Group items tagged

(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

Quizlet is a tool that allows teachers to create flashcards, (mock-up) tests and study games. When designing activities, teachers can add pictures and voice over. Teachers can monitor their students' progress and the time they spend on the activities. The activities can be assigned by the teachers but students can go back to Quizlet on their own to review or prepare for an assessment.

This article is a resource for teaching content area vocabulary.

Hundreds of games and activities for a variety of subjects (including math, science, language arts) and all grade levels. Many activities include quizzes to check for comprehension.

This book is a guide to help young girls get a better understanding of the changes that their bodies are going through. Girls get a straight forward explanation of issues they will encounter in a language that makes it easier for them to grasp.

This book is a guide to help young boys get a better understanding of the changes that their bodies are going through. Boys get a straight forward explanation of issues they will encounter in a language that makes it easier for them to grasp.

This is a great resource for French teachers (it is no part of my DAP - it is just a blog I want to share with my peers) : a lot of recorded conversations up to level B2 to work on listening skills. Scripts are available as well.

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.

This website is a great resource for the early childhood classroom. The "picture pairs game" helps with letter recognition.

Within the website "Starfall" for beginning level readers there is an entire letter practice session; it is in the form of an interactive game. All of the letters of the alphabet are presented and students are able to click on one. It then takes the student through an interactive presentation (visuals and sounds) of that letter: it shows the upper and lowercase form of the letter, makes the letter sound, shows and says words that begin with that letter and dictates a sentence to students using many words beginning with the chosen letter. This would be good for students who are struggling to identify the letters of the alphabet and their sounds; good for repetitive, independent practice as students could use this by themselves on a computer.

On Starfall.com, there is an entire phonics section titled "Learn to Read" that begins with focus on beginning sounds, making words and word families and gradually gets harder as you progress through. It is an interactive making words game where students that are playing can hear a word, see a matching picture, select a letter that begins the word, hear the sound that the selected letter makes and hear the completed word - all in the context of word families. The game is also self correcting - there is a buzzer noise if you select the wrong beginning sound/letter, so students know to choose again. Within the "Learn to Read" section, there are also books that use the words from the making words activities and videos for students to watch. This would be a great tool to use for a student to independently practice phonics at a literacy center when they can't be working with the teacher because it is visual, it reads to the student, it is easy to use and follow, and it is self-correcting so that students are practicing correctly.

This website aligns to my teams EQ by discussing ways educators can differentiate their instruction ELL students (and all students when we really think about it). The resource created by Karen Ford (2011) talks about "how differentiated instruction is not the same as individualized instruction...it is a matter of presenting the same task in different ways and at different levels, so that all students can approach it in their own ways (Trujo, 2004)." Information is also shared focusing on the ELL population and ways teachers can successfully differentiate to support their learning.

Example of how a poster project can address all modes of communication.

For teachers looking to keep students learning even outside of the classroom, creating a blog platform for each classroom would be key. Edublogs can be used for e-portfolios and class sites. By uploading videos, pod-casts and notes, my language art students could have an interactive classroom to complete novel study discussions and assignments. In the past, I have used Edmodo and Edublogs is a similar platform. I would recommend for teachers.

As a goal for the next school year, I have decided to include a blog that would accompany my teaching and assignments my students would complete throughout the year. Through my searching, I discovered Kidblog. According to the site, "Kidblog is designed for K-12 teachers who want to provide each student with an individual blog. Students publish posts and participate in academic discussions within a secure classroom blogging community." For my language arts students, they would use this tool by completing and discussing discussion questions relating to a novel study (we complete at least 4 throughout the year). In regards to writing, their personal blog would be a great place to stay organized with their process of writing. I also like how this platform allows students to start an e-portfolio, especially for their writing and composition samples.