Group items tagged

This article is a resource for teaching content area vocabulary.

This source is a list of research-based strategies you can use to teach beginning phonics and phonemic awareness skills to struggling readers. It is meant to used as intervention methods.  Some of these suggested activities would be good for use in whole group scenarios but many of the activities would be better for us in working with small groups of students. Most of the suggested activities are multi-sensory and interactive.

(Week 8: Javon and Kim) I found this article on UMUC in the online Library. Traditionally, classrooms are not assessment-centered focus. Most often students take an assessment after learning specific content, but in an assessment-centered learning environment, the teacher and students have a road map for learning and is more positive. Author and Professor, Steven L. Turner, PhD., raises an article on creating an assessment-centered learning classroom. He does this by presenting PILOT -an acronym for an assessment strategy. PILOT Assessment Strategy P- Preassessment The purpose of Preassessment is to evaluate a student's knowledge about a particular subject that will be taught. Turner suggesting asking a series of questions to gain this information (i.e. "What is the student's current knowledge about this unit", "What students are interested in this topic?" etc.). Preassessment surfaces student thinking and information that helpful for teachers and those designing curriculum and assessments. I-Identify student strengths and areas of need (readiness) Identifying the areas where students are strong enables them to be more engaged in the topic. Students are also able to self-assess to identify where they presently are, become aware of their challenged areas, and what it will take for their progress. L-link differentiated classroom learning experiences to district standards and learning goals Linking the classroom learning experience to standards and benchmark testing have proven to be successful. Curriculum that links with the Common Core Standards - what students in K-12 should learn in language arts and math, strengthens foundational knowledge for students. O-offer multiple in-class assessment opportunities Offering multiple assessment methods allows the student to take control of their learning while putting them in the "driver's seat." Although this step could be time consuming it shows the student that the instructor cares and is conc

The article speaks about providing adequate accommodations in the classroom to support students with accommodations. The site lists and explains many options such as providing extended time, using note-takers, accommodating those with hearing and visual impairments and many others. Please review and be aware of the needs of our children in order to serve them well!

This resource provides teachers with printable activities that can help students build skills linked to the foundations of reading such as: - Vowels -Word Families -Sight Words -Alphabet -Phonemic Awareness -Syllables Grade Level: PK-2 Most of the resources are available for free, although some of the resources are available for purchase.

This website provides teachers with free printable center activities for students in grades K-5. All of the activities are well organized under different categories relating to the five core components of reading: Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. All of the resources also provide teachers with detailed instructions on how to play each of the games.

Week 7: We are always looking for new strategies for teaching fitness to our middle school students (the article focuses on students aged 13-19). Focuses not just on their physical ability but also their cognitive abilities. When we discussed this reading we all agreed when the article said " Be aware that many teenagers have a short attention span. Create variety to keep them excited and engaged. Circuits, boot camps, strength training and partner yoga are great choices for teens." We recently did a circuit workout that included all of those things. (Stevenson, 2013)

The website helps guide teachers as well as parents to focus on the building blocks of reading and writing. This Pre-K guide is designed to walk teachers through several important building blocks, including sounds, print awareness, letters and more. Within each section, you'll find easy to read and use resources for learning more, and for trying some activities within your setting. Short videos bring concepts to life, booklists provide ideas for extension, and we provide guidance about when to have concerns about a child's development.

Week 9 - Lauren Geier (partner) This article is an important complement to any discussion on assessment: what kind of feedback will help our students improve? Wiggins describes feedback as "information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal' and as such it needs to be goal-referenced, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly, timely, ongoing and consistent. Wiggins elaborates on these key characteristics; often using sport to illustrate his point. He also gives examples to differentiate feedback from advice and evaluation and grades. This is a great article for teachers because it is very concrete and gives us very clear advice on how to improve the efficiency of our feedback. While some of these essentials may seem obvious, the feedback we give our students on a regular base might not meet all these criteria and it is an important read if we want our assessment to really help students progress.

I really like this article because I feel that this is an important topic that every educator should look at. It is very important for students to receive positive and negative feedback because it will only make them better. It will help the students become aware of what is expected of them. Feedback can come from comments verbally or written on rubrics, etc. The students progress will continue to grow when they receive quality feedback.

