Blog #10 Homework

Homework Structure for 1^st grade

Purpose:

The purpose of homework in first grade is basically practice. Practice for the homework to come in the higher grades, and for practice of skills learned on the classroom. This is never a time to learn a new skill, but a time to review skills learned during the school day.

Type of homework:

The homework given in will primarily be math and reading. The math program taught in the classroom has corresponding “homework links” that are meant to reinforce the lessons learned in class. However, if I feel that this link will be stressful to the students I will not send this home.

Reading homework will be giving in the form of a daily reading log. All students are asked to read for 20 minutes each night. In first grade this can be a combination of the student reading and being read to. This log is to me signed by parents and sent back to school on Friday of every week.

Time:

Reading aside, the time spent on homework should not exceed 15 minutes each night for first graders. If parents are finding that homework takes much more time, them I would like to be make aware of this. Homework at this age should be a time to be proud of what the students have learned, not a time consuming process.

Parent Involvement:

All homework given can be and hopefully would be done with the parents. The students should be able to finish the tasks alone; however I believe the parents should be part of the process. All reading should be done with an adult or parent. This helps the students feel more confident and helps to ensure their understanding.

Technology and Communication:

Any and all concerns regarding homework can be addressed personally in the classroom or via email. The teacher will communicate with parents via email promptly.

 

Blog #9

Blog #9 Fiction vs. Non-fiction

This is a lesson I wrote for the first grade class I work with. The class is working on a unit about systems. This unit has been incorporated into the entire curriculum. For the literacy portion of the unit they read the book, We Need Trees by Karen Hoeneck. This is a non-fiction level C book that all of the students could read, mostly independently.  The pictures are beautiful paintings that closely match the text. This makes the book easier for the ELL students to understand. The class met as a whole to discuss the idea of reading a non-fiction book. The teacher asked the class what non-fiction is, and all hands went up. The kids all had answers that they could not wait to share. The teacher wrote the answers as a list on the board.  They read the story out loud as a class. When they finished they discussed the facts they learned about trees. They talked about the fact that this is a non-fiction book, so it is teaching us information that is true and real, not pretend or made up.

The second portion on the lesson was the fiction portion. The students continued on with the study of systems, but this time with Leaves also by Karen Hoeneck. This is a fictional story level C. This is an easy book for all of the students; the pictures directly correlate with the words on the page. This is a great selection for the ELL students because each page has no more them five word and the pictures can guide the students. After the book was read the teacher asked the students if this is a fiction or a non-fiction book. She wrote down the answers on the board as a list. She then circled the two lists (non-fiction and fiction) with overlapping circles, creating a Venn diagram. She then asked them to tell her what was similar about the fiction and the non-fiction books.  The class came up with very interesting and clear answers. They were able to connect to the study of systems with both books, but understood the difference between the more factual book and the whimsical fictional story.

Since I do not have my own classroom right now, I have to rely on my generous cooperating teachers. However, for this assignment I was unable to actually perform the running records. The following is a summary of what a running record is and how to perform one.

To begin the process of giving a running record to students the teacher must begin by selecting the appropriate level to test the student. This level should be about one level above the student’s independent reading level. The teacher should make sure he/she has the “transcript” of the text being read by the student. This is a copy of the story being read with room for recording miscues and attempts. The teacher will record the student’s miscues in two different ways, by making the transcript and by audio recording.

The important miscue markings include:

Substitution: when a substitution is made the teacher writes the miscues directly over the text.

·       If the substitution is not a real word the teacher writes a dollar sign ($) and the word said over the text.

·       If the substitution is over many words the teacher should bracket over the words and write what was said over that.

Omission: recorded by circling the word left out

Partial omission: circle the part skipped

Transposition: When words are reversed in order the teacher should use a sidewise “s” like a lasso around transposed words.

Repetition or regression: Phrases or words that are repeated. The teacher should underline the repeated word and attach a circled “r” to the end of the line. If the repetition happens multiple times, underline again.

Insertion: When a student adds one or more words, use a caret to denote the words added.

Correction: a miscue that is corrected is marked with a circled “c” and underline what was corrected.

Unsuccessful correction: underline the word with the letters “uc” circled next to the word with an arrow above pointing to the list of words attempted.

Pausing and intonation: If the student pauses between words, the letter “p” should be placed between the words along with the number of seconds paused.

Intonation: If the student reads words correctly but skips punctuation causing intonation changes, the teacher should circle what was skipped.

Checking comprehension: First the teacher should ask the student to retell the story in his/her own words. Second, the teacher should ask the student guided questions about the text, marking all answers.

Analyzing Running Record: 

·       The teacher should check the miscues for graphic similarities.

·       Check the syntactic and semantic cues asking these three questions

o   Does this sound syntactically correct?

o   Is this sentence semantically correct?

o   Did the students reading of the sentence change it’s meaning?

After the reading comprehension and miscues have been analyzed, record all information gathered and convert into a percentage.

 

Word Reognition/Sociopsycholinguistic

Directions:

Label each activity (L) for learning/word recognition or (A) for acquisiton/sociopsycholinguistic view.

Some activities can have both labels. Be prepared to explain your choices.

