Effective Reading Instruction

The first article I read was Frey and Fisher, Identifying instruction moves during guided learning. The main thing that stood out to me the most in this article was the charts of the instructional decision-making tree and the types of questions to determine student knowledge. The first chart of the tree was one that I had seen in my Elementary Ed. 422 class. I think it is a very helpful chart for new teachers to follow. It is often difficult to determine what the next step is after asking a student a question. This chart guides teachers along this process. The second chart is also very helpful for beginner teachers. I have had trouble figuring out what type of questions I should ask to find out how much the student knows. This chart gives multiple different question types, the purpose of the questions, and examples for each.

The second article I read was Pinnell, Every child a reader: What one teacher can do. I felt that this article summarized all the things we have discussed in class. Under number two, Put Your Theory into Action, listed multiple techniques that we have learned about. Two points in this section really stood out to me. The first was ensure students read continuous text every day through reading workshops. This gives the children the opportunity to pick out their own book and have control over what they were reading. I think it is very important to allow students to read books they are interested in. If you do not allow them this freedom, students become discouraged from reading. The other point that stood out to me was make sure students write continuous text every day through writing workshops. I think sometimes teachers forget the importance of writing in reading instruction. Writing is crucial for a child to become literate and a fluent reader. Students need to be able to exhibit the ability to create words and put them together in a meaningful way.

Real Life Reading Inquiry

I observed fluency in a fourth grade classroom at a local elementary school. During my time in the classroom I was able to observe and compare choral reading and popcorn reading. The class was reading a chapter book together. The teacher, Mrs. S., had designated passages of the book to choral reading and the rest was read popcorn style. Mrs. S. began the reading lesson by selecting volunteers for the popcorn reading sections and told those students what parts they would be reading. Next, she showed the class what sections they would read as a group and asked them to highlight those sections so they would not miss them. Finally, it became time to begin reading. I have never been a big fan of popcorn reading so I was very skeptical when the teacher announced the reading lesson for the day. I thought the popcorn method may not be as bad because she was not forcing anyone to read and it would be combined with choral reading. However, it still did not work well. Among the volunteer readers there was a wide range of reading fluency skills; some readers could pronounce every word while others struggled greatly. When the students that had difficulty pronouncing words and read slowly were reading, other students in the class would begin to laugh or be very quick to correct the reader. The reader started out very excited to read but as the other students laughed, he became embarrassed and discouraged from reading aloud. I think as teachers, we must be very cautious to how our students interact with one another before we decide to use a method such as popcorn reading.

I also observed choral reading. I felt this technique was much more effective in encouraging the students to become fluent readers. During this section of the reading lesson, the students were very excited and enthusiastic about reading. They worked together to get softer and louder where it was necessary in the passage. This added more meaning to what they were reading, and therefore, made a bigger impact on the students. It was very interesting to see the comparison of how the children read when they were reading alone in the popcorn sections and then how they read during the choral reading. Every child was comfortable and not embarrassed to be reading when they all read together; they did not feel as if they were singled out.

Guided Reading

For this week's article on guided reading, I found the article Implementation of the Guided Reading Approach with Elementary School Deaf Students written by Barbara R. Schirmer and Laura Schaffer. The article summarized a study that took place that looked at the effectiveness of guided reading with deaf students. Many deaf classrooms have adopted the guided reading approach because the prior approaches like phonemic awareness was not increasing deaf students' reading skills. Guided reading benefits the classroom in multiple ways. It encourages students to participate in literacy activities, teaches how to read for different purposes, focuses on all the main areas of reading instruction (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension), provides students with plenty of time to read quality literature while in class, and includes many other benefits. The study conducted in the article took about thirty deaf students differing in age and grade and studied each student's reading progress over the course of two years with the guided reading approach. The study was separated into four steps of the guided reading method: selection of leveled books, introduction of the book, silent reading, and discussion. There was overall an improvement in the students' reading progress. The average deaf student has previously only gained one third of a grade equivalent change each school year. The students in this study had a modest gain compared to the average deaf student; however, it was still did not meet the goal of one year progress per each school year. In order to enhance the outcome of guided reading, the article suggested to pair the guided reading approach with extra programs such as an added summer program that gets both the kids and parents involved.

Vocabulary and Technology

For every student, learning vocabulary is crucial. However, learning vocabulary is even more critical for deaf students. It is very difficult for deaf children to learn to read and write because it is not in their native language. This is why it is so important for deaf children to be immersed in a rich vocabulary environment. When you walk in a deaf classroom, there needs to be vocabulary everywhere. Many classrooms I have observed have had word labels on everything in the classroom. I really like the strategies discussed in the articles to increase vocabulary skills. I thought many of these would be great to use with deaf children. Word searches and interactive technology (e.g. the above picture of a word cloud) makes learning vocabulary fun and engaging. While reading the articles, I kept thinking of the word building activities our class discussed and how many of those activities would work great with introducing vocabulary. You can use Bananagrams and word walls to teach students how to build the words and also what the words mean. 

