What i learned from this course

https://prezi.com/view/lltTiGlP35kdWDVLs0J4/

Week 11- KWL charts

A great literacy strategy for a teacher to implement in her classroom is KWL charts. K-W-L charts is a great way to engage students in learning. This strategy can help students organize their ideas, track information. This also helps students better understand the lesson. KWL charts are simple and great, it allows for students to activate their prior knowledge about a specific topic and to ask questions and organize information that they are learning.

Scholarly article on KWL charts: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1290&context=reading_horizons

Lesson plan: http://media2.lpb.org/images/pdf/litlearn/lessons/lssn_kwl.pdf

Week 10- Strategies to teach ELL

http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cbfqhbXiyf

Ell reader case study

Here is the link to my ell case study:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eM6b3_A4gvcRa1q-GuMeB3hKEAe9LMANi5l-v-RpXEU/edit?usp=sharing

Week 9- Comprehension lesson plan

Here is the link to my comprehension lesson plan:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_l-Yr_ONXtIVMAPRDyCqVRVc1EYE0feMDAAi3A18Rns/edit?usp=sharing

Thematic Unit

View my thematic unit here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c1r6F5Ykc2aYJtdofsG496TP5LKHaCnmNlZKwivxJ3w/edit?usp=sharing

View my rubric here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15X3OSykyfG8-e2kvdcs2k2b2UOnLGEeLStev1r6xko0/edit?usp=sharing

Running record assignment

Reflection of running record:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I9a21yszYAcwqL5JhkXC3IeZe5btq2WMsJNHj0d4h2w/edit?usp=sharing


Mini lesson:
https://docs.google.com/a/nyit.edu/document/d/1p7gdN94nuz6-Bg-g0AjVQ3a6ak-mb0yqX7UCOqWq91Q/edit?usp=sharing


Miscue analysis form:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzeYa7cfgEVNbGQ3NXlhbVl1M1E/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzeYa7cfgEVNMl9HY3dURXZHZ0E/view?usp=sharing


Story retelling form:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzeYa7cfgEVNMS1uSHl2Nms5YXM/view?usp=sharing

Fluency and word study chart

Here is the link of my fluency and word study chart:
Fluency and word study chart

Fluency and word study- part 2

1.                 There are three level of words. The first level of words are words that are commonly used and don’t need to be taught. Since students have already mastered in these words. The second level of words are words that appear quite often in students’ lives, and read them pretty often, these words need to be taught. The last level of words are the more technical words and relate to a specific topic. These words do not need to be taught to children since it will be taught by the subject teacher.

  

2.                 Students often struggle when they come to an unfamiliar or new word. I would teach students how to break up the words into smaller chunks called “chunking”. Students rip off the beginning and ends of a word, and try to read the part that is familiar to them. Students will at first use their thumbs, but then they figure out how to do it without it. 

3.                 A teacher should encourage lots of reading in her classroom, students should be given many opportunities to hear someone read. When a student comes across a word that they don’t know how to read or what a word means, I will encourage them to use “chunking”.

Fluency word study- part 1

1.       To ensure that struggling readers have access to read, teachers need to make sure that there are texts on different levels that are available for all the students.  The books need to be “just right”, for the students so there need to be different topics that interest the students.

2.       A teacher should set up a library in the classroom, where every student can choose a book that interests to them. The library should be well organized according to different topics and different genres like, fiction, nonfiction, poetry and history. All this can encourage students to read because students find books that interest them. A teacher should also incorporate independent, shared and guided reading in the daily schedule of a classroom.

3.       Read aloud is a great way to model fluent reading. Teachers should model to students what it means to be a fluent reader. The three reading elements are expressive, smooth, and correctness. Teachers can show sarcasm, tone of voice while they read to the class. If a student makes a mistake while reading, the teacher should not right away correct the student, rather have the student self-assess their reading. Additionally, a teacher should not interrupt her student while they are reading, since they will get used to stopping after every word.

Phonics lesson plan

Here is the link to my phonics lesson plan:
Phonics lesson plan

Whales and fish lesson plan

Here is the link to my lesson plan:
Whales and fish lesson plan

Running record

Mini lesson

I did a running record assessment on a 1^st grader. She had an error rate of 1:18, and her accuracy rate was 94%, her self-correction rate was 1:4.

Overall, the student was a fluent reader, she self-corrected herself a few times in the story, and made some errors. I realized that the student was having difficulty with words comprising of one or more syllables like the word marshmallows. So I will create a mini lesson to help her pronounce the syllables. At the end of the lesson, she will be able to identify the number of syllables in a word, count the beats in a word. I will tell the child that syllables can help her when she reads and writes. This will make that spelling long words and reading, much easier for her. I will read words from a word list and she will clap, or tap on her desk by each syllable. She will then understand the difference between a short and long words.  Then to make sure that she understands it well, I will write the following words on the board, butter, amazing, excited, frog, marshmallow, incredible. I will have her get up and going through the words she will stomp with her feet to represent the number of syllables in each word.

Student analysis of running record

I was really impressed to see how this student read very well. She is a fluent reader and has good comprehension skills. I can see that she has the knowledge of phonics and of sounding out each word very carefully. She reads very clearly and makes appropriate pauses by each sentence. Although, she does make some careless mistakes when reading the passage she does not get phased or frustrated, she keeps on going until she succeeds. It looked to me that she got a little confused with the tenses and the silent “gh” rule. For example, she says live instead of lived couple of times and she reads though instead of through. 

