Group items tagged

(Week 8: Cathy, Sheila, Suzanne) This article is accessible through the link given above or by accessing the UMUC Library. This journal article focused on a study that looked at using an online homework system to identify struggling students early in the semester of a chemistry class. The program studied was Mastering Chemistry, a program supplied by Pearson textbook company. The article identified that students who took longer to complete the homework correlated ~65% of the time with students who did poorly in the class. By having an early detection system in place for struggling students, teachers could supply additional resources and modify instruction earlier than after the first exam. Teachers can benefit from utilizing electronic resources such as the Mastering Chemistry program mentioned in the article. One benefit is that teachers get immediate feedback on how much time students spend on homework and areas that students succeeded or struggled. According to the study, students who took longer to complete homework generally performed worse in the class. Utilizing the system to monitor student work can help teachers identify students who need intervention and topic areas that need clarification. References Perdian, D. (2013). Early Identification of Student Performance and Effort Using an Online Homework System: A Pilot Study. Journal Of Science Education & Technology, 22(5), 697-701. doi:10.1007/s10956-012-9423-7

(Week 7: Ruchel and Beth) This journal article is accessible through the link given above by accessing the UMUC library. This journal article discuss practical strategies to help with teaching the alphabet. The importance of the alphabet for early literacy skills is discussed in the article. The article stresses the flaw with the popular "letter of the week" way of teaching the alphabet including the fact that this method takes 26 weeks just to cover the alphabet as well as the fact that if students know a number of letters those weeks are a waste of valuable class time. Teachers can use this article to further their instructional practices in the early childhood classroom by focusing on EAK (Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge Instruction) which "emphasizes identifying the letter name and sound, recognizing the letter in text, and producing the letter form, through flexible, distributed cycles of review based on factors that influence acquisition of alphabet knowledge" (Jones, Clark & Reutzel, 2013). "Rather than the traditional method of one cycle of massed instruction, EAK instruction advocates teaching letters through multiple, distributed instructional cycles which allows for letters to be introduced, practiced, and revisited several times, as needed, during the school year" (Jones et al., 2013). References Jones, C., Clark, S., & Reutzel, D. (2013). Enhancing Alphabet Knowledge Instruction: Research Implications and Practical Strategies for Early Childhood Educators. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(2), 81-89. doi:10.1007/s10643-012-0534-9

(Week Nine: Ruchel and Beth) This article is accessible through the UMUC library via Document Express. This journal article is about differentiated instruction when it comes to teaching students the alphabet. The article highlights the fact that "Early literacy experiences vary widely... and children show substantial differences in their alphabet knowledge development. Thus, children in the same early childhood classroom may exhibit differing levels of alphabet knowledge" (Piasta, 2014). Teachers can use this article to further their instructional practice by using the strategies and assessments discussed in the article to work with students in ways that will help the individual child learn all the letters verses a whole class approach to teaching the alphabet. The article discuses how, "The familiarity of children with letters included in their own first names, for example, has long been observed" (Piasta, 2014). But when it comes to teaching the alphabet in a whole class approach teachers are not acknowledging "differences across letters, often providing the same amount and types of instructional activities for each of the 26 letters irrespective of the ease or difficulty of learning a particular letter (Piasta, 2014). The article provides an idea that all "Early childhood educators may wish to assess all the children in their classrooms or may first use established alphabet screening assessments" (Piasta, 2014). It is also helpful for educators "To conduct a diagnostic alphabet assessment, an educator presents a child with each of the 26 letters and asks the child to supply the name and/or sound for each letter. The educator marks whether the child supplied a correct name and/or sound. Although the assessment can be scored in terms of the total number of correct letter names or sounds (i.e., 0 to 26), most important for diagnostic purposes are which letter names and sounds the child knows (Piasta, 2014)...

...The article finds that small group learning "has been demonstrated to be more effective than whole-class or even one-to-one instruction in supporting young children's early literacy development (Piasta, 2014). The article also stresses the fact that educators should "plan and use effective teaching practices to deliver alphabet instruction on the selected letters. Alphabet instruction can take place in many fun, engaging, and authentic contexts" (Piasta, 2014). In closing, "Outside of planned alphabet instruction, educators may also take advantage of additional "teachable moments" to review and reinforce children's alphabet learning whenever these occur" (Piasta, 2014). References Piasta, S. B. (2014). Moving to Assessment-Guided Differentiated Instruction to Support Young Children's Alphabet Knowledge. Reading Teacher, 68(3), 202-211. doi:10.1002/trtr.1316

Teachers have long associated the benefits of Pre-K when it comes to preparing the youngest learners with early literacy and emergent reading skills. While some policy makers and families are still resistant when it comes to enrolling their very young children in preschool, there is no longer any confusion when it comes to the potential benefits. This policy brief from the National Institute for Early Education Research out of Rutgers, clearly lists and delineates the benefits of such programs when it comes to early literacy. Clear and well-organized, this policy summary and analysis helps to define and provide examples of both family and educational components that can better provide early literacy skills to children before they ever reach kindergarten.

