Comprehension

Comprehension is a very important part of reading. I have seen this first hand from moving from a 5th grade classroom to a 2nd grade classroom. My second graders are more focused on the words than on what the words are saying. I have sat with many of them and stopped them to ask what they read. Some have no ideas, other can remember some points, and there are a few that can remember everything. The focus on my mini lesson is comprehension so I have done some reading on how to teach comprehension and I find some of the ideas quite interesting. I always forget how useful sticky notes are but I have found so many lessons using sticky notes. Also I talked to my CT about comprehension who informed me that when teaching comprehension to students we should use a book that is at a lower level that she knows the student will be able to read easily. This helps them focus on what the words are saying. If she was going to focus on fluency she would use a book at their level. This makes complete sense but I never thought of this before we talked! Some other tasks that my CT has the students do is they take a new book from their classroom library home every night to read to their parents and then discuss what they have read with her the next morning. She has them in different colored groups that represents the level at which they are at. Each morning they come up to her table and work with her. So far I have seen her work with comprehension and give them a fluency test. Working with my 2nd grade class has really made me see how comprehension is a struggle for students when they are young and how they have to focus on what they are reading not just the words.

As for my reading comprehension strategies, I have used them all in the book. As a young student I struggled with reading and was in a separate reading group with a different teacher. I am a slow reader but can tell you exactly what I read! I find that I am always making a picture in my head of what I am reading. This helps me remember because I already have the story in my head and can go back to it. I also find that my mind is always racing so sometimes I have to stop and think about what I just read! If I can't remember than I go back and reread to make sure that I get the whole picture in my head!

Helping EVERY Child

Helping children with learning disabilities is an essential aspect of every classroom. According to the article “How Can I Help Children with Learning Disabilities” written by Joanne F. Carlisle, there are certain steps a teacher can take when developing a classroom that accommodates ALL students. It is very important that teachers realize that teaching to students with learning disabilities is not a rare occurrence. “About 5% of school-age children are identified as having specific learning disabilities (LD). This means that in a class of 20 children, one child is likely to have a learning disability”. What this means is that we, teachers, need to be aware of the steps to take that will allow children with LDs to not only succeed, but thrive. That is our goal for our students, so why would we be comfortable settling with merely having students with LDs to “get by”. That just doesn’t seem fair to me.

As I said before, there are specific steps a teacher can take to ensure that children with learning disabilities have roper educational care. These steps are characterized by “effective communication and collaborative problem solving.” The first step a teacher should take is to identify whether or not a child has special needs and monitor that child. Teachers need to collaborate with others to prepare a proper educational environment for that child. Communication between educators, the student, and, especially, the parents is VERY important. Regular evaluations are also essential. This ensures that, if any changes occur, the student will continue to succeed. Another step that is important in fostering a caring, safe, and educational environment for a child with learning disabilities is to help that child develop a positive attitude towards themselves and their education. We need to have high expectations for these students; they can live up to them! They just need to be given the chance.

In order to successful complete these steps, teachers should be aware of the ways that they can successfully foster literacy development in their classrooms. Classroom lessons that integrate direct and indirect literacy instruction, with the incorporation of a variety of reading and writing activities that occur throughout the entire day is a very important first step. But, first and foremost, teachers need to create a classroom environment that fosters acceptance. This kind of environment will enable students will work collaboratively and respectfully with one another, and in turn, they will succeed.

"I am not a speed reader...I am a speed understander" - Isaac Asimov

Why is reading comprehension important?? Because it is! Although strong reading skills can help students succeed in language arts and reading class, it is really, only, the beginning. Students have to use reading skills in every single subject they study and in every aspect of life. For example, students need to comprehend challenging science textbooks, work problems, directions, text in an application, as well as the newspaper, websites, etc. It is important, as teachers, that we intervene and address the issues that students encounter in relation to reading comprehension. Those who struggle in elementary school may fall so far behind that they will have limited opportunities as an adult. I don’t want that to be the story of my students.

