TEMS520

"This action research project investigated the effects of daily teacher read-alouds on first graders' ability to sustain silent reading for an extended length of time." Current Issues in Education published by Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. 2011

Finding effective ways to teach today's student population is perhaps the greatest challenge facing literacy educators in the United States. As classrooms become increasingly diverse, educators struggle to find curricula and pedagogical strategies that are inclusive and affirmative yet facilitate the development of academic and critical literacies.

How might you apply some of the researcher's findings in your own (current or future) practice? Do you now of teachers who have implemented aspects of this type of critical literacy?

Prof. Clinton, In my own future practice the application from this article that I found most useful was teaching popular film and media in the classroom. In the new core curriculum I know that one of the standards includes comparing text to its corresponding film and evaluating and analyzing the changes that directors have made in adapting the text to film. It would just be a matter of finding a more current relevant film that has a corresponding novel that is grade appropriate and having students study the book before watching the film. I also see value in evaluating music lyrics in a poetry unit. As of right now the host teacher that I am working with hasn't done any of this. She abhors poetry and pretty much refuses to show films in class, although we haven't had much opportunity to since our school assigns readings based on lexile and right now there is no way to have a whole class read the same novel since their reading levels are all so different. I think with the core curriculum standards rolling out next year we'll really have to.

For my first journal, I read this article about multi-sensory language arts instruction.  It claims that if you can provide students with visual, auditory, and tactile-kinesthetic methods for learning, they are more likely to be successful.  One of the things that I agreed with most strongly that it seems many educators today shy away from is the idea that students should "practice to the point of automatization."  Automatic reading is not the key to comprehension but it is surely a necessary foundation for meaningful reading.  When I was a student, we practiced grammar and spelling until it was second-nature and generally my current abilities testify to that.  However, we have steered away from correctness in favor of sparing student egos.  I do not think that it has done them any good.  I wholeheartedly agree with this article that we MUST train our students to be good readers and writers. 

More emphasis is being placed on fluency. You can't understand what a text means if you can't figure out what it says. We don't want students to simple "bark at print" but there has to be a balance between fluency and comprehension.Was there anything in the article you would apply to your own teaching?

Barrett-Mynes, J., Moran, M. J., & Tegano, D. (2010). Supporting struggling readers using interactive read-alouds and graphic organizers. Voices of Practitioners, 5(2), 1-12. This article discusses a four week study that was done in order to determine the effects that collaborative discussion and child-created graphic organizers used during read-alouds had on children's comprehension. Over the course of the study it was found that: 1. The children need less guidance from their teacher and became more collaborative with their peers in their discussions. 2. The use of graphic organizers became more child-created and required less teacher guidance. 3. Students in the study received higher scores on standardized tests. The article concludes that both collaborative discussions and child-created graphic organizers enable students to construct new knowledge and begin to organize their thinking in response to the comprehension of text. It was also found that by depending less on the the teacher for guidance, children were able to take more control and ownership of their learning. When I taught first and second grade, I loved using graphic organizers and read-alouds to help build reading and comprehension skills. I liked the fact that graphic organizers can be as creative and/or as structured as you would like. The most important factor for me is that graphic organizers can be used with any subject to help a child organizer their learning in a way that is helpful for them as learners.

I agree, it seems like the student's in the study would have had to have some prior experience with graphic organizers to be able to create their own. I loved using graphic organizers in my classroom, although with 1st and 2nd graders they were primarily teacher guided, I think that they were helpful for students to organizer their thoughts and be able to have a visual representation.

In first/second grade it is absolutely appropriate for the teacher to guide and scaffold the student use of graphic organizers.

Journal # 1 Shedd, K.M., & Duke, N.K. (2008). The power of planning developing effective read-alouds. Beyond the Journal Young Children on the Web. November, 1-6. The article that I read is about the importance of reading aloud to students and the effectiveness of read-alouds. The study has found the effectiveness of read-alouds depends on a number of factors: * open-end questions * a careful selection of high-quality text * teacher excitement while reading read-alouds are important part of children's development of literacy skills. The article gave many suggestions on how to select books appropriate for grade level and for the audience. There were also ideas on how to get students involved before, during and after the read alouds. After reading this article, it made think about how I do read-alouds in my classroom and if I incorporate all the suggestions from this article during my read-aloud.

What do you think you might do differently as you do read-alouds in your classroom? I found it interesting and found myself reflecting on my practices. I love to read aloud to students, and as a classroom teacher, did it almost exclusively for the enjoyment and the experience of story for students. As I learned more about developing literacy, my read-alouds changed, and became more intentional. But after reading this article, I think I could do even more to plan for even more effective use of the strategy. I really like the idea of using the sticky notes to mark spots to question. (PS--I love Nell Duke. She really knows her stuff. Got to see her at the MRA pre-conference last year.)

