Week 8: Comprehension

I don’t know about the two of you, but I felt a little overwhelmed by this week’s readings. It seemed like there is so much that we can look for as a teacher when it comes to comprehension and I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.

When I applied this knowledge to my own learning style I found that I have often been the kind of person that reads texts for two different reasons and in two different ways as Tompkins suggests that we do. I read narrative/story texts for enjoyment. I often find that I don’t put a lot of effort into making connections with the text. When I’m done reading a book I can usually tell you what it is about right away, but after a relatively short amount of time (weeks to a month) I will only be able to tell you the main idea. This concept applies to non-fiction text as well I have the ability to immediately recall almost all of the facts, but after the same amount of time I may have forgotten everything. I believe that this tells me my comprehension is pretty good at being able to read for meaning and knowledge; however I don’t tend to make connections that will allow me to go back to my knowledge in the future.

In my classroom I have seen many examples of things from the Tompkins text. My CT always uses the beginning of the day as a free read time. During this period she calls small groups over for individualized mini lessons. She often focuses on the theme for the week or the unit as determined by the set curriculum. After this session she then gets the class together to do the main lesson which is often very similar to that mini lesson, but with less support.

I think the Applegate reading helped me understand the comprehension of my students the best though. As I was reading through it I could often think of students that fit the descriptions she was giving. I have a left fielder who will often give answers that seem to come from no where. There is a fuzzy thinker that can never seem to give a complete answer. However, she noted in the text that sometimes students fit into more than one category. I thought this was especially true. For example the student I thought of when she described the left fielder also came to my mind when she described the author because sometimes he will make up stories that could have been from the text, but don’t have any real support. I actually found this to be the most helpful of the readings and would recommend at least skimming it if you didn’t have to read it.

Week 7

This week's readings were very intriguing for me and were very applicable to my placement. I really liked the story about Marcus, and think that it is important as a teacher to make accomodations for kids, even if it is a pain at times. Every child learns differently and you cannot treat them all equally. Some children need more attention than others and need to be catered to in order to be able to function in the same way as other children.

Last semester, I noticed that my CT was very lax with his rules for how the students are supposed to be while he is teaching. Some kids sit on their feet and move around in their chairs while others sit sideways or even backwards in their chairs. I thought this was weird, but kind of nice in a way as it made the classroom more of a comfortable atmosphere as opposed to a strict and uptight place to be. A couple weeks after I noticed it, my CT specifically pointed it out one day in class. One of the students who always sat with his feet on the seat of the chair and then sat on his feet was a little more hyper than usual and almost fell out of his chair. My CT said, "----, now I let you sit on your chair like that because I know you need to move around in order to focus, but you need to keep it in control or I'm not going to let you sit like that anymore". I thought it was kind of cool for an elementary aged teacher to give such freedom in the class, but the kids still knew they had to respect it. I think that's a good thing because I remember not liking a lot of the rules (especially sitting up straight and having both feet on the floor, etc). Although, I'm not sure how this strategy would work out for younger kids.

I liked these readings because they showed how every student is different and it is ok to break the typical routine and rules if it helps a child perform and learn better. It is also good to be aware of these things so you know how to deal with them in the future. ADD and ADHD are also more common (or at least more diagnosed) nowadays and it is important to know how to deal with that in your classroom. In the past, I had CT's who had to specially deal with students whose parents refused to put them on medication. They had to separate that student from the rest of the class so that they could simply focus on their work, and she had to have a separate behavior system for that student as well.

Do you guys see this sort of lax/accomodation type of thing in your classrooms now at all? Do you think you would make accomodations for kids in your future classrooms, or do you think it is better to hold all students to the same standards and rules?

Week 6 writing samples

I collected a handful of writing samples from my class and I chose to analyze two of them. I chose G, a Caucasian boy who seems to do well on most assignments and does not need assistance too often. I also chose D, an African American girl who transferred to the class last semester, who tends to struggle and need assistance on certain assignments. 

G's writing would fall under the category of stage 3: Within-Word Pattern Spelling. I believe this because he does not abbreviate any words which is common in stage 2. he spelled some long vowel words correctly but did confuse some spelling. He is 7 years old so it would be appropriate for him to still be developing into this stage.  Some examples of his incorrect but very close spelling words are: "yestorday," "toco," "wen," "watchd," "aet," and "crem.  Some words that he spelled correctly are: "went," "home," "movie," "ice," "then," "bed," "bell," "got," and words like "I," "to," and "we."

D's writing would fall under the category of stage 2: Letter Name-Alphabetic Spelling. I believe this because she does more than scribble and make letters, but she has not quite reached stage 3 where students learn long vowel patterns and r-controlled words. D can represent phonemes in words with letters but her spelling is very abbreviated.  Her writing sample is, "I am gng to tolg n t is gowg t b fun t n t is go nto b fun t bekz i b n t w z funt." I'm not positive where some of the spaces are supposed to go, so I may be a little off, however it is clear (until maybe the end for me) what she is attempting to write but she is leaving out important vowels. I think she is only at the beginning level of this stage because she has yet to achieve other aspects of it, but she has the understanding of consonant sounds. An example on page 168 of the beginning level of this stage would be to spell dog as D and cookie as KE and I think that her writing sample shows some of these abbreviations in it.

Do you guys notice a range of writing in your classroom? D is on the younger side (I think) of students in the class, and she transferred. Do you think any of this has an effect on her writing, and would you consider her to be struggling or at an appropriate level? I think that G is one of the 7 year olds in the classroom and I'm not sure if that has anything to do with his writing or not, either. Also, this is first grade, I forgot to mention that!

Week 5

I can really relate to the readings on ESL programs in schools. Like the scenario with Dora in the Mohr reading, I have witnessed similar situations in other placements. In one of my other placements, I was in a classroom where there were 18 different countries represented. I would go with a few of them to a resource room for language arts (not an ESL one though)and watched the instruction they received. Later on, I found out that these two girls, who were twins, were held back a year because their English was not proficient enough. Furthermore, these kids were in a household where their parents only spoke Spanish (they, however, did not speak Spanish) and one of their older siblings (much older, she was away at college) was really the only one they talked to, and she spoke English. So, these girls basically raised themselves and had no communication with their parents. Their problem wasn't that English wasn't their first language, but that there were absolutely no resources at home to help them with their learning, even the most basic things like acquiring a language well. They were given homework and they hardly ever did it because they didn't have the help they needed at home, something that did not help their progression.

Currently, I am also in a diverse classroom, but the majority of these students are proficient in English at this point. The school I am at, though, has multiple rooms dedicated solely to ESL programs and a lot of children benefit from them. There are only small groups of kids who go in there at one time, and from what I can see, the kids usually look like they are very comfortable and enjoy being in there. Do any of your guys' schools have those types of classrooms, or are your schools not very diverse?

This article opened my eyes to what ELL's go through during a typical school day. I never really gave it thought to how school would be for them and how lost they are during most activities. I never had ELL's as classmates growing up, and have only seen limited amounts of them in my placements. It would be such a struggle though, and I hope that I will be able to accommodate any ELL's I might have and hopefully make school a little easier and more applicable/understandable for them in the ways that the article suggested.