 

The students:

 

__L   look up words in the dictionary to write definitions

___A _make a Venn diagram to compare two stories

___L__practice sounding out words

__L___read in round~robin fashion

__L___correct peers when they make a mistake during reading

__A/L__identify words on a big book page that start with the same sound

___A__group cards with classmates' names by a criterion on such as first or last letter

__A___write rhyming poetry and then discuss different spellings for the same sound

_L____ask the teacher how to spell any word they don't know

__L___read a language experience story they have created with the teacher

__A___work in pairs to arrange words from a familiar chant into sentences

__A/L___divide words into syllables

__L___on a worksheet, draw a line from each word to the picture that starts with the same sound

__A___make alphabet books on different topics

 

The teacher:

 

_L____pre-teaches vocabulary

_L____does a shared reading with a big book

_L___makes sure that students read only books that fit their level

_L____has students segment words into phonemes

_A____writes words the students dictate for a story and has students help with the spelling of difficult words

_A____asks students to look around the room and find words starting with a certain letter

_L____uses decodable texts

_A____sets aside time for SSR (sustained silent reading) each day teaches Latin and Greek roots

_A___has students meet in literature circles

_L____conducts phonics drills

_L____chooses predictable texts

_A____teaches students different comprehension strategies does a picture walk of a new book

__A/L___uses a variety of worksheets to teach different skills

 

Word Recognition/learning seems to be about teaching the basics, more fundamentalist teaching. This approach is all about pre-teaching and skills based learning. This type of teaching/learning fits into a more traditional setting. The Sociopsycholinguistic/Acquisition view is more independent and student based. This student-based view allows students to gain understanding, use background knowledge and work on the basic principals of reading and writing later.

 

Blog #5

The first children’s book I reviwed was The Very Hungry Caterpiller, by Eric Carle. I chose this because it is a familiar book to many children, has a cute story with colorful stories. It is also used as part of an author study in many kindergarten/first grade classrooms.

From the very first page I realized that this might be difficult for comprehension with ELL students. The first page read, “In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.” The phrase “in the light of the moon” may be a difficult concept for the students to understand. The picture is helpful because it show the moon as a large part of the picture.  The other aspects of the story that may be difficult are toward the end of the story. The caterpiller eats a lot and gets fat, bulids a cacoon, “He stays inside for more than two weeks. Then nibbled a hole in the cacoon, pushed his way out and…” The concept of time and the scientific nature of the cacoon may be hard to comprehend.

The schema could be taught by introducing this story with other examples of caterpillers turning into butterflies, introducing the vocabulary words prior to reading the story, and giving examples by using different pictures.

The second children’s book I reviewed was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin and John Archambault. I chose this book because it is a useful tool for teaching the alphabet. This may be difficult because students may have a hard time seeing the humor behind it. The idea that the letters are staying in order but that it is playful story. Phrases like “stubbed-toe E and patched-up F,” may be to abstract. As well as the silly phrases like “ally-oop” and skoodle doot.”

This could be introduced as a song. The teacher could play the song and show the book as a “big book” to the class. If the sing the story as the teacher points to the letters, this may help. Plus this can be introduced as a phonics lesson about sounds and nonsense words.

Blog #4 Metacognitive look at text...

“Take a metacognitive look at how you decode unfamiliar text,” this was really hard, much harder then I thought it would be. I went into the task thinking; okay I have a good grasp on language as a whole I bet I can decode a different language pretty well. Boy was I wrong! I began with a Spanish newspaper. I am an avid newsreader and figured this would be a good place to start. I understood next to nothing. I understood obvious things like political names, locations, and words that were similar to English, but that was really it. I was able to use the pictures to help with some of the content, I think. I read the front page many times and became increasingly frustrated with each attempt. How powerful. This is so basic yet extremely important as a teacher.

I then scaled down until I got to a level that I could understand. This level was that of a toddler. I understood repetitive picture books in which the pictures directly correlated to the text. For example, everything on the page was blue, so I figures the word “azul” meant blue. The strategies I used were pictures, trying to find a connection to a word in English (or any other language I may have recognized), repetition.

The implications as a teacher to me would be the need for repetition. As I read on I picked up on words as they were repeated to me. I found it helpful to have pictures, much like a toddler would with a picture book. This also served as further proof to me that the more you read, the more you understand. ELL students need to be given more opportunities, possibly a longer block.

 

Oral Language and Reading

According to Chomsky, “Children are not born with knowledge of English or Japanese or any other human language. Instead, they are born with knowledge of those things that are common to all human languages.”  This means that children are born with some implicit knowledge of language, but they need to learn how their language (or the language they are learning) functions.  Chomsky believes that language is innate. So, is reading innate?

If children are born with the innate ability to gain oral language skills and it argued that there is a connection between oral language and reading, is reading innate too? I don’t believe so. While working in a kindergarten class last year I was amazed by the language skills of most of the kids. Their vocabularies alone were baffling to me at times. They had so much to say and were very pointed in their speech. However, this vast wealth of language they seemed to posses did not correlate to their reading ability. The fact that they had such strong oral language skills did help them learn to read. However it did not seem to have an innate quality.