teaching. It really helped me understand more about the topic and it most definitely helped them, also. Question: "How often should we use graphic organizers in the classroom? When can they begin to be too much for the students?

Text Talk

TEXT TO TALK ARTICLE:

This article was one of the best articles that I have read in a while. I could really relate to this article considering I read to my tutee today at Oak Grove Lower. Today I met a sweet little girl that I will be tutoring for the rest of the semester. The little girl, Ali, really likes to read, but she does not like to do so read during the summer today or at home very often. She is a great reader to be in the third grade. Ali was very good at re-telling and remembering details about the story. After asking Ali to complete the beginning, middle, and end, I observed that she was very proficient at these skills. I have the feeling that she has re-told a story before. With all of this being said, I will stress, and stress the importance of knowing children’s interest. Today we all were supposed to do an interest inventory and a reading inventory on our students. There are a whole lot of books out there that students might and might not like. I really liked getting to know my student tutee a little better in a practical, easy way. 

Getting to actually work with students is extremely helpful to me when trying to decide if this is actually something I truly want to do. I love it! 

Background knowledge! What an important aspect of reading! Having a rich background is very important when reading. It is also important to know the context clues skills and procedures to figure out the meaning of words that are not recognizable from the background knowledge of a student. Not every kid will have background knowledge, so it is important to let that student experience the vocabulary that is being used in stories that the students are reading.

All in all, there are many, many strategies available for use in every classroom. I really like participating and learning new strategies in Dr. Bishop’s classroom. A constantly learning teacher is a great teacher!

Chapter 8 / Writing to Learn Article

         “Authentic engagement accompanied by immersion and demonstration result in learning.” (Bromley, 2003, p. 144). Writing to learn involves a great deal of strategies. I do agree with the previous quote. When students are writing to learn there needs to be modeling. Following modeling there should be guided practice and feedback for students. This is my opinion and I agree with what is said the article “Writing to Learn” involving modeling, guided practice, and feedback. I think that rubrics are better than checklist. Rubrics are more detailed than a checklist. Using a rubric, you can grade all the papers fairly, whether they are above average, average, or below average. Structured note-taking is a big help for me. When I was at JCJC, I had a teacher that had pre-prepared notes for us to use as a guide when taking notes. It made things a lot easier, especially since it was a world civilization class that wasn’t the easiest I have ever taken. When I have a classroom, I will be taking advantage of the framed paragraph strategy. With this strategy, students need scaffolding, but there is a time when teachers need to slowly release students. After students have been supported and then have the ability to write paragraphs his or her self, then the student is a well-developed independent writer. I really like the idea of this strategy. A lot of students need this kind of support. I think that it is crucial to provide the support that all students need. Every student is different and needs different types of support. One strategy mentioned in the text was power writing. I really like this strategy idea. Power writing is when you write as many words or phrases about a particular topic. I really like this strategy as a pre-writing activity for students. There are a lot of strategies that can be helpful for students and teachers.

            I also really like the biopoems we did in class. The biopoems are a good way to have a student write and learn about a person. This is a great way for students to write to learn. This is probably one of my favorite strategies that were in the article. All of the strategies are helpful in having students think critically about a topic of subject. Allowing students to think higher about a topic will help them in the long run. I really like this article and will keep it in education folder in my office for as long as my career. I am really glad that I was introduced to this article, it was very informational and helpful.

Questions:
 
1.) How can we keep students interested in writing to learn?

2.) How often should we require students to write to learn?

Content Area Literacy

We were instructed to read the article, "Making a case and a place for effective content area literacy instruction in the elementary grades."

My response to this article:

This article was very helpful and emphasized a large amount of good points. I think that content area literacy is one of the most important parts of teaching. In order to learn, students must be able to and be instructed on how to read and write. Reading and writing have no limits on how individuals can read and write to learn. There are many different ways to do these two things.

One things that amazes me about this article is the statement that students spent on average only 3.6 minutes with informational text per day in certain classrooms. That is just unreal to me. Students need to be learning and they only way they can learn is by reading and writing. Students need to do more than just listen to a teacher talk for the whole day or class period.

I will admit, I am not the best writer or reader. I am grown in these two areas since I have started college, but I am still learning. My teachers did not teach me well at my high school. I am from a really small town and I was a cheerleader. If you were a cheerleader, dancer, football player, or on any other sport team, you really didn't have to do anything to pass. I didn't realize then, that it would ultimately affect my future as an individual, a student, and an employee.

I do have a few questions that are lingering on my mind about this article:

1. How can we, as teachers, help the students and assure that we include content area literacy in our classrooms.

2. How do we make it engaging for the students to read?

-MB