Writing and Reading Workshop Microteaching

For our microteaching lesson my group focused on writing and reading workshops. A reading workshop is similar to a book club in that a group or class reads the same book and completes an assignment after finishing the reading.

My placement uses reading workshops and has throughout the entire year. Students are divided up into groups of similar reading levels and assigned a color; my placement has three colors: green, red, and blue. The green group consists of the most advanced readers and are assigned books that are at an "above grade level" difficulty. Red consists of average readers and are assigned books that are at grade level but are still challanging. The blue group consists of readers that are below grade level and struggle with fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. All groups, with the exception of the blue group, read the same book independently and complete activities after reading. The blue group meets at the back table and reads the book together, outloud along with my CT. After completion of the book and activity, the group meets and discusses their thoughts on the book and shares how they chose to complete the activity.

Writing workshops are similar to reading workshops. Ususally, the teacher poses a vague, broad prompt for the students to write about and gives the students free-range to write about anything that applies to the topic. Writing workshops are loosly directed and give the students the topic of which they are expected to write about; the students are free to exploit the prompt in any way they chose. Individuality and creativeness are the main focuses of this type of free-writing. For example, if the teacher posed the prompt, "Spring is in the air. Tell me about your favorite aspect of Spring. If you do not like the Spring time, chose another season" the students would be free to write about anything that pretains to Spring time or any other season they chose.

I see writing workshops in my classroom as well. Every morning, my CT puts up a "Daily-5"activity on the board in which one of the "5" things they must complete is a free write around a topic she posts. The students record their writings in their journals and are free to share if they wish.

Mini Lessons- Molly

For my mini lessons I worked with a group of three of the more struggling students. We played a game that had them naming and discussing the names of the letters and their sounds. They would draw a card that was face down and if they were able to name the letter and tell me what sound it made they got to keep the card. Since it is towards the end of the year these students did very well with the game. After the game we did a letters worksheet that had them placing the correct letter in the blank... for instance there was a picture of a bat and they had "_at" on the worksheet they would then sound out the word "bat" and place the "b" in the blank. As for strategies, I really made the students sound out the words on their own. If they were unable to do this I would say the word and had them These students have really made progress throughout the year. These were activities that would never have been able to be accomplished the first semester.

For my second mini lesson I worked with a student on reading "Go Dog, Go!". We first just practiced the reading. If the student was unable to figure out the word, we would "karate chop" it. This means using our hands in karate motions while saying each syllable. Then most of the time he was able to put the word together just by that strategy. After reading the story, we went back and found all the opposites. After that I had him try to think of some other opposites. When he struggled to find more I would say "hot" and then he would say "cold". So just by a little scaffolding he was able to discover other opposites that weren't present in the book.

April 18th- Molly

I think the instructional models are a great way to teach language arts! My group focused on book club and literature circles. While we were introduced to these concepts in class, I learned so much more when we looked deeper into this instructional model. I thought it was very beneficial to hear all of the other groups' presentations. It gave me insight into their model, as well as provided me with sample lessons that incorporates the model.
For my own model, I think that it has influenced my philosophy of teaching language arts because it really showed me how impacting group work can be. One of the best ways for students to learn is through discussing with their peers. Through book clubs, students have something in common to discuss and can bounce ideas between each other. I think many times this is much more valuable than listening to the teacher speak of the book or other language arts content.

April 11th- Molly

I found the Ladson, Billings article to be a very interesting one this week. This article brought up the fact that many white teachers don't see the color difference in their children because regardless of race all students should be treated the same. Some find this naive or simply disrespectful because not all children are the same and they each have their individual needs. I can see both sides to this. I think its important to see the difference everyone brings to the classroom but with that said no child should be discriminated due to their qualities that make them who they are. I did question when they compared an African American child to a blind child in the sense that in order for all to be "equal" you would need to give the blind child the same work as you would the child who can see. I think that someone with a disability is completely different than someone of a minority. I think regardless everyone should be treated equal in the sense of learning ability but obviously if students need special assistance otherwise that should obviously be done. Very interesting article!