Early Comprehension

In Gill's article, The Comprehension Matrix, she highlights the importance of knowing how you individually comprehend. Comprehension is not being taught in schools, and in order for teachers to effectively teach lessons that support comprehension, they must know their own comprehension tendencies. By asking yourself when do you comprehend best or worst, you can come to recognize the three major factors that affect comprehension: the reader, the text, and the situation. The article also includes how to teach comprehension to your student. This is done by the Comprehension Matrix. There are three parts to the matrix: prereading, during, and postreading. The prereading process includes getting students interested and activating background knowledge. The during stage is designed to help students use text structures and understand vocabulary. The last stage, postreading, allows for student's to deepen their understanding of the reading through discussing, writing, or visual representations. 

The other article I read, Kindergartners Can do it, too!, showed how to implement this process for younger children. The teacher did a wonderful job guiding her kindergartners to understanding the texts. She presented comprehension methods in a very simple way that the children would be able to understand; she did not "dumb down" the material. I loved the way she used handshapes to get the students engaged. She included three different hanshapes: C for connection, V for visualization, and wiggling index for meaning construction. The students would raise one of the handshapes in the air and the teacher would ask them what connection or visualization they had. This was all intended to activate their schema. I also loved how she explained the importance of a schema with the "Velcro Theory." The "Velcro Theory" stated it is easier to remember pieces of information if we can stick it onto something that is already in our heads. I feel that is something that kindergartners can definitely understand and use in the classroom. 

Strategies for Word Building

This weeks readings were filled with word building strategies. In the Yopp and Yopp article, Ten Important Words Plus, gave strategies for including word building into the classroom environment. They emphasized the need for discussion among the teacher and students. Open the classroom up to discussion about new words the students may have learned from a book they were reading, from a T.V. show, or any from other situations. By doing this, the other students learn a new vocabulary word as well. The article also included the activity ten important words. The students are asked to read a passage and pick the ten words that they believe are the most important in the passage. This activity requires the students to exhibit their comprehension skills and allows for discussion afterwards to see what other students thought were the most important words and why. In the other article, Making Words, the activity making words allowed for an interactive way of learning to build words. The teacher gives the students letters and they are to make different combinations to form different words. This is a great way to practice spelling and helps the students learn spelling functions of the English language that are difficult to learn (e.g. whether the i comes before or after the e). The making words activity reminded me of the Bananagrams game. I think Bananagrams would be a fun and interactive way to work on word building strategies in the classroom. It allows students the opportunity to experiment with forming different words in a similar way the making words game does. 

Introducing Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is crucial to a child's literacy skills. Yopp defines phonemic awareness as "the awareness that the speech stream consists of a sequence of sounds- specifically phonemes, the smallest unit of sounds that makes a difference in communication." It is very important for a child to acquire phonemic awareness because it greatly aids in using our writing system. Without this awareness, our written symbols are arbitrary and very difficult for a child to understand. What really stood out to me about this article was how to teach phonemic awareness. Yopp gives the examples of using songs, chants, and word-sound games. These all allow for children to interact and enjoy learning about phonemic awareness. If they enjoy learning, then they are more likely to remember what they have learned about phonemic awareness. Also, it will help the child if he or her is stumbling on a word. He or she can think of what song or chant went with the sound and work on sounding it out. Teachers can also use the songs and chants when using the coaching technique for phonemic awareness. When the child is having difficulty with sounding out a word, the teacher can remind them of the song that the sound went with. For example if the child is having trouble with the /ch/ sound in chair, the teacher can ask, "Do you remember the song we learned about cheetahs?"

Readers' Theatre

Readers' Theatre is what stood out to me the most in our reading for today. Part of literacy is the ability to demonstrate fluency and expressive reading. Readers' Theatre is a great way to encourage both. It gets children excited to read and gives them the feeling that they have something to show for their ability to read. Readers' Theatre gets the kids active in the classroom rather than just sitting at a desk. It provides the children with a way of expressing themselves and gives them pride in what they have learned. While I do not remember specifically calling it Readers' Theatre in elementary school, I do remember participating in a similar activity. My teacher would read us a book at the beginning of the week that had to do with a specific content area. Throughout the week we would do different activities with the book and at the end of the week we would be given parts to act out the book. We practiced and then performed the book in front of other classes. This activity had a big impact on me. It got me excited about reading, improved my reading fluency, and taught me how to be expressive while reading.

Early Literacy

I am planning on teaching deaf children, so when reading the articles, I did so through the eyes of a deaf educator. Deaf children generally have a more difficult time learning how to read because English is not their first language. There were several techniques in the two articles that stood out to me. The IRA NAEYC position aper stated that one of the goals during the preschool years is to enhance exposure to and concepts about print. For all children this is important. It is especially important for deaf children. By using Big Books, the teacher can sign the story to the children and the children can see that certain signs are associated with certain words on the page. The Letter of the Week article provided examples that allow the child to connect familiar concepts to literacy. Donna Bell used the alphabet chart with children's names and the environmental print wall. Deaf children can use familiar visual cues and associate them to literacy.

Bringing different reading histories to the classroom

Like Kiki, I came to school with a very strong literacy background. My family was constantly surrounded me with opportunities to see and hear rich vocabulary. However, it is important as teachers to know every child brings a different background and set of experiences with them to the classroom. Kiki and I both were surrounded by literacy opportunities, but we had very different family backgrounds and different types of access to literacy. The article says, "Children enter school with a legacy of meaning about literacy and educational achievement that is not easily transformed" (41). As teachers we have to know what the legacies of each child is and find a way to provide meaningful curriculum that each child can relate his or her literacy legacy to.