Notes from A's Class

Vocabulary
Who is putting new words in their heads by 3rd grade?
Make a concerted effort to continue putting new words in their heads. If not, by third of fourth grade, they may look like they have a word recognition problem when really they have a vocabulary problem. A student reading comes to the word "proficient" for the first time. If that word is not already in their head, they won't be able to read it. If they have heard it used before and know what it means, they will be able to figure it out from context.

What: learning the meaning of new words
Why important: Comprehending text; communicating; building self-esteem.
How: be a model (push their vocabulary in spoken comments, comments on papers. To be an effective teacher, you have to make them want to learn. Don't you think if you put new vocabulary into your praise, don't you think they'll want to know what the word means?); continue reading to the students; teach with the why in mind. Teach them morphemes; teach a few a week and their vocabularies will grow exponentially; antebellum and beligerent. Start with words they don't know. Not only does it exponentially increase their vocabulary, it allows them to figure out words they don't know. Spectacles, inspect, spectator. Teach them etymology; history or story of words; how you were named; If your mind doesn't wonder, it will wander. Teach them word play. Word searches are the lowest form of this. Crossword puzzle incorporates semantic, syntactic, and grapho-phonic clues.

Online Reading

Food for thought:

Mark Bauerlein's essay, "Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind" from the chronicle of higher education.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i04/04b01001.htm

Will Richardson's blog entry, "Reading Online is Not Reading On Paper"
http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/reading-online-is-not-reading-on-paper/

Mark Federman's essay, "Why Johnny And Janey Can't Read, And Why Mr. And Ms. Smith Can't Teach: The challenge of multiple media literacies in a tumultuous time
http://individual.utoronto.ca/markfederman/WhyJohnnyandJaneyCantRead.pdf

Note Will Richardson's subsequent blog post where he clarifies some points:
http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/color-me-embarrassed/

None of this seems to take into account the really interesting work being done by the UConn New Literacies people:
http://www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/

A's Class, after the break

Notes from A's class

Pattern Book Lesson

* First, describe who you are teaching.

(Highlight ESOL adaptations. Pattern book lessons by nature are good for ESOL students.)

Title of the book

Describe the environment. (Env. is important. Most of you can remember where you were when you were read to.

Using Rosie's Walk. Hook them, start engaging them. (Maybe where overalls.)

That book is one sentence. What's the pattern? (across yard, around haystack, under beehives) What's the theme? being on a farm.

Have a theme; brings life to your party. Have nice extra touches. When you have a theme, you think of these extra things. Without the theme, you don't.

Back to Rosie's walk. Maybe a matching activity post-reading, to match those nouns with the prepositions. They may not know what a mill is. So maybe bring in a bag of flour, build that schema. Rosie also goes under the beehives. Bring in honey, show them the process on the computer.

When I see flour and honey, I think of cooking. Maybe the cooking is in the post-reading section. Let's get some math in there. Make biscuits, cut them in halves, cut them in fourths. In the end, in the celebration, we're going to have biscuits and honey. They're going to know where everything came from. Get them thinking about where the things that they eat come from. That gets them to be thinkers. That's not on the Sunshine State Standards, but it's what's important.

Rosie the hen is a female animal. I might have a bulletin board of female animals. Female deer is a doe. Female horse is a mare. I'm increasing their schema. Not for this book, but in general.

Reading

We'll have about 4 readings. With each reading, add a layer, and a modalities.

First reading, working on conventions of print, moving my finger from left to right.

Second reading, I want to get the words into the kids' head. (One way is rhythm. Book lends itself to what to do  in each reading. Could be getting kids to fill the picture word.)

Third reading, get the kinesthetic in, and some repetition. Make each of the preposition into a hand motion. Let the kids decide the movement for each one.

Reading four, they are reading it using the labels and acting it out in class.

Sequence

Day 1: Pre-reading and first reading (maybe 20 min)

Day 2: Review pre-reading, add something new (maybe teach them the word oblivious). Reading 2.

Day 3: Reading 3, reading 4. Maybe bring in blue celophane and make a pond. Bring in stuff each day to make something else. Print the words on the floor. Soon you'll have them acting out the book. 

Day 4: Post

Day 5: Post

Story about teacher with neighbor kid:

"We've been working at it for a long time." To be successful with kids, it needs to feel like fun, not work.

Post-reading

Next week

Second thing: make use of the arts. 

Third thing: food.

Integrate curriculum.

Let's say you do the apple tasting. Tie in math, in the shapes you cut or the fractions. Tie in science - taste buds, etc., social studies, etc.

If it has a seed in it, it's a fruit.

I want them to learn Mozart. Don't limit them based on when you learned something. When you feel you are losing them, say this, "I'm going to tell you something that you're not supposed to learn until fourth grade. Don't tell anybody that I'm teaching you this in first grade." They will want to share that with others, their parents.

PRODUCT

find letters that make

PROUD

You want them to have pride in what you've taught them.

Enrich your lessons.

Why shouldn't all children have an enriched curriculum? Don't make it just the basics for them.

A's Class

Notes from A's class:

Began by reading from fun facts cards. Reminds me of a segment from a talk show. This occurred while people were arriving.

Sets goal for today: review, get you ready for Pattern Book lesson, due in 2 weeks.