April 25th- Molly

The Scott article really gave me insight to urban settings and teaching literature. I thought it was interesting that the teachers begin by saying that these students need extra support and motivation rather than just jumping into their theories about literature. I agreed with this statement and this is important because motivation and comfort at the classroom is the root of all learning success. One of the sixth graders was asked to write about the person that inspires her. She wrote a beautiful response about her mother. This article both shows and tells the importance of giving students in urban settings writing prompts that are authentic and meaningful. This gives the students a connection to their writing that they can build from.

In my placement I have helped my Kindergartners writing by sitting with them and really getting them to share their ideas. By sitting with them and asking them questions, this generates ideas that they then put on paper. At this age, many of the students do not think as in depth as they could. My CT really stresses that they use "detail" in their writings and the students are very aware of this so try as hard as they can to make their story as detailed as possible. Their writing has progressed immensely throughout the semester. They are all on the right track of becoming highly developed first grade writers.

April 25- Kelcie

In my placement, the classroom is fairly bare and there is little deliberate vocabulary. The very first time I met my teacher she said that having everything at the students eye level was best and nothing else should be on the walls. The students have a ton of 'works' that they are to do each day, and there are multiple vocabulary works. While the students don't have a lot of vocabulary stimulants that are visible on the walls, the vocabulary works are constantly out being manipulated. There are many works that surround the dictionary, and others focus on the students ability to alphabetize words.

Even though the students are not visibly working with vocabulary each time I am there, they have great vocabularies. Just listening to them talk shows me that they are well versed in vocabulary, and really understand words I never thought they would. I think this speaks volumes to the work that the Montessori school does. My teacher really emphasizes that the students can choose to work on things if their classwork is done, and this is really helping the students vocabulary grow regardless what they see in their classroom.

I have not however, seen very many works that focus on the definitions of words. I have to recognize that I am only in the classroom for four hours a week, but I haven't noticed any definition work. If I were to provide additional opportunities, I would create a word wall that students could add words to. It is important that students create their own understanding, and develop a contextual basis for understanding definitions of vocabulary words.

Mini-Lesson: Kelcie Ebbitt

In my placement my CT and the two other 3rd/4th grade have created groups of their highest need students and I work with them for about twenty minutes each Wednesday morning. These students are considered a part of the Strategic Intervention group and are given extra attention for comprehension and fluency. Each Wednesday we read a different book, and I make sure that I have read it before the students. The students really struggle with pace, so that is a major focus of mine.

One of the strategies I try and employ is starting off by discussing as a group what we do with punctuation, at the end of paragraphs, and what parts of the book we read aloud and to ourselves. The students run through the reading as fast as they possibly can and were really having difficulty with punctuation. After we started going over as a group what we are supposed to with punctuation the students were obviously much better; it was a nice reminder for them to pause and read at a comprehensible pace. I have seen great progress with them over the past six weeks when it comes to punctuation.

The other aspect of their reading that I really chose to focus on was vocabulary. The leveled readers they are using all cover different topics from science to fantasy. The vocabulary is varied, and often trips the students up as they read. In the beginning the students would say words they didn't know very quickly and then move on without any understanding of what the word really is. After I realized this, I let the students know if they didn't know a word they should pause and try and sound it out. If they really struggled I would help them, but the student would have to at least re-read the word and sometimes the entire sentence. When the students understood that we would not be 'skipping' words by mumbling through them, they were much more confident and tried a lot harder to read every word without my help.

The progress of the students is great. I of course only see them four twenty minutes one day a week so by no means see all the work the teachers are putting in with these students, but clearly they are working incredibly hard. It is wonderful to see the students try hard when I am watching, I just hope that my strategies such as using context words to help them understand the word they are struggling with, and reading punctuation with emphasis until it is wrote memory will help them as they read on their own.