Currently, I’m spending a lot of time working on reading comprehension with one of my fourth graders. She spends a lot of time in the reading resource room and she struggles with vocabulary and using an “expressive” voice as she reads. All of these issues are negatively affecting her ability to comprehend what she is reading. Often, she will have to read, out loud, a story two or more times in order to tell me what it is about. After talking with my CT about this, we decided that in order to help her comprehension, first, we need to address her fluency. If she can pay less attention to the words, sentences, etc. we hope that she will be able to pay more attention to the content. I think that being able to read expressively without and “choppiness” will be extremely beneficial in the long run. When you can read a story with expression, then you have to understand what is going on. For instance, if you read in a monotone then you miss the exciting, sad, or scary parts of a story; but if you pay attention to those aspects and your voice reflects that, then you will have a much better chance at developing your comprehension.

I like to use the process of “predicting” to help students will comprehension too. I feel that it really forces students to pay attention to what they are reading, seeing, hearing, etc. About half-way through a story, I will stop the student and ask them “What do you think is about to happen? Why?” this forces the students to think about what they’ve read and apply it. They also have to explain themselves and their thought process which is a really high-level metacognitive skill that can promote comprehension too.

According to the National Reading Panel (NRP) “comprehension is an active process that requires an intentional and thoughtful interaction between the reader and the text”. That being said, it is important that we ask students questions during and after reading that forces them to think about what they read and apply it. This interaction between themselves and the text will be greatly beneficial.

Comprehension Procedures and Strategies

Reading comprehension is such an important part of literacy in children’s development, but also one of the toughest things to teach children. From my own experiences growing up, as well as my experiences of working with students in my placements, I have found reading comprehension to be a difficult task for many students. When I was in elementary school I saw a reading specialist several times a week to work on various literacy skills including, comprehension, pronunciation, letter/word recognition, and other components of literacy. It was not until then that I realized how my reading comprehension was lacking from my overall literacy understanding, and what an important aspect it really was to being a literate individual. Being a student, it is quite easy to forget about comprehension when reading a story, because it is so easy to focus on fluency and correctly identifying the words. Children can get caught up with reading correctly, that sometimes they are forgetting about what is going on during the story and the comprehensive aspects that they should also be focused on to gain the full idea the story is trying to portray. Although comprehension can be difficult to conquer for students, and a tough task to promote as teachers, it is absolutely essential that we give students various methods to help them with comprehension.

One comprehension strategy that could be helpful to students is KWL charts. Not only did I use these when I was in school, but I also used them last year in my 401 social studies component. These charts allow children to identify what they know, what they want to know, and what they want to learn. This is a good way for students to represent their understanding and misconceptions, but also a great way for teachers to assess what the students know, and what they need to focus on teaching them. Another idea for a comprehension strategy that has worked wonders in the classroom is reading comprehension worksheets. This allows the students to answer questions from the story to make sure they have an accurate understanding of what is going on in the story. It could also be beneficial to give students the worksheets ahead of time, so they have a chance to see what questions need to be answered, which allows them to look for those answers while they are reading. Students will then be more focused on comprehension and have an idea of what they should be looking for in the text. Story maps or graphic organizers can also be helpful to students who are struggling with reading comprehension because it allows them to carefully map out the characters, setting, plot, theme, etc so they know what is going on in the story. These are just several examples among many that have been beneficial in helping out students in my own placements, and have also made a positive impact on my comprehension development while I was in school.

Comprehension is arguably one of the most important aspects of literacy, because it allows us to identify the reason we are reading a text in the first place. Making sure students have the correct resources and proper instruction to further their understanding of comprehension strategies is vital to creating literate individuals. There are many resources out there that can help teachers and students with working out comprehension strategies in literacy, and it is important that we as future teachers, take full advantage of coming up with a list of resources to benefit our students. Here is a link that offers a couple other comprehension strategy ideas, http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000737.shtml. Hope it helps!