WEEK 4, Name: Julie - 2ND Grade Teacher SMART Goal: At least 80% of students in grade two will be reading level K books or above by the end of 6 weeks. SUMMARY: This article focuses on reading instruction, and discusses why it is important for parents and educators to familiarize ourselves with what scientific-based research tells us about teaching reading comprehension. The topics covered in the article includes scientific research on phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency instruction, vocabulary instruction, and text comprehension instruction. The article determines that there is not a one size fits all solution in reading comprehension intervention. For instance, the article states that students that have underlying decoding or fluency weaknesses would most likely also need instruction in vocabulary and comprehension strategies.

SMART Goal: Given one month, students in below grade level reading groups will be able to increase their reading level by at least one level. This resource is useful for teachers looking to improve the reading abilities of young students. When discussing phonics instruction, this article aides educators in articulating the significant relationship between letters of written language and sounds of spoken language to developing readers. In addition to addressing the fundamentals of phonics, this resource offers methods for fluency instruction, such as repeated oral reading.

An informative and engaging article that provides eight solutions to tackling the achievement gap.  It is well organized and written with clear reasoning for each solution.

I really enjoyed this article. As a new instructor I am constantly looking to engage my adult students. Through my instruction, making that personal connection is so important. Once you make that personal connection I find that students start making a personal connection with their assignments as well. I find having a non-academic conversation at the beginning of class can help the students feel involved classroom citizens.

This article really gives great advice on how teachers can help close the achievement gap by changing small things they do in the classroom. The two things that stuck out to me was allowing more time and progress monitoring. Sometimes time is all a student needs to succeed. When students feel rushed they end up just picking whatever answer they think is right or just something to complete the assignment. Allowing students to return to their unfinished work could really help students concentrate knowing that they don't have to rush to finish an assignment. As far as progress monitoring goes, it helps when the teacher really cares about making sure the students are on the right track and that their parents are aware of the work they have completed or would need to complete to get them on track.

(Week7: Jim, Sabrina, Jennifer) This Journal article is accessible through the link given above through the UMUC Library The focus of this article is small group alternative lessons that will help with differentiated reading instruction. The article itself identifies how students in the elementary grades struggle with Phonemic Awareness. Specifically in kindergarten and First grade and continuously miss the benchmark when being assessed. The article also Identifies what differentiated instruction looks like in this setting as well as many example activities on guided reading and other strategies to help address students who are struggling. Teachers are able to use this article as a reference for activities that they can incorporate into the classroom during their reading or guided reading block. The 3 members in our team all work in a secondary school and noticed that many of the activities or lessons were really geared toward elementary students. However when reflecting on the struggling students in our own classes on this topic we quickly realized that those students were indeed on an elementary reading level. Therefore we might not use the exact same strategies but rather adapt them as they do in the article to fit the needs of our learners and make them more age appropriate. Reference: Kosanovich, M, Ladinsky, K, Nelson, L, Torgesen, J,. (2007) Differentiated Reading Instruction: Small Group Alternative Lesson Structures for All Students. Guidance Document for Florida "Reading First" Schools. Florida Center for Reading Research ERIC Journal. pp. 11, Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED498777.pdf

This is an article about the RTI program and how students who are English Language Learners can benefit from using certain strategies and what areas they might struggle in. Teachers could use this resource as a guide to how to implement their own interventions for their students.

This website gives a good overview of what RTI is, as well as a background and makeup of ESOL learners in the United States. The article also provides teachers with strategies on how to teach certain skills to ESOL students, such as using a table that includes a picture and the word in both English and Spanish. As a user of RTI at my own school, I have seen the positive effects of this tool.

