Journal Article #2 Information I shared with my principal while student teaching - 5 views
I Entered the Citation above of the book I mentioned in my last post.
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Book Review: The Daily 5 - 18 views
This book is a wonderful! The students become very independent and teachers are able to work with guided reading groups or individual conferences. It amazing what students can be trained to do with...
Book Review: "The Teaching For Understanding Guide - 5 views
I don't think I've seen this book before. It sounds intriguing. I'll have to check it out.
Book Review: Change is Gonna Come, Transforming Literacy Education for African American... - 10 views
This sounds like an interesting read. I have a couple of journal articles you might like. I have always been interested in this subject, because part of my own journey toward literacy has been ba...
Journal 2: 10 Strategies to Enhance Students' memory - 5 views
Nice job picking out the highlights of--what was the article about again-- lol Seriously, some great points that apply to more than just reading.
Journal #3: T-4, Guided Highlighted Reading, and Close and Critical Reading (CCR) - 13 views
Hi Michelle!!! Yes, everything you mentioned for Question 2 is what we also have our students focus on. How is the text portraying the article? How is dialouge used between characters, etc. I comp...
Journal #1 Studying the "Reading Transition" from High School to College: What Are Our ... - 6 views
A thorough analysis of a fascinating article! I think when the authors were referring to "minutiae of students' rituals" it was more to help the reader understand the students wrote in their readin...
Journal #2 Words Made Flesh: Fusing Imagery and Language in a Polymorphic Literacy - 5 views
Another fascinating article. I appreciate how you share your thinking about your own literacy experiences, and what you hope to bring to students.
Journal #1: Mixing It Up in Middle School: Themed Booklists to Entice Struggling Adole... - 6 views
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Brett Hewitt on 29 Jan 12For my first journal article I read an article about helping struggling readers in the middle school age range. The reason that I found this article interesting was because there are so many students that I encounter at the high school level that have a very difficult time reading. Sometimes I wonder how they are even able to complete assignments with a lack of reading skill. If students were able to improve their reading level before they got to the high school level it would be far easier for these students to learn. I learned through this article that the San Diego area has a program called the Accelerated Literacy program to help struggling readers. This program has teachers specifically assigned to improving struggling students' literacy. They work with the students in a more direct fashion to help them improve their reading. I like the idea of focusing on improving this skill with the students because it is such a big part of what the students will need for the rest of their lives. Also, these teachers in the Accelerated Literacy program came up with themed booklists to incorporate the curriculum as well as finding books that students would find interesting. This, to me, is a very important piece. If a teacher is able to spark an interest in reading these students will probably be a lot more likely to be successful at it. Also, if the books are tied to the curriculum, these students will also be learning pertinent information. I know lots of school districts have programs like this, but I really liked the idea of coming up with booklists that might spark interest with students. Improving reading ability in students impacts how they will be able to learn for the rest of their lives.
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Dianna Morrison on 30 Jan 12Brett, I liked this site and the information it provided. As having been a "second dose" reading teacher for ms students, it is always great to have leveled books that are motivating for students. Thank you for sharing! -
Colleen Fell on 30 Jan 12Brett, I think the idea of themes for students to choose from is a great idea. These students need to be challenged, but many may feel resentful and give up if schools continue to throw them literature that simply does not interest them.
Book Review: Clock Watchers: Six Steps to Motivating and Engaging Disengaged Students ... - 8 views
Great question I didn't address in the review. All the examples used are middle to high school oriented and seem to require a level of maturity that elementary students would not possess. I think...
Book Review: Derrick Jensen's walking on Water - 1 views
I choose Derrick Jensen's book Walking on Water to review, mainly because he offers specific details on how to reform education, but focuses on students' attitudes on writing and reading. Jensen te...
