Wednesday, Nov. 5 at Glan Alpine

On my second visit to Glen Alpine I think my teacher was a little bit more relaxed. She didn't seem quite as angry and didn't seem to speak with so much attitude in her voice. The students worked on the first paragraph to their stories today. The writing prompt is you're a leaf! The students are supposed to describe their journey as a leaf. Each day the students work on their stories a little bit. I really like the prompt idea as well as the writing schedule the students were on. The first day they brainstormed ideas, the next day they write their first paragraph, then over the next few days they write their body, and then finally their conclusion. For the most part, the students didn't seem to have a problem getting motivated or finding something to write about. One thing that I noted about the day was that the teacher made a good use of her time in the classroom. The students transitions were pretty smooth and quick, something I definitely hope to accomplish. The teacher met in the back of the classroom with students one-on-one while the other students did individual or group work. Another thing that I notcied and also want to incorporate into my classroom is the fact that the students were always doing something constructive. An idea that I thought sounded like fun is that the students are picking poems or stories to memorize and perform as a speech. I helped type up some of the poems and stories that the students had chosen. I definitely want to use this idea or something similar to it in my classroom. The poems and stories usually tended to be funny and were very entertaining. I really hope that I am there on the day of the performances because I can't wait to see the personal touches the students put on their speeches.

There is one activity in the fifth grade class that I would change somewhat. Every day the students either read their guided reading novel independently or in groups. After they read, they answer more questions on the story in their worksheet packet. I just feel like there isn't very much creativity in this guided reading lesson. The students read and answer the questions. There is no creative art project or further research project or anything creative that could add a little interest into the story. The worksheets in the packet definitely provide a hard copy for important parts in the story and help children remember and understand certain details. I just think that there should be something else; something that allows the students to make it relevant to themselves and their interests. I think that if I were to use this type of lesson in my future classrooms I would be sure to take it a step further and add in some creative activities besides the informative worksheets.

First Day at Glen Alpine

I am at the school Glen Alpine in Burke county, and Chantell and I are in a fifth grade classroom. Both of us are a little unsure about out teacher. The whole first day we didn't really do anything, and we both kind of felt more like a burden than wanted. The teacher told us at the end of the day that next time we would do something, and we arranged all the dates and details for the lessons Chantell and I will be teaching. Our teacher seemed to have a bit of an attitude that she may not have realized was so strong. One of the first things we saw when we got into the classroom was the teacher as a male student a question about the part of the story the students had just read. The boy could answer the first half of the question, but not the second half. Basically, she called him out and made him look stupid in front of the rest of the class. When he told her he couldn't remember she could easily have said something along the lines of next time try paying closer attention to the important details when you read because this is important to the novel. Instead, the teacher rolled her eyes and said something along the lines of didn't you just read? Didn't you remember anything? God try really reading next time, and the went on to ask another student. The student had volunteered to answer the question, and you could tell that he was hurt by her reaction. I'm glad I really got to see this type of situation because I never, ever want to react that way to a student no matter what else has happened that day. I just don't think there is an excuse. The other thing Chantell and I both agreed on was the teacher's interactions with a new girl. Our first day in the class was also a little girls first day in the class as well. On a more positive note, I'm still excited about working with the students and being in the school all day. The teacher could have been having a very stressful day and our later visits may prove much more fruitful and exciting.

Incorporating Reading Books and Novels into All Classroom Subjects AND Interactive Websites

I have always loved, and still love, reading, and I want to be able to incorporate them into all different types of subject areas. Books can be such a fun, motivating, and informative tools for all subjects. I want to be able to have a massive classroom library with all types of varieties and genres. I've already started collecting and I have around a hundred to one hundred and fifty books, mostly upper elementary chapter books. I'm constantly on the lookout for great nonfiction picture books, science books, biographical and autobiographical books, etc. The Busy Teacher's Website - Elementary has a variety of great lesson plan links and interactive website links, including science lessons. There is a link to the Cool Science for Curious Kids website which the Busy Teacher Website describes as"Excellent science site explores animal classification, air quality, metamorphosis, and other science topics in a graphical and easy to read format. Includes experiments. Designed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute." The website combines reading and literature with a variety of scientific ideas. The CyberKids website has a reading room, puzzles and games, a launchpad, and a free online magazine. The Kids National Geographic website has a ton of great interactive links, and although it isn't geared toward reading and literature, it is full of exciting text for children to read and relate to real life. I also found a competition called ThinkQuest Junior that allows submission by grade of an educational website, which my future classes could create some type of reading/literature website. It could be interactive poems or stories, the possibilities for the website ideas are endless even when narrowed down to the reading genre. I just want to be able to provide a fun, fresh place to read and incorporate new ideas to get the children more excited about reading. I also searched the web for history related lesson plans that include a variety of literatures. Through that search I found a great lesson unit called Literature Circles for World Theme unit. The unit uses a wide variety of literature to meet the standards for social studies with learning about various cultures. You could follow the lesson exactly, or I would prefer to research all the countries I will be using and choose my own books, although that is a lot of work. However, I think doing it myself is better in the long run when it comes to teaching the subject matter. I'll know the subject inside and out having researched and read all the material instead of having just read an already prepared lesson plan with a select group of books. I also like the idea of personalizing it to the needs of my classroom.