Running Record

click here to view my running record  running record

Assessment Questions

Shared Reading:

                At the beginning of the lesson the students gather around the carpet and read together as a class.  Mrs. Perez picks a poem with a lot of site words and rhyming words. I like the fact that she chose a poem about hot dogs, because she knows that this is something that her students are interested in. She reads with the class by using a pointer, so that all of her students can follow along with her. This helps the stronger and weaker students in the class. Since, a lot of her students are at different levels, this ensures her that even the students that read less fluently will be able to follow along with the class. Then from the shared reading she gets the students to a phonics lesson, she does not spoon feed the lesson to them, thus working on problem solving skills, she works on the short o sound, and teaches consonant blend. I really like the way she encourages and motivates her students even if they get stuck at times. She tells them I love how you’re trying, and not make them feel embarrassed. It is very important for children to feel comfortable in their environment.

Guided Reading:

                The teacher takes a group of children that in the beginning of the year were reading at a beginner level. The goal that Mrs. Perez has for this group is for them to develop fluency, expand their site word vocabulary, and their comprehension skills. She wants to verbalize the strategies that children use, because the more you verbalize the more they internalize, and the more other children can gain from each other. I thought it was a great technique that Mrs. Perez did when she covered the word from a sentence and she wanted the children to figure out what word belongs there based on context clues.

Differentiated Instruction:

                At this stage she divides the class in to learning centers. She has different activities to enforce the different skills the class is working on. Children that are on a higher level work on different reading and writing activities, for example she teaches them how rad higher level books and to take notes from it. She also has some students that still need some help so there are different activities that an assistant works with the student like making words. I feel that it is very important to have an assistant in the classroom so that both the assistant teacher and the teacher can help more students at one time. Mrs. Perez also has time to go around to the activities to see what the children know and what they still have to learn, and she also does informal assessments.

Assessment:

                Mrs. Perez assesses her students at the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year and at the end of the school year. This helps her know where each of her students are holding. Based on the assessments she implements different activities in the classroom so children could work on the skills that need to be strengthened.

                I feel that I gained a tremendous amount by watching Mrs. Perez, she really cares, loves and believes in each and every one of her students! She wants all her students by the end of the year, to know how to read no difference on what level they came into her class.

                

Critique on Lesson Plan

The lesson plan “A Bear of a Poem”, composing found poetry is an excellent lesson plan! Firstly, I like the idea that she incorporates the five key components of ELA in her lesson. She starts off by reading, the students read a book then share their readings. This is very effective since the students get to learn from each other. Then she incorporates writing, after selecting words from the text, students were able to begin to create a poem on their own and share them with others, this brings out cognitive thinking. Then, Carolyn focuses on speaking, language, and listening, she hands out a copy of a poem of found poetry and the students are able to make their poem sound better together.

I like the idea how Carolyn Wilhelm included a lot of student interaction in her lesson. This is very beneficial for the students since they all get to show off their work to the class and their parents which gives them great confidence in their work. Additionally, it’s great for the parents to see how their children are progressing in their reading, writing and public speaking skills.

However, I don’t like the part that her sessions were 50 minutes, I feel that for grade K-2 it should have been a little shorter, so that the kids can be more focused and involved in the lesson. It shouldn’t get to long to the point where the students lose concentration and involvement in the lesson.

All in all, I feel that this lesson makes writing poetry a very fun and exciting experience for all children!

Components of ELA

It is vital for a teacher to teach the five components of the English Language Arts. The five key components consist of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language across the curriculum. This can be taught to all ages. A single K-5 standard is taught through one teacher, where as in grade 6-12, it is taught through the English Language teacher and by the teacher that teaches history/social studies,science and other technical subjects. I feel that it is very important that English Language teachers should include this in their subjects, so that it broadens the students’ knowledge and understanding in what they are learning.

The first component of ELA, is Reading, the students take a simple text and try to understand it. This places an emphasis on what students read and the skill with which they understand it. In the reading area students make connections between texts and ideas. It’s not enough that a student should be able to read something if they don’t understand it, they have to comprehend and understand what they are reading. 

The next component is Writing, the ability to plan, revise, edit and publish. These are applicable to many types of writing such as arguments, informative and explanatory texts. 

The next component of the  process is Speaking and Listening, this is where students work together to create podcasts, and to communicate with one another on how they can work on their writing so they can all succeed in their writing skills.

 The last component is Language, where the teachers teaches the students exciting and new vocabulary usage, which enhances the student’s use of the language. 

Reflection of video

          I am amazed at how Sheila Owen runs her Kindergarten class, and the way she loves and cares for every student. I can see from the way that she runs her classroom that she is an amazing teacher! She has a diverse group of students, some with a vast knowledge of vocabulary and some with small knowledge of vocabulary.  As each student walks into the classroom in the morning she welcomes them good morning in their native language that they speak. This is very important in making each student feel very comfortable, and once they feel comfortable they can absorb much more in the lesson. She views each student in her class as reader and a writer that makes each student feel worthy about themselves. I also like the way that Sheila Owen teaches her students to be independent readers and writers which gives the students confidence in their reading and writing skills.

           Mrs. Owen starts off her class with literacy routine that include four steps of engaging the children every day. She starts off by read aloud, she reads to the students books that are hard for them to read, and thus this is stimulating discussion. Then she continues with shared reading, where Mrs. Owen pulls back a little bit and increases the role of her students, which gives the students a chance to grow into their own. In the next process by shared reading, Sheila pulls back even more, the students show the teacher what they know but she is there to help them scaffold their learning. They are doing most of their work on their own by now. The last step is independent reading, where they are completely on their own and she is just observing them. Thus, giving the children the feeling that they are succeeding with their reading and writing on their own. Mrs. Owen also uses a similar technique when it comes to writing, first there is interactive writing, where the students “share the pen” and independent writing where students get a chance to express themselves.

           Mrs. Owen’s idea of viewing her students as readers and writers is a phenomenal idea. She instills in the children an enjoyment and love for reading and writing!

I really enjoyed watching this video!