Wiki Reflection

After reading some of the reflections from my classmates, I have to agree with all of them when they say that their outlook on literacy has changed since completing this activity. Before completing this project, I looked at literacy as a means of reading and writing and how that relates to literature such as books and articles. I never realized the importance of incorporating a technological component into literacy, until I saw all the different options that you could use to show literacy. I would never have thought to portray literacy by using a wiki, scrapblog, or comic strip, so it just goes to show the various opportunities that are out there to make a unique depiction of literacy. Not every student learns in the same way, so having these different opportunities to present literacy in a number of ways, will only help reach all of our students in future classrooms. This project definitely opened my eyes to incorporating technology into our literacy learning, and how that can strengthen student's development and understanding.



I chose to do my project using a wiki, and within that project, I portrayed environmental literacy. I have always been extremely interested in environmental literacy because earth science and environmental science were always my favorite subjects in school. I have not had much experience using a wiki, so I thought it would be a good idea to create my own wiki and see what kind of preparation went into creating my own wiki. During the process of coming up with my own wiki, I thought it would it was important to not only discuss how environmental literacy can impact students development in areas of reading, writing, and science, but also to show some of the pressing issues that are facing our environment presently (global warming, destruction of rainforests, and endangered animals). When talking about environmental literacy, I came up with various pages talking about the importance of incorporating environmental literacy into our classrooms, and also provided various resources that could be used when teaching these subjects, such as picture/informative books. We know it is important to present these different types of literacies into our classrooms, but without the proper resources, it is impossible to provide students with the necessary information to further their competence in environmental issues, and the literacy around those topics.



Although the wiki did take much longer to create than I had anticipated, I really saw this projects as beneficial because I am much more familiar with how to use a program like this, which means I am much more likely to use this in my future classrooms. Technology is expanding at an alarming rate in today's society, so it is vital that we as future teachers know how to use this technology, but also how to familiarize our students with these options. One of the advantages of using a wiki, is that is can be edited and changed by both the creator, and members, which is why it could be used as a great discussion tool for students that may not be comfortable speaking out in a large class discussion. The wiki can also be set to private so only the members are able to view what goes on the wiki, which is important for confidentiality issues, especially for students who are in elementary school. These are a few of the advantages of using a wiki in classroom discussions, and how that will help portray various types of literacy.



I feel like my wiki was geared more towards teachers because it was talking more about how to incorporate environmental literacy into our education and schools. The wiki also provided various resources that teachers could be used in their lessons plans, so those aspects of the wiki are geared more towards teachers. Some of the links on the wiki are definitely geared towards upper elementary students, such as the links about how children can make a difference and help decrease global warming, the destruction of rainforests, and how to help endangered animals. This shows another important advantage of wikis because it can be geared towards teachers or children, which can definitely help familiarize both groups of people with how to navigate around the wiki and how to directly get involved with environmental issues and actively participating in environmental education. This type of technology allows students to be directly involved by using the discussion post, as well as exploring the different links that are available to them to explore, which will further their knowledge about the environment as well as this type of technology.



Overall, I found this new literacies project to be very beneficial in furthering our knowledge of how to use technology in our own lives, as well as how to use this in our future classrooms. I am very happy that we got the chance to explore these various types of technology and literacy because it opened my eyes about all the ideas that could be incorporated into our classrooms and how to reach all of our future students using different ideas if needed.

Scrapblog Reflection

First, I would like to say that I really like the idea of a scrapblog! I love to scrapbook so I was extremely excited to do it online. I thought that it would go a lot faster but now…I don’t think that it would really save me anytime from doing it by hand. I think that part of this had to do with the fact that there was so much writing that had to be incorporated into this project. Where as a usual scrapbook is composed of mainly pictures and very little writing. But the hardest part that I had with the process was getting my curser to select the right box and then getting it to move to the correct spot. I don’t know if it was because I was using the mouse pad on my labtop…maybe next time I should use my actual mouse. But I was getting extremely frustrated! Then I would get the textbox in the right spot and then try to click on it to edit it and it would move it again!

