Book Study

I read one chapter out of the book, "Research-based Methods of Reading Instruction, Grade K-3". The chapter focused on phonemic awareness. It was interesting to read this in light of the previous article I had read about how reading should be taught through subjects of interest. This book mentions that "one of the best predictions of how well students will learn to read during their first two years of school is phonemic awareness". I understand why that would be the foundation of reading while the books of interest would be the individual building blocks. If one does not know the individual letters or phonemes, how can they learn how to blend to form words?

This chapter also discussed how teaching these skills can be done in 15-20 minutes per day. An interesting fact that was shared was that students in small groups transfer their phonemic awareness skills to reading better than students in a whole class or one-on-one. I can see that having at least one other student in the group would be beneficial. I have one group that I am working on these skills with and they are models for each other. With this particular group, I spend 10 minutes each day working on a vowel sound and then we read a book of interest that has words with that vowel sound (e.g. short a and then we read a book that focuses on words with short a sounds). It is working very well. They get very excited when they can read these words or at least recognize the pattern.

who really drives the curriculum??

Life is kinda funny, the way some things correlate. Last week we had an in service on the new standards and this week in my Masters class we debated who really drives the curriculum. We had to list (in order) the following people on a mountain: teachers, students, parents, curriculum committee, principal, school board, publishers, national government, and something else I can't remember (oops). Anyway, it was really interesting to see how others ranked their mountains. I ranked teachers on the top, while others say national government (my teacher agreed with me;)). My reason for this, is as such. At the end of the day, we close our classroom doors and we have the control; we ultimately decide how and what we teach. Hopefully we all realize that we do have a moral and ethical code to teach what we are suppose to! The debate was rather interesting. Just something to think about!

Nikki

Phonics

I have been doing a new phonics based activity with my intervention students every week and I would be happy to share with anyone who is interested. I will try to explain as well as I can. Basically, they each get a sheet that has a bunch of words on it that all have the same chunks. For example, this week their words all have AT and ATE. They go through and highlight the chunks first, then go through and just quickly say each chunk throughout the whole page and then the last time, they go through and say the entire word. The hope is that they will get faster at this every day and they will begin to notice the chunks and sounds as readers and pull them out of words. I know that Kristin also tried this with a child she was tutoring and he did awesome! He then applied it to his reading and was really pulling out chunks and entire sounds instead of stretching out words sound by sound. Sometimes, I time the students or tap my hand to give them a beat too. Just an idea!

Standards-Based IEP Inservice

I was a little skeptical when we had our workshop on Friday morning about the new Standards-Based IEP. My initial feeling was that this was creating a lot more work for us when writing our IEPs. However, we received many useful guides with templates on how to write them as well as packets with the Math and Reading Standards. When writing an IEP this weekend, I was pleasantly surprised at how useful this new method is for writing the Present Level of Performance as well as the goals and objectives. I felt that I had a better overall idea of how the student is functioning and where we need him/her to be for the next year. I think that it will make things clearer for the parents as wellk. Even though it took longer to write the IEP, it was definitely easier to do so!

Once Again!

I have been very frustrated this week while administering MAP tests to my students. All of them have had a difficult time putting words in alphabetical order as well as determining the beginning and ending sounds of words. The alphabetical order is something that I definitely thought that they would be able to do. It is especially difficult for them to put the words in order if all the words begin with the same letter. The one positive thing that the testing has taught me is that I need to focus some of my teaching time on this topic. Sometimes, the most simple skill is overlooked. I have gleaned a lot of other important skills that need to be either taught or retaught.

Rhyming

I did an exercise with a couple of my kindergarten students this morning on the topic of rhyming. I have little houses with a different picture on the top of each one. The students have to choose a card from a pile and figure out which house it belongs in (or which word it rhymes with). The words have some of the following sounds- "ing", "ed", "ale", "at". It was interesting to follow both student's thought processes. One student could not grasp the concept of the ending of each word having to match. He was only focusing on the beginning sounds. After doing that, I read a Dr. Seuss book to them and they had to raise their hands when they heard rhyming words. The student who grasped it better with the words in isolation did not understand the words in context. It is so hard to figure out how else to teach these concepts. They just don't hear the sounds that are alike.