This article provides a variety of ELL terminology and instructional guidance for early childhood educators who are looking to support children who are ELL's. The articles focus is on language and literacy content approaches and best practices that should be included in ELL educational practice programs. Along with instructional practices, this article offers essential materials, The Early English Language Development Standards, and developmentally appropriate academic language all in guidance for supporting early ELL's.

The article shares a variety of ways to implement Early Literacy Skills into a Pre-K or Kindergarten classroom. The resource provides a number of engaging opportunities for students to choose special times to focus on particular skills in your classroom.

When it comes to helping children with their first tentative steps into literacy and emergent reading skills, educational theorists and teachers alike have long advocated for greater parental involvement. Realistically speaking, it is parents who represent the first and constant source for early reading, and the encouragement needed to help even the youngest students persist in their very first experiences in reading. This article from edutopia helps to illuminate the fact that parents really need to read to their children in order to better prepare them for success in school and with the continually evolving skills associated with emergent reading. Given the fact that such parental involvement is the number one predictor of success in early literacy, the article does a nice job listing and elaborating on ways in which parents can read both to and with their children.

Many schools struggle when it comes to promoting adequate parental involvement in furnishing early literacy and the emergent reading skills of their youngest students. This is especially the case in many Title I schools, in which much of the student population represents portions of both the low-income and at-risk demographic. In order to help bridge this gap, the San Antonio Public School System has enacted their own Title I "Even Start" initiative, in which parents are better prepared to help instill and cultivate early literacy in their children, through their own education. Through this initiative, the school system is providing parents and students with joint: adult education, early childhood education, parent education, and literacy activities. By strengthening the literacy, parenting, and reading skills of parents, San Antonio is wagering that their student population will soon positively reflect this greater emphasis on emergent reading, early literacy, and family involvement.

This is the position statement developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children related to mathematics in early childhood education. This document outlines 10 strategies for high quality math instruction in the early childhood classroom, as well as, 4 strategies for educational institutions, program developers and policy makers. I found the 10 strategies for teachers to be particularly beneficial in my own reflective practice.

This article outlines many of the beliefs we discussed in our data meeting #2. Mostly the fact that children coming from low-income background often come to Kindergarten less prepared than their middle-class peers. For our exploratory question, we want to focus are research on early literacy and the impact of family involvement. This article will be a good resource as we build an argument of the importance of these factors in order to sway parents to do more with their children at home to foster literacy.

Early literacy skills begin developing at a young age, even before kids get to Kindergarten. Therefore it is vital that families consistently read with their children and expose them to text in the home. This article explains the benefits of early literacy in the home and outlines a plan for gaining more parent involvement by creating literacy bags for families to take home and use with their children. The research provided will not only help us to find answers to our exploratory question, but will also give us ideas for action plans that we can put into place in our own schools.

Most teachers believe that students have a fear of word problems, but this article will have you second guessing that. The article will have teachers thinking that word problems should be used from the start of a lesson and not at the very end of a homework assignment. Students normally perform better on word problems then algebraic solving because they have context clues to help them solve the problem.

To sum up this article you can look at the following quote from it; And he warned that the tendency to wait before using word problems could exacerbate gaps for students who struggle with algebra early on, because they may not be exposed to many word problems at all. Students have a fear of word problems because they perceive that they are too hard before they even begin working on them. This combined with the gaps in the vocabulary knowledge are making word problems more difficult for them.

This is an article that explores the strategy of introducing word problems first during math instruction. As a math teacher, I tend to introduce concepts first then build up to applying those concepts to word problems. The strategy of introducing the word problems first acts to help students solve a problem using any method they are comfortable with, without getting bogged down with the math too soon and becoming unwillingly to solve it. This could address the SMART learning goal, by helping us to rethink the way in which students approach word problems.

This is an excellent guide for early childhood teachers on one strategy to differentiate math instruction. This article outlines how to develop high quality math games related to children's literature, as well as, examples of activities that relate to specific books. I found this particularly helpful in developing math engaging math activities for my students.

This article provides a wonderful overview of ways to involve families in a learning community at school across multiple subject areas. However, there is a large focus on reading and ways to foster family involvement in developing early literacy skills at home. This will be an excellent resource for our group as we begin to design a plan for supporting students in Kindergarten in their ability to blend words and recall high frequency words in text.

This article provides developmentally appropriate strategies for supporting math instruction in the early childhood classroom. Strategies include how to set up a math rich classroom, as well as, how to children to engage in mathematical play.

CBI responds that Businesses across Europe will now want to see talks quickly gather some positive momentum early on.

The purpose of this study is to explore how a Pre-Kindergarten teacher makes pedagogical decisions that are known as emotional scaffolding for ELL children. The study describes a teacher who through implementing an optimal environment for her ELL students, was able to fully engage them in Pre-Kindergarten content. The study offers a variety of strategies of what a teacher can do to have a successful ELL early childhood school environment.

This article offers strategies to early childhood educators as they are instructing English Language Learners in language and literacy development. Highlights in this article include instructional strategies, explicit vocabulary activities, exposing students to multiple opportunities to speak with both peers and adults, and encouraging language development inside and outside of the classroom. These strategies are helpful in thinking about guiding my ELL students to improve their oral language skills.

This site provides courses for parents to prepare their children for school. There are lessons on content areas as well as to prepare for independent activities with independence time.