 

I actually forgot that my very first problem was at the very beginning when it wanted me to chose pictures to incorporate into my blog. I thought that I would be able to go to google and select the ones that I wanted! But that was not one of the available programs to use. Then I couldn’t remember my flicker password. So I added finding all of the pictures I want from Google, then I downloaded them to my desktop and then added them to the scrapblog that way! I know that in reality you would be using pictures that you had on your computer so you wouldn’t have to go through all the hassle. I also didn’t like that the computer made the scrapblog for you. I wanted to create it myself. So it actually took me more time because I had to delete certain stickers and art work and change the pictures. This became confusing because I didn’t know what pictures I had already used! I think that it would have been easier for all of the stickers and backgrounds that I received with the theme to be placed in the tool bar and then start from the very beginning by myself!

 

Also when I got to the end I wanted to add more stickers! The program gave me 150 free credits to buy different sticker sets but I couldn’t figure out how it worked! So I didn’t get to buy anymore. Also a lot of the packages were a lot more than 150 credits! So although the scrapblog can be free you can only use the stickers that are given in that theme.

 

But on the positive side I think that there are many uses for them in the classroom! I think that if students were asked to do reports and present them to the classroom this would be a fun and creative way to do so! It would get the students using a new technology and they could see how things that are done by hand can also be done online! I also think that it would be very handy as a teacher! Teacher could create these instead of powerpoints, they could present projects using a scrapblog, and they could create a scrapbook with the class about a certain topic! By making a scrapblog open to the public students could always go back and look and what had been discussed! If a teacher did not have a personal website to place documents, such as powerpoint, using scrapblogs instead would be extremely useful to the students! I also think that at the beginning of the year it would be fun for each student to make a scrapblog about his or her self and present it to the class! This would allow the teacher and the students to get to know their peers on a different level!

 

So I wrote all of this and then went to the Literacy Blog and realized this was not what I was supposed to write about as I thought…So I apologize for that. Now on to what we are supposed to write for this blog!

 

When I first came to class this semester, I believed that literacy was reading, writing, and speaking. But through many readings and the project I have found that my definition is only partially right. Reading, writing, and speaking is one aspect of literacy but the introduction of computers altered the definition of literacy. In order to be literate you have to be able to use a computer and understand how the strategies that have been used with books and printed material can also be applied to literacy on the computer. I had to use many types of literacy while doing this project online. I first had to be able to research my topic, environmental literacy. This was a big task because I had to figure out which websites were reliable and then I had to sift through all of the information to find the main points. Both of these skills are part of literacy. The web is overwhelming and anyone can make a website so students have to understand exactly what they are looking for and know how to choose the right website. After I found all of my information I had to compile it into short paragraphs to put in my scrapblog. This is another literacy skill because I have to take what I have found in my research and reduce it to the main points to explain to my classmates. This is a hard take for students because they want to put everything that they have found. When skimming readings students need to figure out what are the main points that they need to share with others. The final aspect of literacy that I saw while doing this project was when I first got into the program. There was a quick tour of how to use the program. This was actually difficult for me because little boxes showed up next to the icons and told me how I could use that icon with my scrapblog. But they did not show me how to use it. So I had to take the words and then put that into action once I got started on the blog. It took me a few tries with the icons but if I would not have had the tour I would have been lost. This is once again another literacy skill. A student has to be able to read directions and then put them in action. As I am writing this blog I am amazed at how many examples of literacy I came up with that were used while making this project. The topic was obviously environmental literacy but in order to complete this project I had to use many aspects of literacy!

From this experience I have learned many things. The number one idea is not to be afraid of technology! Just try new things and it will amaze you! After finishing this scrapblog I came up with many ways that they could be used in the classroom! I am even going to make one for another one of my college classes to show my classmates the biography of a mathematician. When I think back to elementary school literacy I just remember books, books, and more books! But with the Internet this idea can change. There are so many ways that reading and writing strategies can be taught using the Internet. There are also many different ways that information can be shown to the students. We as teachers no longer have to stand at the front and lecture because we can use technology to help and enhance our lessons. Books can still be used, and probably always will be, but the information in the books can be presented with technology. When a person thinks of a scrapbook they usually think of a book that has pictures of a person live all organized with a cute theme. But with this project I have shown how you can use a scrapbook to present materials to a class. There were pictures in my scrapblog but they just told the story of the paragraph that was on the page. I am a visual learner so having a picture represent an idea is an amazing concept to me! Like I said before traditional literacy was a book paper and pencil but technology has opened up new doors to change the definition of literacy and how materials are presented in the classroom. We still use the same ideas that traditional literacy had but technology is used to present it! Technology has allowed students to express themselves in unique ways! My new definition of literacy is the ability of a person to comprehend what they are reading, writing, speaking, viewing and listening. Technology is also part of literacy so all strategies that apply to printed works also have to be used with the computer! To be literate you have to be able to use a computer correctly!