April

We recently took a field trip to the Holasek Greenery in Chaska. What a great learning experince this was for students! The best part was it was free! The students learned all about the process of planting seeds, what plants need to grow, and they learned about many different flowers and plants! Today in the classroom we did some interactive writing about our fieldtrip experience and I was amazed at all the students responses! We will defintely be going back next year!

Article Review

I just finished reading an article from the American Educator magazine entitled "Sparks Fade, Knowledge Stays". It discussed the findings from a report written by the National Early Literacy Panel that stated that the key to learning how to read is knowledge of phonological awareness and phonics. The authors of the article agreed that these components were important but there were many other factos to consider. Code-based interventions are necessary but the area that we are missing (especially with kids who struggle) is teaching the desire to learn. The authors feel that kids want to become experts in different areas (e.g. whales, dinosaurs, etc) and this, more than learning letters and sounds, drives their ambition to come to school to learn. "Knowledge is the headline star, and conventional literacy skills are the supporting cast members." Through many studies that were done, these authors found that background knowledge was extremely important when reading and answering comprehension questions. One study had a combination of soccer experts and novices read a story about soccer and had them memorize details, make inferences and detect basic contradictions (the story included some facts that were not true). The experts were found to have done far better than their peers who did not have the same background knowledge. What they also found was that "the high-and-low aptitude experts did not differ from one another". Also, "high-aptitude novices did no better than the low-aptitude novices". This article has been very eye-opening to me as a special education teacher. I spend so much time working on individual skills but sometimes neglect to also look at the big picture of reading. As it is stated in the article, "code and content learning must be emphasized simultaneously".

SPRING IS HERE!!

Hello, Wow! I can't believe it is the start of the 4th quarter already! Time flies when we are having fun. I must say that I am very impressed with my classes behavior upon their return. I was expecting wild and crazy, but they are focused and rested. It's awesome! Well, as we all know with spring time comes testing time. I have been working with strategy groups on test taking skills and best practices. We have been working on highlighting passages, read the questions first, and eliminating choices. Does anyone have any other strategies, techniques, or tips they are willing to share? Nikki

April

It is good to be back after a refreshing and rejuvenating Spring Break. I have been very happy with how well my students have been doing this week. I have not seen much regression in most of them. Over break, I had the opportunity to observe a special education teacher at my son's school, Glendale Elementary. I observed students in the SPED room and then had the chance to see them as well in the mainstream classroom. ISD 719 purchased an amazing curriculum for teaching reading and writing to students with learning disabilities. It is a comprehensive curriculum to covers word work, vocabulary, writing and reading. The students really responded to it and the teachers enjoyed having a curriculum that is comprehensive and that follows the students throughout their elementary school years. It is always nice to see what others teachers are doing. The curriculum was fast-paced enough to grab the attention of students with ADHD and it included lessons for the SMART BOARD so it was not just a paper-pencil curriculum.

April Already?!

Hello All, I can't believe how fast this year has been going. It was great to have Spring Break and I feel ready to be back here and focused. The big testing is coming up next week. As a 4th grade team, we have worked hard to meet the needs of the students who are not on grade level. We had a chance to create strategy groups based on their needs and help for reading. I found it extremely useful to have my kids split into groups. We have used passages to help them 1. Practice Highlighting key vocabulary 2. Pay attention to underlined words 3. Review story elements 4. Focus on literal, inferental, interpretative and evaluative questions 5. Pay attention to vocabulary in context. I have split my 9 students into two groups. I am able to see by modeling, working in small groups and independently that students are getting correct answers at a higher rate. Also their confidence has improved with using the skills taught. Even though testing is a challenge, I feel that this has been a rewarding experience!

March Blog

This was meant to get out before Spring Break, so I'm a little late! I am glad to see that my students are refreshed and ready to learn again after Spring Break! I was getting a little frustrated before break with students that weren't working to their capability. Some of my higher students started writing only one sentence when they could write more. Further, they seemed to be rushing through work quicker. I don't know that it was me pushing them to hard, or just plain "checking out". maybe a combination of both! Today, they seemed to be back on track. However, it is only day one back from break. We will see what happens in the following weeks!