April 25- Scott

As pointed out in the Scott article, effective literacy teaching in urban classroom settings can be difficult. A poll was taken of several urban school teachers and their answers varied but most agreed that the way they, themselves viewed teaching had to change. An urban school has different demands than one of suburban nature. Professional development is an area the teacher’s found that they could put their focus on in order to achieve this goal. Other needs of urban students that were mentioned throughout the article included time on the job and emotional support. The teacher’s agreed that exposure to the setting for a long enough period of time, would give the teacher practice for teaching in this setting. The longer the teacher has been on the job, the more he/she learns how to react and handle his or her students.

Apr 25 - Becky

It is very interesting to think about vocabulary development as being part of the Matthews effect, being that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Children with professional parents are more likely to hear more words than those from lower-class families, which means they will learn more words in a given amount of time. I have seen this from comparing schools from my hometown with schools in Lansing that I have been in. The school I attended promoted specific vocabulary instruction, along with the assumption that parents worked with their children also. However, in Lansing I did not see any vocabulary instruction nor heard/saw them use a wide range of words in their oral or written language.

I believe that increasing exposure can significantly help a student’s vocabulary, even if it’s just reading aloud to the class. They also need multiple opportunities to connect new words to previous knowledge. This is the best way to further the vocabulary development, even if they aren’t exposed to large amounts of language at home.

Mini Lesson -Emilee

For my mini lessons I worked one-on-one with ELL students and the lowest reading group. I would take a student to the back table and we would practice writing their names, recognizing letters and also writing letters. I would use a variety of different tasks such as having the students write their name in sand or shaving cream using their fingers, having the students trace over their names with dry erase marker on a laminated sheet that has their name on it. I would also hold up cards that had different letters on them and had the student first say what the letter is and then what sound the letter made. Finally I would have the students use a blank sheet of paper and they would practice writing their names with a pencil saying each letter in their names as they were writing it. I found that these students respond really well to these types of tasks.

Week of April 25

The Scott article about literacy in urban areas was an interesting read. It focused on one main question: What counts as “effective” literacy teaching practices in urban classrooms.” Emotional support, exposure, and changes in attitudes toward education were some of the most common responses found by urban teachers as the three most significant needs of urban children. The idea of professional development for urban teachers also came up in this article. It said that urban teachers must be well trained literacy educators because of the literary challenges that come about in urban teaching environments. I don’t think that professional development is the only way to handle urban environments, although I think that it would be greatly beneficial for teachers to get together in PD meetings to discuss specific topics. I think that knowing your students is the first step towards leading them to success. Without knowing who your students are or how they learn you cant really help them succeed.

Week of April 18

This semester my students have been working on writing workshop every morning. They started off at the beginning of the year writing their stories through pictures and then they moved gradually into labeling the people or things in their pictures and now they are working on constructing sentences first and then adding a picture or quick sketch last. Each day during writing workshop I will go around and ask certain students “Can you tell me about your story.” And they will read what they have written down. I will also walk around the room and help out any students that need help spelling or sounding our certain words but for the most part my CT likes to have the students work independently on their writing so she can assess where they are at. As discussed in Tompkins chapter 2 students should choose a topic to write about. Everyday before writing workshop my CT has the students gather on the carpet and she asks them to put on their thinking caps and to give her a thumbs up once they have a topic that they want to write about for that day. I think that it is a good idea to have the students think about a topic before they start writing just so they aren’t wasting time sitting at their desk trying to think of a topic to write about. In kindergarten the writing process isn’t as detailed as it is in older grades but I still think that it is important for students to be exposed to the writing process at an early age so that they are comfortable and familiar with it.