Journal #2: Contexts for Engagement and Motivation in Reading - 1 views
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The article I read for this journal focused on the differences between readers who are engaged and those who aren't. An engaged reader is a student who wants to read both to gain knowledge and for their own enjoyment. Sometimes it seems as you talk to students that there aren't that many of these. As you could probably assume, students who are engaged in reading are more likely to be successful readers. The reason that I chose this article was first because it was directly applicable to our class. Another was that I would like to be able to get more students to become engaged readers. If it is possible to get some students to want to read on their own it would be a great accomplishment. I think very often students don't like to read because they aren't interested in the readings they are assigned. If, as a teacher, you are able to find subject matter that can interest students they would be much more likely to be engaged readers. The research in this article found some interesting information. One interesting bit was that students' motivation to read decreased as they aged. This seems to make a lot of sense to me. For one thing I believe that very often the reading that students are assigned is very, for a lack of a better word, boring. It could be a good thing to try to provide students with a greater variety of books that may be able to evoke more motivation to read. Another part of this article spoke to the idea that relating the information in readings to real life experiences. This seems to me to be one of the most important things a teacher can do. If teachers are able to relate the information in the readings to real world experiences the students are more likely to grasp the information. Simply having the students read a text and then not providing any real-world context doesn't accomplish a whole lot. For me, the information that has stuck with me the longest is that which was related directly to stories that the instructor told
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Engagement and motivation are huge topics in education right now. Small things we can do to tap into students' interests can provide links to help students make connections between school content and their worlds.
Journal #2: Toward a Lifetime of Literacy: The Effect of Student-Centered and Skills-B... - 0 views
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This article focused on a study done in a second grade private school over a four week period. Two different instructional practices were implemented by the researcher (who was also the teacher), and observations, focus groups with students, assignment evaluations, as well as student surveys were used to collect data. The instructional practices were student-centered instructional model and skills-based instructional model. The student-based instructional model focuses on student interest in reading, small groups and personal reading time, and student driven goals with their reading. I love the idea of student -centered instructional methods in the classroom, especially in an elementary setting when student attitudes towards reading are formed and develop into life long habits. In the article, students expressed feeling better when they were allowed to make choices about the reading that they do. Observations also showed that when students were forced to read aloud the students who were struggling mouthed the words and were too intimidated to participate. Also, the advanced readers were disinterested in the reading that was given by the teacher, as they had moved beyond it. If educators expect to create enthusiastic and self directed readers, then we must allow them to feel empowered by the reading they do in the classroom. I did an article previously on given boys choices in what they read, and this practice seems to ring true in this article as well. Allowing students to read in smaller groups with peers at their reading level allows for students to gain self esteem that is so important when moving forward with their reading education.
Journal #1: English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Inst... - 22 views
Hey Michelle, your story made me laugh too. Thanks for sharing the book title, I actually have heard of it and was interested in reading it, and then just completely forgot the title. :)
Journal #2 - Comprehension through Rereading - 1 views
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Hedin, L.R. & Conderman, G. (2010). Teaching students to comprehend informational text through rereading. The Reading Teacher, 63(7), 556-565. Doi: 10.1598/RT.63.7.3 "Striving readers may view the purpose of reading as decoding an assigned section rather than building knowledge." When I read this quote, I knew that this article would be of interest to me. As my building continues to examine the ramifications of the Common Core, informational text is something of concern. Should other content teachers be required to teach reading strategies using informational text? (Here, I am hoping, my readers reply with a resounding "YES!") This article gives specific strategies to use with students, with a focus on encouraging rereading. Below is an email that was sent to my colleagues: Subject: The Secret to Informational Text Perhaps my subject line was a bit misleading... Attached may not be "The Secret" to our informational text woes, but the article details strategies we can use in our classrooms now that will help our students with comprehension. After reviewing our NWEA scores, we have all seen the difficulties our students have with informational text and comprehension. The Common Core has a significant focus on informational reading and writing. In order to prepare for this shift in instruction and curriculum, I have found this very useful article. "Teaching Students to Comprehend Informational Text Through Rereading," details key ideas like helping our striving readers set the purpose for reading, identify text features, and strategies we can use in our daily instruction to strengthen their comprehension of texts. It questions whether our students are simply great "decoders" (they can read the words because they understand sound/letter relationships) or are they truly constructing meaning. The role content teachers play in the development of successful readers is HUGE! Many of these strategies seem basic, but because of that, they will be simple t
Attachment in the Classroom - 0 views
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This article is about teacher-student relationships. The student-teacher relationship is one of the most important factors of teaching that can be neglected. The article found that enhancing teacher-student relationships is necessary to raising student achievement because that achievement is linked to adolescent's need of having secure attachments. This is like students attachments to parents, but only with teachers. Thus research has shown that students with secure attachments do better in school. It also offers some ways in which teachers can improve teacher-student relations. Some of these methods include having an increased sensitivity and have positive interactions with students, to be well-prepared for class and hold high expectations for students, be responsive to students and provide choices whenever possible, and help students be kind, helpful and accepting of one another. By understanding the roles in which teachers have in their relationships with students will help educators become more effective.