Review of C-L-R. Model is drawing of head with C & L in it and a children's book sitting on top of it. Refer to new document on Bb that reviews cuing systems for each area. Good readers rely on syntactic and semantic, not graphophonic. Proved that by "Oxford study" text on screen and by exercise with "Forty years ago today, Martin Luther King gave his famous I have a dream speech..."

To make you use semantic and syntactic, take away graphophonic. That's teaching. Teaching is not telling. If you want to be a teller, go work at a bank.

Teaching is changing behavior.

Help kids read with expression by demonstrating it. You can't just tell, you must teach. Those of you who've been around kids and pools, how well does it work to just tell them to slow down and not run. That doesn't work. Many of you have had too many teachers who are tellers, so you think that's what teaching is.

The other thing from last week was the relationship between the language arts. Last week, I drew the diagram. This week, I'm just saying the words and motioning. I'm transferring it to your brain. (Review, what's the relationship b/t listening and speaking? etc.) 

Want kids to be able to express themselves. Teaching is changing.

We also talked about modalities. Wrote on back, forced her to use tactile and kinesthetic, could not use auditory, visual, etc.

Helen Keller had many teachers (let's not call them teachers, because her behavior didn't change). Along came Annie Sullivan, her teacher was Grace Fernauld. Together they came up with the VAKT method - visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile.  That famous scene, using all of the pathways, breakthrough. Once you open up one of those pathways, the others will open up. Clogged drain analogy.

Modalities are very important when you are teaching. Use all of them, as much as you can.

New topic of the day: Emergent literacy

We're going to start with young children, and I'll teach you how to teach them, then we'll move all the way up to 6th grade. Structure of course.

Emerge = morpheme

Two plots of land, growing flowers. One gets fertilizer, testing, planning, pull weeds. Both get sun and water. 

Ask about process of making literacy notebook. Ask about stories that they got from parents. Favorite book that you liked to read every day - your emergent stage.

If you don't remember learning to read, it's because it just happened naturally. How many of you were read to as a child?

Call out stories from crowd. How do I remember your stories? What does mem mean?

Reading highway analogy.

What is your schema?

Highway 4310, which way does it go? East-west, because it ends in an even number.  Odd numbered highways run north-south. When should kids learn that? Teach them this when they learn even and odd numbers. It's simple to learn. It makes you start thinking. You are trying to create learners and thinkers. You'll see a highway and think about which direction it runs.

Places cars on reading highway. We don't want the kids who are just learning to drive, on the reading highway. They are on the on-ramp. When you are going onto the highway, you have to merge. e-merge-nt. We want to help them get ready to merge. If they go in too soon, what will happen? They'll crash. Then they'll need a tow truck. It's not right to be a failure at 5 years old. When you fail, you feel like a failure. The moment they are not sure and you feel like they are not getting it, back off. Make sure they are ready to succeed. How do we make sure they are ready? C & L. Talk to them about lots and lots of things. Read to them on a regular basis. Teach them the letters of the alphabet, and sounds with letters. 

Google "phonemic awareness".

I'm thinking of a word that rhymes with small. It begins with a b, my word is...

I'm thinking of a word that rhymes with cat. It begins with a b, my word is...

That makes you feel successful.

Should be natural to learn at the emergent stage. Letters on refridgerator. Playing rhyming games.

Story about student program at church; emergent literacy. Bradley, student in LA, poor child from cotton fields. Teacher said Bradley would disrupt the whole program. I know that students who will try to disrupt the whole program because he's frustrated. You're asking him to drive on the highway, and he's just on the on-ramp. Don't judge them, don't label them, meet them where they are.

On the emergent ramp, I want them to have a store of about 50 words that they can read. Helpful to know initial sounds. (Put ball and boy together. Put together things that begin with a T). Conventions (or concepts) of print.

You'll meet some kids that are on this ramp that should not be taught to read yet because they don't have all of this stuff. That's where your pattern book lesson comes in.

Bring in pattern book next week so that I can make sure you have a book that will work. 

Repetitive syntax

Consistent theme

May have rhyming pattern

Look for a book that the kids will have memorized after 3 or 4 times

Teaching concepts of print (left to right, top to bottom)

How to do this:

Come up with a catchy syntactic phrase

Get a theme

Add a rhyming word

Suggest not Dr. Suess

Wonderful to read to children

Not wonderful to teach them to read

- Long (64 pages)

- Words spread all over and around page

- Made up words

Brown Bear, Very Hungry Caterpillar

Could be colors, days of the week, opposites, etc.

You could make your own book. 

Lesson format: Pre-reading, reading, post-reading.

No objectives, because I know what the objectives are.

Pre-reading: Activate schemata. (May need to develop schemata). Create interest.

Check to make sure that they have the necessary schema. Focus on cognitive and linguistic. (If they don't, you are setting them up for failure. It should be a slam dunk for the kid, if you are doing your job right.) 

T-ball analogy. We know that kids at that age aren't equipped to hit the ball. So we...

Tricycle analogy. We know they can't balance a bicycle, so we set them up for success by having three wheels. Move to bicycle with training wheels.

For a pattern book lesson, the training wheels are the repetitive patterns. They will feel like they are reading - we know they are not. But they feel like they are.