 

Effective literacy instruction is difficult because most classrooms have students at all different reading levels. So a lesson has to encompass all levels of learners in a classroom. So literacy has to presented in simple terms but also in challenging terms for the students that are struggling in your classroom. I have seen first hand that when students get bored their behaviors turn for the worst. In my concept map, I talked about how students need to be introduced to literacy from day one! The main idea in my concept maps was always to have books for the children to explore with. But never once did I mention technology. In this day and age, students now not only need to have books surrounding them but they also need to be introduced to technology. Technology is being incorporated into more and more classrooms each day so when students come to the class they also need to have some skills with the computer and the teacher can facilitate the rest!

 

I am now working in a 2^nd grade classroom and I have not seen them work with computers yet so I am not sure of their skills. I think that first students would need to understand what a scrapbook is and how they are made in real life. Students then need to know the basics of computers. For this specific technology, students have to know where and how to get pictures to incorporate into the classroom. If they have to browse the web this could be quite difficult. If students brought in their own pictures to scan it would go a lot quicker. Students need to be familiar with creating textboxes and places information that they want to present in it. They also need to know how to move objects around so that each page in the scrapblog looks neat, clean, and goes with the theme. I don’t think that this technology would work the best with 2^nd graders because there is so much background knowledge with computers that they have to have. I think that upper elementary could handle a project using this program. I think that it would be fun to create a scrapblog with my second graders. If I had a computer and a projector in the classroom this would be an easy way to show students new technology. We could make a scrapblog to inform the school of a topic we just learned. Students could brainstorm the main ideas and what pictures could represent this. Then the teacher could bring the internet up and show them how to find the pictures they have requested and then how to download them onto the website. The each table to tell the teacher how they want their page to look and the teacher could format it! I really think that this would be a great exercise. For my literacy lesson I am going to work with the students on poetry. So it might be fun to compile of their poems and make a scarpblog for them!

 

As for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing they would need all of these. They would really need to be able to listen and follow directions! The directions are also written on the computer for them so they need to be able to view the directions and then put them in action. In order to find information to place in their scarpblogs they need to be able to read the research that is done on their topic and then place that information neatly in the scarpblog. I feel as though all of these strategies would need to be developed as a class before each students creates their own blog! This could be done with the example I gave above! Doing a whole class scrapblog!

New Literacy Project Reflection

Hello everyone! I've decided to post my New Literacy Project Reflection onto our class wiki. Mainly for the reason that I am very long-winded and rather than bog this noteblog down with my lengthy reflection, I just created a separate page for it on the wiki. Take a look at my page, Rachel Forstat's New Literacy Reflection, and feel free to comment there if you'd like.

Thanks! :)

Balanced Literacy Instruction

After reading the article "Balanced Reading Instruction," it really opened my eyes up to the methods and instruction techniques that are needed to create a quality classroom learning environment. Instruction is one of the single most important parts of teaching, because the approach that a teacher takes to forwarding knowledge and information is crucial to each student's development. Pressley stresses the importance of this by saying, "balanced instruction requires knowledge of how to carry out effective skills instruction as well as high awareness of how to teach holistic reading and writing." Balanced Instruction for literacy is not just a one step process to perfect, rather an ongoing process that includes using proper literacy processes (comprehension strategies, phonics, vocabulary, etc) along with authentic literacy processes. Having the students work with holistic readings or writings is vital to their understanding of working with literacy that is meaningful and applicable to their own lives and experiences. Pressley also states, "the balanced instructional model is particularly appropriate and beneficial for students who have initial difficulties in learning to read and write." Being able to intervene early on for students with minor difficulties is important to their later development in literacy, because if teacher's do not have a proper plan for instruction to help these struggling students, then they will continue to be behind throughout their education.