Book Review: "The Way They Learn: How to discover and teach to your child's strengths... - 2 views
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I really enjoyed this book, and it gave me great insights into how students are wired. How do they take in information and how do students use that information. There are four styles of students. The book goes into different ways of working with students and talks about how students concentrate, remember, and understand information. I liked the book because it provided useful information and tips on how to interact with students. I realize that learning styles have gotten a bad rap by some educators. Now having said that learning styles do present an interesting piece of the puzzle to how students learn. It is important to note that a learning style is a preference rather than an ability to learn. Individuals have a tendency to like information or processing to be done a certain way because there is a familiarity and comfort level. The awareness of a learning style can assist educators in setting students up for success by phrasing information in certain ways or pointing out that this information may be more uncomfortable for individuals to learn because of the way it is presented. The book is organized by learning style category and then by subject areas like concentration, understanding and remembering. The first six chapters focus on learning styles, and the remaining six chapters delve into specific topic areas as each relates to learning styles. The main topics of the book are learning styles, and three central topic areas related to learning. The topic areas are concentration, remembering, and understanding. The overall message of the book is that every person may have a dominant learning style, however each person has a certain amount of each learning styles' characteristics. Moreover as students, parents, and teachers become aware of their learning style it is meant to help them achieve and adapt to others who are not wired that way, not to be used as an excuse for poor performance or I can not do something.
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You raise some important points, LeAnn. I think also it is important to help students (and ourselves?) learn to tap into other styles to further develop them.
Book Review: "The Book Whisperer" by Donalyn Miller - 9 views
I have heard a lot about this book in recent months. The hand selection of books is amazing. I could not imagine doing that for my students. I like a lot of the ideas that you wrote about like t...
Journal #3 - High School Literacy - Voices from the Field - 1 views
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Christine Cziko, a former high school English teacher, writes about a year-long undertaking that she was a part of that sought to transform students into capable readers. Her desire to do something about the lack of reading ability that her students exhibited came out of her concern about her students' apparent inability to read independently or to understand what they read. I was greatly impacted by this whole idea. I would LOVE to do something like this at my school. I have taught high school English at a private school where many common issues don't exist and I still had students not doing the reading or not understanding what they read. However, once we read CS Lewis' The Great Divorce (which is written at a very high level) they were engaged and devoured the difficult text. We would then come together and ask questions, discuss, and analyze the text. I didn't have to beg my students to read it, they WANTED to. One of the big differences was that I talked it up and let them know that it was going to be very difficult but that people would be impressed to know that they had read it in high school. They were so proud to have read, analyzed, and understood this difficult text.
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This year my students read "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin. They absolutely loved the book and I had to beg them not to go ahead because doing so would spoil the ending. Teaching reading (or any subject matter) is so much more fun when the students are engaged. I wish we had these same experiences in everything we taught!
Journal #3: Second-Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia - 0 views
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Second-Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia Lee B. Abraham Hispania , Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 98-108 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063468 This article presents a research study where ESL students were put into 3 groups a control group, a forced look-up group, and a choice look-up group. The study was trying to find out if using multimedia would aide in the increase in vocabulary in ESL students. The study found that students in the control group had little vocabulary growth, but the students in the two other groups had the same percentage growth of 18%. When I first started reading this article, I was interested to see if using multimedia tools would increase the vocabulary. I was specifically interested in the use of technology. There is no differentiation about which types of multimedia are better. As I further read, I thought that the students who were given a choice of what to look up would make more growth, because they would be working off their own motivation, but the study showed that whether they were forced to look up words or had a choice, they made the same growth. This reinforces the importance of teaching my students to use context clues, but when that doesn't help, to learn how to use a dictionary and the computer to find the meaning for words.