(Week 8: Michele, Ericka and Spencer) This article was retrieved using a search on Diigo. It can be accessed using this link http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/diversity/response-to-intervention-implications-for-spanish-speaking-english-language-learners In the article, Elsa Hagan provides the reader with insight into ways ELA teachers can improve reading levels of their Spanish-Speaking ELL students. Currently, there is a 29% gap in reading level with Spanish-Speaking ELL students when compared to other ELL students. To help bridge the gap, strategies need to be utilized. One involves the use of Response-to-Intervention (RTI) model to aid in monitoring the individual progress of all ELL students with an extra emphasis placed on the Spanish-Speaking students in the program. This will involve continuous monitoring of the Spanish-Speaking ELL students to ensure they are receiving the appropriate intervention strategies for their current level. Along with using RTI, the author indicates that a Phonological Awareness is needed. By aiding the ELL students ability to "process and manipulate" the sounds of the English language, their ability to read and comprehend information in English will improve. While this article was intended more for ESOL course teachers, the information provided can be utilized with all educators who have an ELL student in their class. The article identified that the Spanish language only has approximately 22 sounds where the English language has double the number of sounds. To aid in the improvement of reading in ELL students, we as non-ESOL class teachers, can exchange text that will be a lower reading level but still mean the same. Reference: Hagan, E. (2010) Response to intervention: implications for spanish-speaking english language learners. Retrieved on October 30, 2018 from http://www.rtinetwork.org/learn/diversity/response-to-intervention-implications-for-spanish- speaking-english-language-learn

This article describes the need to address the cultural gap that exists in our society. The author focuses on a first grade teacher, Lauren Mead, in Kirkland Washington and her journey to connect with her students on a deeper level. The article goes on to highlight sentiments from other educators about cultural awareness. The remarks of one teacher were very profound: "First and foremost, let your students know that their lived experiences are valid and valued. They have every right to hold on to who they are, what they know, and what they live, even if sometimes they have to stop and work through differences," he says. "But you also have to show them how to navigate our school culture so they can succeed." Understanding that more than achievement gaps exists in our classrooms will help educators engage students and begin to see progress in closing the learning and instructional gaps that are present.

Wow, very interesting article. I agree with the article in that it is important to value your student's diversity. I have a melting pot of students in my class and I am trying to get to know each family on a deeper level. This will allow me to make connections with this student and hopefully understand any barriers that may be relevant to their learning.

Instructional and Learning Gaps aren't always attributable to pedagogy or technology. I find it's more often the teacher-student relationship.

WEEK 7 - Chris Baugher, Patricia Bankins and Alison Burns - First reading. "This paper investigates how pre-service teacher education can provide a strong literacy foundation for content area teachers. Pre-service teachers emphasized their growing awareness of how literacy strategies can enhance student learning in their specific subject areas." (Orr, Kukner and Timmons, 2014)

This article gives an interesting insight to content area literacy and infusing literacy into science and math classes. I was particularly interested in the different ways the sample teachers incorporate literacy strategies into their teaching. They talk of expanding notions of what learning and assessment can look like in science and math. Teachers must have a solid content knowledge themselves to be able to express "the most useful forms of representation of those [topics to be taught in the subject area and] ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations-in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others. (Schulman, 1986, p. 9)

The article supports this week's activity and Willigham's video on content knowledge improving reading skill. The first section in 'content area literacy" says it all: "Content area literacy is the ability to acquire understandings of, and think critically about, new content in a discipline using reading, writing and multiple other forms..." (Draper, 2002; Heller & Greenleaf, 2007; Kane, 2011; McKenna & Robinson, 1990) The article as a whole supports and builds upon the importance of not only literacy but also what assessments could look like and what they should reflect. Lastly, "[b]ecause literacy is important in all subject areas, content area teachers can plat a significant role in their students' literacy development" (Alger, 2007, 2009; Draper, 2002; Lind, 2008, Heller & Greenleaf, 2007). Before students can learn the material, we as teachers must become familiar and competent enough in the content to not only explain the ideas but to show them and relate them to the students' lives and prior knowledge.

Week 8: Partner: Cecile Droz This article discusses a new way to give student's warm-up exercises. Instead of having them complete them at the beginning of class, the students will complete the warm ups up to 3 days before they are due. The warm-ups will prepare the students for the upcoming week of assignments. The best type of warm-up assignments give the students a scenario that they are familiar with. It is important for the educator to determine if there are any misconceptions by looking at the warm-ups to determine what concepts need to be addressed again.

Although not everything described in this article applies necessarily to all subjects, the idea that teachers need to be more aware of the prior knowledge students have before they present new materials is very interesting. In second language, for example teachers use students' oral and written productions to assess their command of grammar but before any cultural or historical unit, it would make sense to address prior knowledge and rectify what needs to be rectified before introducing new ideas/material.

The use of warm-ups as a combination of extension, priming, and pre-assessment is novel. This gives students time and mental space to make a prediction and then bring it to class, prepared and ready to learn. I will definitely be employing this in a class I am designing next year.