I do read alouds throughout the day, which are books that we need to read for our Reading program, science or Paragon (history). At the end of the day I do author of the week, we talk about the author, illustrator, I go to the library every week and grab 5-7 books from the same author and don't really look inside the books to see if it is age appropriate. There has been a few times that the books have been over my students heads or too babyish for them. After reading the article I really need to take a minute and look at the pages and make sure the books are appropriate for my students.

This article was about labeling "readers" and how teachers identify students by whether they were or were not "readers". Not everybody has the same definition or meaning of the word "reader". What characteristics do we as teachers assume someone possesses when he or she is (or is not) a reader? The article suggests that most people refer to the word "reader" as someone that possesses the ability to recognize letters and decode some words and sentences. Yet the people in the study often categorized reading as an activity that they regarded as more focused, literary, and part of high culture, not daily life. Also, the reading that happens every day is not what most teachers mean when they talk about a student being a reader. This article further states that being a "reader" is generally a positive identity for young children and often negative for adolescents. The following paragraph was meaningful to me and truly hit home: I believe it is important that we talk more with our students about what kind of qualities we expect from the people we identify as readers. For one thing, we need to explore with students the multiple and varied nature of reading. We need to remind them that they are constantly being readers as they go about their lives, and we need to talk with them about all the ways they engage in reading and for what purposes. (We can also remind them that reading is often pleasurable and can be so in school as well as outside of it.) After reading this article, I believe teachers should take into account that outside of the classroom students are reading such texts as video game magazines. I plan on emphasizing to my students that good readers do not necessarily read fast, do not necessarily understand what they read the first time, usually read important works more than once, and often finish reading with more questions than they started.

"I plan on emphasizing to my students that good readers do not necessarily read fast, do not necessarily understand what they read the first time, usually read important works more than once, and often finish reading with more questions than they started." This is so important, Renee! Students need to know that even adults as experienced readers sometimes struggle with text or go back and re-read. Kelly Gallagher talks about how, as a high school English teacher, his kids don't realize that he "gets" all the symbolism, etc. in the Shakespeare works because he's read them 20 times. This article also gave me a different perspective on our "Me as a Reader" activity. Thanks for sharing!

Lyons, W. & Thompson, S.A. (2011, October). Guided Reading in Inclusive Middle Years Classrooms. Intervention in School and Clinic, 47: 158. Retrieved January 27, 2012, from http://isc.sagepub.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu/content/47/3/158.full.pdf This study was interesting, because it focuses on something that I am sure so many teachers struggle with - how to teach students who demonstrate a wide variety/range of ability and needs. This study took a really "rough" socioeconomic level of 4th -8th graders and their teachers, and using guided reading as their main method of instruction DID see an 80% of students advance at least one, if not more levels. This was attributed to the fact that in small guided reading groups teachers could spend more time with small groups of students, targeting individual needs. That was the warm fuzzy. Of course, the part that this article mentions in the end, and would stop most teachers in their tracks before attempting to duplicate this, is that each classroom was equipped with several teachers and teacher assistants to make this work. Additionally, there were many times where the rest of the class NOT consisting of the 3 to 5 students in the guided reading group were supposed to work independently. All in all, every study has its flaws - the interesting thing here is that despite them, students still improved overall.

oops...ok I edited my post and stuck the citation in it...thanks!

Interesting to note some of the different terms used in the Canadian Schools, such as "families living in vulnerable circumstances" and "enhanced funding." Probably akin to our use of "at-risk" and "Title I." You are right, most teachers would "stop in their tracks" with regard to the two teachers. This article refers to an inclusion setting, in which the special ed teacher "pushes in" with the special ed students and co-teaches with the gen ed teacher. I did a NCA QAR visit last spring in a school with 4 or 5 teachers in a grade, and 4 paras in the school. It was either 2nd or 3rd grade. Every day at the designated time, all the paras would go into that pod of the school, and the students would move around to different teachers or paras and everyone got guided reading every day. It requires a shift in thinking and lots of collaboration and cooperation, but it can be done.

I found this article while looking up info for my research paper. A high school in Alabama created a school wide literacy program to improve the literacy level of every student. Content teachers realized the impact and important role they have in teaching reading to their students. The principal and literacy committee made it their job to see each student as a face with needs, not a statistic. A great article for school improvement committees or just reading to show what committed high schools are capable of.

+2 Monica, Please list the citation info. Since you tagged it from within the secure library site, it does not go to the article. Thanks! :) (Note to self: learn more about DOI links.)

http://www.nassp.org/portals/0/content/48744.pdf This link should get to the article.

Jabberwocky is a poem written by Lewis Carroll. It is from his novel: Through the Looking Glass. It is written in nonsense language and has potential to be a fun poetry lesson for high school. The website offers ideas for using as well as background information on the poem. My kids knew about it from Johnny Depp in the current Alice in Wonderland movie. It might also work as a short piece of text for teaching some of the strategies we have talked about in class.

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