Week of April 11

Tompkins chapter 10 focuses on approaches to teaching reading and writing. The chapter discusses that there is no one best way to teach reading and writing. Instead teachers create a balanced literacy program that best fits their students using two or more approaches. My CT uses reading and writing workshop in her kindergarten classroom. The students seem to respond well to it and she chooses a few students each say to work one on one with and discuss what they are writing about that day. My CT will also do small group literacy activities that will engage the students in reading and writing tasks. I think that writing workshop can be a great way to get students used to writing each day and reading workshop is also very important especially for students beginning to read, because it gets them used to and comfortable with books and texts.

The Ladson-Billings article was very interesting one thing that I want to point out from that article was the mention that the authors experience with white teachers both pre-service and veterans indicates that many are uncomfortable acknowledging any student differences and particularly racial differences. That some teachers “don’t see color, they just see children.” I guess I can see two different sides to that argument one being that if students don’t see student differences than how can students be culturally different and express themselves in a way that is different from the other students. And in a different argument it could be a positive thing that the teachers don’t focus on students skin color and they only see their students for who they are on the inside. I wonder if there is a happy medium between these two extremely different ways of viewing our students?

Week of March 28th

I learned a lot from reading Tompkins chapter 9 about facilitating student’s comprehension. What students know and do during reading and a huge impact on how well they comprehend the reading. One thing that I learned from this text was that while students are reading for comprehension it involves more than just reader factors. One main idea from this chapter is the idea of text factors. These include genres, text structures and text features. I was also excited while reading this chapter because it mentioned the story book “Flotsam” and that is what I did my literacy lesson on. It was mentioned in the section about formats of stories, since this book has no words just pictures it might be appropriate for younger students to read this type of book. Although I think it might be interesting to see how different kindergartners interpret a book with just pictures versus a 4th or 5th grade classroom. I was also really interested in Tompkins chapter 7 about how students learn vocabulary. I am in a kindergarten classroom for placement and I think at this age and grade it is very important for students to expand their vocabulary. “Students learn the meanings of words by being immersed in an environment that’s rich with words, through lots of daily independent reading and interactive read-alouds (Tompkins, 225).” My CT exposes her students to a lot of different vocabulary through read alouds, silent reading, and daily instruction in class. My CT is very good at explaining and bringing out new words that the students may not know that they can add to their vocabulary. I think this is a very important part of being a teacher and is especially important in young grades so students can build a strong vocabulary at a young age.

Blog Benifits: What I have learned

Blogs to me have been in the past very beneficial I find them to be useful in a classroom setting. For many reasons I like them especially in the Language Arts setting. Blogs let students share ideas that they might not have been able to express in class, they can see what others were thinking and some people may like to read the thoughts of others rather than listen to them. In Language Arts I see many benefits for students using them in the class especially language arts. You can use them to have students talk with each other about what is going on in class or readings. This way a student will come into class having a general idea about what they thought or others thought about what is going on in class. Blogs also allow for an indirect learning aspect. We always talk about how it is important that student read and write more in class, well using a blog allows for both of those things to occur in the classroom. Students have to read others to be able to comment on each other so that involve the reading, and when they write they are getting involved with expressing their ideas in writing and just writing in general. It is better for the students to practice as much as they can and doing a blog does not feel like homework. It feels like someone just writing and talking to other communicating with them so it is really easy to get into and probably fun for students to participate in. Also technology is becoming a major part of society in schools and blogs are just a part of that new technology and is something we as teachers should embrace.

Mini-Lesson - Becky

There is one student that I spent a lot of time working with in my kindergarten classroom, Michael. He is one of the best readers in the class and can pick up almost any book and read me all the words. However, I have seen that he has difficulty comprehending what he is reading. This is especially true when I show him words without pictures; sometimes he can’t tell me what a simple word means even though he can read it correctly. When my CT or I read a book to the class, he is able to tell us what happened and the important events in the story. However, when he reads a book by himself, he has difficulty remembering what he just finished reading.