One of the main points that was discussed in the article was balancing various elements of literacy instruction. Some of these elements included following up on literacy development and using unique approaches to literacy instruction that allowed teachers to reach each and every one of their students. After reviewing a survey of a group of teachers, Pressley stated that "teachers offer[ed] frequent skills instruction, both in the context of actual reading and writing and in lessons in which the skills were isolated and presented in a decontextualized situation." Many of the instruction strategies were quite 'eclectic' and gave each student a chance to benefit to their full potential by receiving them individually. Not each and every strategy works for every student in regards to literacy, so it is important that we learn our students strengths and weaknesses, and learn to play to their strengths, and come up with activities that will help improve their weaknesses.

Along with talking about the various comprehension strategies, understanding of the alphabetic principle, and phonemic awareness strategies, the article also talked about the important aspect of motivation in regards to a balanced literacy instruction approach. Pressley explains motivation in this balanced learning approach by saying, "Teachers balance skills teaching and holistic experiences while flooding their classrooms with motivation." Without providing students with an opportunity to be excited about learning, and see a meaningful purpose to their learning, they will not be encouraged to learn literacy. "Encourag[ing] students' to learn, to encourage their engagement in literacy-development tasks, especially real reading and writing, [is crucial to their learning]." This balanced instruction in literacy is extremely important not only for teachers when planning their lesson for the classroom, but also for the students as their learning and development in literacy is dependent upon the teachers instruction methods and approaches to literacy.

A Balanced Approach

After reading the article, “Balanced Literacy Instruction”, I now understand that literacy instruction is most beneficial when it is taught by combining the essential skills based lessons AND a very holistic approach in which students are immersed in an environment of authentic reading and writing experiences.

The central aim of this article is to help literacy instructors understand the important of balance. Offering students a wide variety of eclectic experiences and practices with reading and writing and also offering frequent instruction in basic skills is the best way to promote a positive literacy learning environment.

There is also an emphasis on the fact struggling readers and writers should not be taught in a different way from the rest of their peers. Obviously, the skills instruction will be more extensive in comparison to readers who are excelling, but the students who are struggling will still be immersed in a large amount of authentic, holistic reading and writing instruction.

An obvious point the article also makes is how important it is for literacy (reading and writing) to be a part of EVERY aspect of the school day. Students who are constantly reading and writing will excel in their literacy development in comparison to students who are only doing reading and writing for an hour or two a day. Scaffolding is also emphasized as an important element of literacy instruction.

Basically, all in all…the article talks about how important it is to immerse your students in literacy instruction ALL the TIME. The article does a great job of providing evidence through the discussion of case studies. Balancing literacy instruction with skill based learning and holistic reading and writing experiences, with a WIDE array of activities and experiences, is the best way to ensure students succeed.

Recitation and Scaffolding

Currently I am only seeing recitation in my classroom, which I find very frustrating. When I sit and observe my classroom I feel as though I am in a college class. The students all sitting in rows listening to the teacher lecture about one of the four core subjects. What I do find missing from this picture though is the students taking notes. The teacher makes them clear their desks while she either writes on the overhead or the white board. This does not make sense to me one because the students become distracted and don't pay attention and second they aren't taking anything from what she is saying because they aren't writing it down. I also know that they aren't understanding it because when she gives a worksheet after she is finished lecturing they always have questions and don't understand. So pretty much her idea of teaching a lesson is lecturing to the kids and then giving them a worksheet to work on individually. She does not want them working together because they will talk to much. But they do end up talking and it just isn't working. She informed me that she does not plan on teaching them how to work in groups because it would cause her too much of a headache to teach them because they all have bad behavior to begin with. So instead of doing something about the whole situation she has given up on them and is treating them like college students and not like 10 year olds, which is really what they need.