Word Walls

I think the general idea of a word wall is a great idea, especially for early elementary classrooms where there is a variety of levels of emergent literacy. In fact, the grade level doesn't really matter because a word wall can be adapted to any educaional level. Word walls also have the ability to be extremely creative and to allow the students to help create the word wall itself. As a class, you can decide what kind of theme you want the word wall to have. What color do you want the background, the border, the background of the words, and the words themselves. Word walls can be used to gain general vocabulary or can be applied to specific books or units. You can create a 'name' word wall at the beginning of the year for a number of great reasons such as simply learning everyone's name in the classroom, to choose the helper of the day, disciplinary measures, etc. I definitely want to have a word wall in my classroom, and a name wall as well. I really want to come up with some creative ideas for a word wall that goes along with an unit or a book. I think that a word wall would be extremely helpful for helping students learn words from particular periods of time, cultures, and specific jargon (i.e. scientific terms). I found a website that is made by a retired California teacher who taught for thirty-two years. She has all kinds of lesson plans and ideas on her website to help teachers. She has a great link to word wall ideas with weeklt word wall ideas and a main word wall and a secondary (smaller) word wall. The idea is to put the general vocabulary building words on the main word wall and have words dealing with a certain book or subject on the secondary word wall. Also, the Teacher's Network website has explicit directions for their version of a word wall. The website gives you step-by-step directions on how to create a word wall (including specific ideas), ideas for practicing the words on the word wall, teacher guided clues to help students find a specific word, and ways to be a 'mind reader.'

Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy is something that I was aware of before, but on a very vague level. Now, I feel like I have a real understanding of what emergent literacy is. Children's daily life has everything to do with the knowledge that they bring with them into the classroom. Some children may not see the importance of reading and writing because it is not a part of their life until then. Some children may have evident characteristics that someone reads to them: turning the pages from left to right, pointing at the words, pointing from left to right, telling the story from the pictures, etc. These emergent literacy characteristics are vital to the way the teacher should plan the lessons around the students. Clearly not every student is going to enter into school with the same level of emergent literacy. Therefore, your lesson plans will need to be individualized to the students needs and be flexible. One way to help students who have fewer emergent literacy skills is to pair them with students that have many more emergent literacy skills. Hopefully, the child with more skills will help the other child to pick up and understand certain concepts. On the other side, the student who is helping teach will benefit as well as his or her emergent literacy skills become more concrete. Another way to help students build their emergent literacy skills is to do daily interactive readings. Other ideas that could help are singing the alphabet song, asking comprehension questions during daily readings, creating your own ending to a story, creating some kind of rhyming game with what you're reading, simply talking about what a book is and all the parts to it, etc. The ProTeacher website has some great ideas for helping create emergent literacy skills, some of the ideas above came from this website.

SSR

I really enjoy self-selected reading because just a small amount of freedom can lead to a large increase in interests. If the main goal is solely to get students to read, it shouldn't matter what reading level the book is or whether or not they had read it before. I had one teacher that wouldn't allow you to read the same book more than once, and my thought always was, "Well what if I don't like the other books?" If I didn't like the book I wouldn't read, I would pretend to read. I consider myself rather smart, but I'm very sneaky. If I don't want to do something, especially when I was grade school ages, you weren't going to get me to do. I may pretend to stay under your radar, but I will win and I will do what I want. The fact that I was so difficult and sneaky makes me kind of thankful that I am aware of that sort of behavior. Forcing me would get the teacher and I no where, I would just fake it. The Education World website has a great link to a list of 25 ways to motivate young readers. Ideas on this page include musical books, scavenger hunts, book-word search, books on tape, green light - go (peer recommended books), etc. Books with repeated lines and repetition are great for early readers, and there are plenty of interactive websites that glorify repetition. Giving children access to a lot of Caldecott books can help their interests. Usually there is a very clear artistic reason as to why the book won the award. There are so many fun types of media used in the books on the Caldecott list, and it may get your students more interested in art as well! Link to the Caldecott information and book lists. Another great website that I found that could be really useful is a page full of reading/language arts interactive websites.

Round Robin and Popcorn Reading

I did the majority of my elementary schooling in Wilmington, North Carolina at Alderman Elementary School; I went there second through fifth grade. I clearly remember both the round robin and popcorn reading strategies from when I was in school. Round robin reading didn't really bother me much. I would read over what I had to read outloud one time, any more than once and I would make myself nervous, and then I would just listen to what people were reading. Usually, I had a hard time concentrating on what was being read, but I am a much a much more visual learner than oral learner. I would often find myself zoned out in my own head thinking about what had happened at lunch or that morning on the bus. As long as I read along with whom ever was reading than I didn't get distracted. However, when it comes to popcorn reading I dreaded it. I'm not shy, but I hate being called out. I like to know what I need to do ahead of time in order to properly prepare myself. I am very ADD and my mind wanders extremely easy. Popcorn reading was my worst enemy because I always seemed to be called on right after my mind had slipped off to the book I was reading or my favorite tv show. Then I had to scramble to find the place in the reading, and if I wasn't sitting near a friend I was out of luck and had to prepare for embarrassment. I don't think these activities had much effect on my fondness of reading, but I also have a huge imagination and love fantasy and the way you can get lost in a book's world. I can definitely see how multiple dramatic experiences with either round robin or popcorn reading can have negative effects on a child's desire to read. I also remember that my teachers would always make us to do the reading activities for so long. It felts like hours were going by, and you had to read multiple times which meant multiple screw up opportunities! I don't plan on using popcorn reading very often unless it is in a nonthreatening way and for pure assessment. There are better ways to get kids to want to read, not just force them to read.