I decided to spend some time one-on-one to work on his comprehension skills. I thought the best way to teach him this was by modeling, specifically a “think aloud”. I planned to show him each step of the comprehension process by stating out loud what I was doing. I began by reading him a story that he had read before. I stopped after each page and did a short summary of everything I had just read. When I came to a word I “didn’t know”, I would say out loud, “I don’t know that word. Let me see if I can figure out what it means by rereading the sentence.” I would also tell him how I was looking at the pictures to see if that could help me. When a new character was introduced, I would say, “Who is this person? How does he (or she) know the other characters?” I would spend some time thinking aloud to answer my own question. When I finished the book, I reiterated all the main points of the story from beginning to end. I also told him my favorite part from the book.

After I was finished, I had him try. Once he knew what was expected of him, his reading slowed down; I could tell that he was paying more attention to what the words meant instead of just reading them. He struggled through the first few pages and was not able to always summarize what he read, but he could tell me what individual words meant. I was most happy to see him stop at a word and say “I don’t know that word. I’ll read the sentence again to figure it out.” After he read the sentence again, he used context clues to correctly identify its meaning. After he finished reading, he was able to tell me most of the main events from the story.

I plan on working with him again this week to see if he will use the same strategies while he reads. I’m hoping that with more practice, these strategies will become second nature and he won’t have to think about them as he reads. However, in the mean time, I hope that he will continue to use them to be able to comprehend everything he reads, or at least spend some time trying.

Reading Lesson 1 MARTINA

For my second lesson I worked with students on vocabulary. Each week I take students out in groups to work on the vocabulary worksheets that they are given, so I figured that this would be a perfect opportunity to formally plan something out and then work on it with them. For this lesson I went through the vocabulary list and made note of all the word meanings and how I would present them. I took out two students into the hall. The first student is smart, but has ADHD and at times has a very difficult time focusing on a task. On this particular day he didn’t have much trouble working- he needed some redirecting a couple of times, but overall he was actively participating and understanding. The second student is a girl who is very bright, but has a very serious attitude problem. For the lesson I started out asking the students if they had any questions about any of the words- they didn’t so I went through each word with them, asking if they could give me a definition. On about half of the words they didn’t so I explained the meaning, giving them examples of the words in use in a sentence. I continued on with the lesson, utilizing the worksheet but offering support and making sure that they understood the words. I think that the lesson went smoothly- by the end both of the students were able to fill in the words correctly and seemed to understand the vocabulary. It was a very smooth lesson- neither student fussed and they both stayed on task.

Reading Lesson 1 MARTINA

For this first reading lesson I had the opportunity to lead a social studies lesson that focused on the idea of comprehension; the students learned about the difference between a primary source and a secondary source and how to use them. We started out by reading two pages from the Social Studies textbook and then proceeded to discuss various scenarios described on a worksheet to categorize what the sources would be- primary or secondary. During this lesson I focused in on two students- one of whom is excelling in school and one of whom is struggling in the class. The one who is excelling is very diligent at his work- he will utilize his textbook to find answers to work given to him, which is unusual in the class, as well as he isn’t shy to come up and ask questions as necessary on assignments. The other student has a very hard time in class- his head is usually down and he doesn’t put in much effort on his work. On this particular day his head was down and we ended up doing the worksheet together during recess. On this assignment the first student did well. He understood the difference between a primary source and a secondary source right off the bat; as we went through the scenarios he was constantly raising his hand to participate and answer the questions being asked, and when I graded his work he had done very well. The second student was not participating during the lesson, which was frustrating, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that working with him one on one he picked up very quickly the difference between the sources, and he was participating with me as I asked him the questions. I think that he just needed someone to reexplain the topic to him, because as soon as I started working with him he did have some questions about what the textbook had to say. Overall I thought that this lesson was a success- the students had read the textbook and were able to take off on the assignment that I gave them, and even the student who was in fact struggling with the assignment understood it after I explained it to him a second time, showing that they had in fact comprehended what they read.