For response center talk to occur the right questions need to be asked. The teacher needs to ask a clear and concise questions that the students understand. The question or idea needs to be thought provoking so that students have lots of ideas to share with their peers. The teacher also needs to model different activities that he or she would like to take place so that the student understands what they need to be doing to facilitate their learning. Once students understand how to complete an activity many questions will arise throughout the class period. This is a harder question for me because the teacher does not do much scaffolding as explained above. After the students get their worksheets she sits at her desk until the students are finished and then moves on....

There are many different levels of learners in my classroom but the worksheets do not reflect this. All the students get the same worksheets and always get frustrated right when they see it. There is this one girl that barely looks at the worksheet and then raises her hand and says I don't get how to do this...I don't want to do this. It is very frustrating to watch. When I go around and explain the different tasks to them the students have a better understanding of the worksheet. But as I have said before they don't take notes while the teacher is talking so they never get to write the examples the teacher is doing first and then work on their worksheet. The first time they explore is with the worksheet that is graded. She does allow one student who is the lowest in math come to the front desk during the math worksheet time so that she can constantly ask the teacher questions. When there is a reading worksheet she reads the words to the two students who have reading as their IEP. But in reality she needs to have many worksheets for these students because half of the kids don't even know their multiplication tables so reducing fractions is just not working at the moment. Overall I think that if there was more scaffolding in the classroom students might start to improve and understand the topics better. We have 33 students how I feel are at all different levels and that makes it very difficult to teach. Also I think that if the students were taught how to work in groups the different levels could work together to solve the different problem. When a student can explain how to do a problem to someone else you know that they understand the task.

Talk and Discussion in Classrooms

After seeing the prompt given for this week’s note-blog, I started thinking about the importance of discussion in my classroom. There are a number of different types of discussion that occur in my kindergarten class for my placement, which include large group discussions, group discussions during centers, and regular social interactions in the classroom. Most of the discussions that take place in the classroom are group discussions that are lead by the teacher for group lessons or directions. The class starts every day with morning announcements, which leads into group lesson, which consist of a science, math, or phonics lesson. During this time the teacher does a great job of involving the students in the discussion by asking them to respond to questions, or allowing them time to offer up their own opinions or experiences. After looking at Chapter 10, “Managing Recitations and Discussions”, of Weinstein and Mignano’s textbook, they brought up an interesting point about classroom discussions by saying, “Selecting only those who volunteer or those who call out may limit the interaction to a handful of students” (pg. 306). This was an interesting outlook on children participating, and it made me think back to how this is relatable in my own kindergarten classroom. I have noticed that my teacher goes out of her way to give each and every child an opportunity to offer their ideas to the discussion, as well as making sure all students participate in some way during the discussion. Not all the students in my classroom are active participators and willing to raise their hands, so my teacher does a good job of getting them involved without making them feel uncomfortable. An example of this was when my teacher called on one of the shyer students, and asked her if she agreed with another student’s opinion, or if she had a different idea. This was a way to get her involved in the discussion, without putting her on the spot and making her to feel like the spotlight was on her. Weinstein and Mignano also state, “those who volunteer are often high achievers, [so] calling only on volunteers is likely to give you a distorted picture of how well everyone understands” (pg. 306). It is vital to involve all students in order to not only assess their understandings of academic topics, but also make them feel that their opinions are valid and worthy of being part of the classroom discussions.

There are also several scaffolding practices that my teacher uses in her classroom for response-centered talk in discussion. The first way scaffolding is put in use in the class, is when my teacher models activities by giving them visual aids or activating their prior knowledge. For example, the students were doing an activity where they were working on practicing writing the numbers 4 and 5. After discussing what the students were going to do, the teacher went to the whiteboard and wrote out the numbers and showed them the steps of how to make 4 and 5’s. This was a great way to scaffold their learning by putting visual representations on the board for them to reference while they are working on the activity themselves. My teacher also described making 5’s, as being similar to making S’s, which activated their prior knowledge since they have already worked on their writing of letters, so this is another great way to scaffold their learning, and prepared them for the upcoming activity. During this modeling activity, she allowed several students to come up to the board and practice themselves, which got the students involved as well. Although there were only a few students that were able to come up to the board, the rest of the students were able to comment on the students numbers, by putting a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether they wrote the number out properly. This was a great way to involve all the students in the discussion, which is important according to Weinstein and Mignano, as they say, “the important point is to make sure that the interaction is not dominated by a few volunteers” (pg. 312). These are a few of the ways that I have noticed scaffolding and modeling occurring in the classroom in order to produce a response-centered talk in the discussion among the teacher and students of the class.

