Being the best teacher that you can be!

I love Gay Pinnell's article because she discusses what I believe to be one of the most important and reoccuring issues in the education world. Pinnell discusses how too often, teachers run into problems of being effective teachers because of restraints like changes in administration, overruling ideas and approaches, students and teachers coming and going, etc. She suggests that even though there are some things that cannot be avoided, there ARE still daily decisions that teachers can make that will greatly benefit their students.

The 8 main principles that Pinnell offers are:

1. Learn about learning
2. Put your theory into action
3. Establish inquiry as an integral part of your teaching
4. Use research-based practices to put extra energy into making them work
5. Put your theory to work in the classroom
6. Take every opportunity to create community
7. Enjoy reading and writing with your students
8. Imagine a future and work toward

I love this idea that even though there are, and always will be, struggles that teachers will face and not be able to get around, there are still so many ways that they can still be effective for their students. All it takes is small daily decisions to have an impact on every student and make literacy a part of their lives. This will be important for me to remember as a teacher so that I do not give in to the restrictions of my school and give up on trying to be the best teacher that I can be. 

Matching texts & Readers

One of the most important things when teaching a child to read is to make sure that the text is on the appropriate reading level of difficulty that both supports AND challenges them. Rog and Burton suggest that a text that is "just-right" is one where the child can read about 9 out of 10 words and easily comprehend them. I remember learning in Information Sciences that most leveling strategies are not reliable because they all measure different things. Some things that are left out of these measurements are:

• the  length  of the book,
• the appearance  and  placement  of  print on the  page,
• the  degree  of support  offered  by the  illustrations,
• the complexity of concepts and familiarity of subject matter,
• the degree of predictability of the text, and
• the proportion of unique or repeated words to familiar words. 

Rog and Burton's main argument is that "appropriate  reading  materials for emergent  readers  contain  meaningful  and natural  language  patterns  and  many  high frequency words. These  texts should be interesting and  engaging  for children,  contain  high-quality  illustrations,  and  have literary  merit." In their district, they used a 10-step leveling system that focused on vocabulary, size and layout of print, predictability, illustration support, and complexity of concepts.

Guided Reading

Guided reading has 3 main purposes:

• To meet the varying instructional needs of all the students in the classroom, enabling them to greatly expand their reading powers
• To teach students to read increasingly difficult texts with understanding and fluency
• To construct meaning while using problem solving strategies to figure out unfamiliar words that deal with complex sentence structures, and understand concepts or ideas not previously encountered.

In one example of guided reading instruction, small dynamic groups of students that are performing around the same level are formed, where they: (1) hear a story read aloud, (2) read it quietly to themselves, (3) read the story aloud, (4) sometimes reread the story aloud again. The teacher is meant to prompt the students to use different reading strategies with difficult text and to monitor each group to make sure each child's different needs are being met. When implemented correctly, these practices can improve a child's accuracy, speed, AND fluency!

Article:
http://faculty.swosu.edu/ruth.boyd/share/Reading%20I/Guided%20Reading/Guided%20Reading.Article.pdf

Word Knowledge

Yopp & Yopp suggest that one cannot easily master comprehension without first gaining word knowledge. Cunningham & Cunningham further elaborate and say that there is a close relationship between spelling ability and ability to identify words in reading. So before grasping this word knowledge, children must also first gain a good grasp on spelling and phonemic awareness through invented spelling, "Making Words", and practicing decoding skills. Developing word knowledge is not an all or nothing task, there is a wide range: from no knowledge of a word to using a word daily and fully understanding that word.This vocabulary development can be acquired in 3 main ways:

1. Wide reading (incidental word learning)
2. Explicit instruction of words and word learning strategies
3. Establishment of an environment that promotes word learning

I loved the idea of the "Ten Important Words." That way, children can write which words that they feel are important in a story. I think most kids are on different levels of understanding, so allowing them to come up with their own important words would be an easy way to judge what each child is struggling with. I also like the idea of the color card prompts so that the kids can think for themselves and get a further grasp on deep comprehension and understanding of the important words (For example: List antonyms of the word, act out the word, draw a picture of the word, etc.).

Comprehension Counts!

In Gregory and Cahill's article, I loved how they discussed that even Kindergarten age children can learn comprehension when reading. It must be taught in an active and visual way, but they are definitely capable of comprehending the stories that they read. In Mrs. Hope's class, she made the children raise their hands with either C (connections they could make to things in their own lives), V (visualization of what is happening in the story), and wiggle their fingers if they had a question. I also enjoyed the idea of "mind movies" because that is what I did when I tutored children at Emerald Youth Club. These are all great ways to keep children engaged in the stories that are being read to them, and also allowing them to comprehend and retell the stories afterwards as well!



Now that we know young children can in fact comprehend, what are the best ways to teach this comprehension? Pardo mentions some of the best ways to do so:

• Teach decoding skills
• Help students build fluency
• Build and activate background knowledge
• Teach vocabulary words
• Motivate students
• Engage them in personal responses to text
• Teach text structures
• Model appropriate text selection
• Provide regular independent reading time

Comprehension is one of the most important parts of learning to read, and should start being taught as early as 5 and 6 years old! Do you think children this young should start being tested this early as well to see if they are comprehending? Or only introduced to the concepts for later learning?

Vocabulary

         Developing a strong vocabulary is an essential part to reading! Not only does vocabulary mean to know a high number of words, but it is also crucial to know the words well. (Children need to have both breadth AND depth of vocabulary knowledge!) Blachowicz suggests four practices that teachers can use to expand their students' vocabularies and improve their reading:

1)Develop word awareness and love of words through word play
2)Deliver explicit, rich instruction to develop important vocabulary
3)Build strategies for independence
4)Engage students actively with a wide range of books

          One of my favorite things in Lane & Allen's article was when they discussed the different ideas for "circle time" and "morning greeting." Just with these simple everyday routines, the language in the classroom grew greatly and in such a fun and positive way, through complimenting each other and actively interacting with all of the classmates. This incidental learning is a great way for children to learn new vocabulary, but researchers would also argue that it is important for the students to have explicit instruction as well!