There are several students in our classroom that need a specific type of scaffolding in order for them to properly complete some assignments. One of the examples of this is seen in the modeling and scaffolding that the teacher does to a specific girl in class that is of a lower achievement level. Since she is not very familiar with her phonics or the sounds of particular letters, the teacher provides her with an alphabet chart that has all the letters of the alphabet, along with an object that starts with that particular letter, which helps students with the sound of the letter. This is just one strategy that my teacher incorporates into this child’s learning to scaffold her learning during writing workshops or reading buddies. There are other instances of these types of learning taking place, and it is important to individualize the scaffolding and modeling of learning for different students.

Brooke Somers

Recitations vs. Authentic Discussions

After today’s class, I spent some time thinking about how my fourth graders interact and communicate with one another through out their school day. Immediately, I thought about the large amount whole class discussion that occurs during the time I spend in my fourth graders’ classroom. After taking the time in class to discuss Chapter 10 from Carol Simon Weinstein’s text, Elementary Classroom Management, I have come to a realization. Initially, I was very impressed at how well my CT handled the class discussions; whether they were during science, math, reading and/or writing. However, I now believe that what I initially viewed as authentic classroom dialogue and discussion, are actually more closely related to an “Initiation-Response-Evaluation” (IRE) recitation. I’ve noticed that my CT asks a question, the students raise their hands, he calls on a specific student, and they give their answer. Once he receives this answer, he usually digs in and forces the student to elaborate and explain his/her thinking. But it typically ends there, and another question is asked, and so on and so forth.

In regards to the aspects of recitation vs. discussion that we talked about in class, there are obviously positives and negatives to each. When my CT initiates a recitation style class dialogue, he uses tongue depressors with each students’ name; therefore, everyone has a turn to talk. That, in itself, is an essential reason for teachers to continue using the recitation method, when appropriate. I think it’s very important that everyone has an opportunity to express themselves and share their thoughts and ideas. This also allows us (the teachers) the opportunity to give informal assessments of our students. Recitations also clip along at a decent pace. This is very evident in my field placement. The school day flies by and there is so much to get through. Obviously, incorporating collaboration and classroom discussion is a priority to many teachers. But how can we incorporate such a time consuming process? That’s where recitations come in; students answer questions, and we move on.

That being said, I believe that authentic classroom discussions are a must throughout the day. The practice of taking a step back and allowing the students take a more active role in their learning is very important, and that is exactly what happens when a real classroom discussion is taking place. Teachers become the facilitators, and then the spectators, and students take the active role of interacting with each other, asking probing questions, participating in meta-cognitive thinking, and encouraging one another to be creative and expressive. Allowing this practice to take place can be really difficult for a teacher. As we talked about in class, teachers are extremely used to being the “benevolent dictator”. Well, it’s time for that role to change.

As I said before…incorporating authentic classroom discussions into our daily teaching practices will be time consuming; especially in the beginning. Students are not used to this sort of dialogue; therefore, its important that we scaffold the process for them. We should have the students participate in role-plays that show the correct process of interacting where there is no right answer. We need to practice the correct ways in which we should interact with each other; i.e., with respect, integrity, empathy, etc.. Students don’t come to class with this knowledge…we have to help them gather it.

One more important thing to consider...authentic classroom discussion does not have to end when the students leave for the day. It is here, that a teacher must consider the benefits that a class blog, (click on the previous link and you'll find 50, must-read, up-and-coming teacher blogs) and/or wiki would offer. A classroom wiki/blog would be a collaborative forum that students could access at any time. They could facilitate their own discussion. Twitter could be used as a way to facilitate classroom discussion. The technology available in the 21st century is astounding and it is expanding our students' horizons for collaboration.