"A Fresh Look at Writing"

These two chapters provide information on how to start and continue writing lessons with every elementary level. Graves suggests starting writing through simple conversations, such as what you did yesterday and lead the student to write about what they just had a conversation on. Drawing helps students write, "drawing often helps the child think about what might be said in the text that follows."This is true for my case study student, who is a kindergartener. Whenever I ask him to write, he always draws pictures. Students can also try writing in different forms such as lists or signs. Another helpful hint is to have students be reading as much as possible to help further their writing skills, Graves talks about communicating with students through handing them written messages that they have to read.

For older students, grades second through sixth there are more advance ways for a successful writing lesson. Students need to learn to listen to themselves as writers and learn from what they have written. Students can start experiencing different genres, such as fiction vs. non-fiction. Conferences should be turned into child initiated, let the child lead the conference. Finally, students should share their writing and learn from their classmates, this has to be done by student's learning how to receive the text that their peer's are sharing.

The classroom has to be set up a certain way for writing to be successful. The first thing that has to happen is for there to be a significant about of time to write. Grave suggests at least a half hour every day, but four out of five days if needed. During this writing time students should have the freedom to choose what to write about. "When students write everyday they don't find it as difficult to choose topics. If a child knows she will write again tomorrow, her mind can go to work pondering her writing topics." Once the class has written for the majority of the time, the class will have time to share their work and respond to others.

The teachers job in this writing lesson is very important. They have to model to the students what it looks like to live like a writer. They are showing the students what it is like to choose a topic, write about it, and revise their writing. While students are writing they have high expectations for them and are walking around the room guiding specific students throughout their writing.

Phonics and Phonemic Awareness

There are many terms that a reading instructor should be aware of. They aren't important to the leaner, but should be researched and understood by the instructor.

One way to incorporate phonemic awareness into the classroom is through music. Bringing the playfulness that children use outside of the classroom that taught them their basic phonemic awareness skills, (nursery rhymes, hand games, jump-rope songs) inside of the classroom is an easy way to continue their learning. The two music classes that I have taken through the education department have taught me plenty of these songs to use within my classroom and will help my children start to hear and listen for phonemic sounds.

Within my field experience I have seen the Yopp-singer test take place. The Kindergarten teach has taught children to listen for each individual sound in every word. They do this my sticking out one arm and patting their shoulder for the first sound, elbow for the second, and hand for the third. Then they slide their hand down their arm when they say all the sounds together to produce the word. This allows the students to become aware that spoken words are small units of sounds put together.

Armstrong Panel

I attended the Armstrong Panel on September 26 about setting up your classroom for the first day of school. The panel consisted of nine Armstrong teachers that taught all over the state and different grade levels. All of the teachers had their own personal opinion on how to set up for the first day of school, but all of the teachers agreed on a few things. Organization, structure, parent relationships, and confidence were the ideas that each teacher talked about and stood out to me.

            Being organized on the first day of school helps you set up for a successful year. The more organized you are, the better the day will go. Setting up a structure on the first day of school that will be similar to the one you use on a regular school day allows students to get in a familiar rhythm which will benefit them as well as yourself in the long run. Parent relationships should also be made early in the year. This helps you get to know your students and their background. It also makes it easier when having to call their parents later in the year for any circumstance that may occur. Finally, it can provide you with parent volunteers that are very beneficial. My favorite talk was the one on confidence. Eric Ambler, one of the Armstrong teachers talked on confidence stood out to me. He talked about looking confident even if you do not feel confident. Never let your student’s see you sweat is wonderful advice that I want to take with me into my future career.

Podcast- Making Decisions for Individual Learners within a Small Group

The podcast talked about making instruction decisions and small group instruction. Pat Johnson talked about making instructional decisions and mentioned four points, assessment drives instruction, supporting the reading process system, providing opportunities to practice with real books so children can use their reading processing system correctly, and keeping meaning at the forefront. Teachers can support the reading process system through teaching the readers, not the book. The goal should be for readers to self-initiate strategies and behaviors by using a balance of sources and information. The reading process system is brainwork, not a collection of items and words and has phonics intertwined into it. Reading is not about remembering all the words; it’s about trying out strategies such as meaning, visual, and semantic. In order to keep meaning at the forefront teachers should give opportunities to talk about and reread the book as well as making the book about something.

Diane DeFord also talked about making instructional decisions. It is a complex task that teachers have to handle. Teachers need to know their students. Know their strengths, interests, experimental base, language and strategies that they can use. The lesson needs to be focused in order to assess easily. Assessment will be done with recording a child read a book that is matched to the reader. The teacher can find books that match by seeing what strategies the books use and how the book assists those strategies. It is important to remember that books are not neutral, they each have their own strategies that are needed in order to successfully read them. After the assessment, the teacher decides on one or two things to work on next. Teachers need to plan for change because students learning must change in order for them to progress. Through all of the instructional time comprehension has to be on the forefront of the teacher and student’s mind because it leads the reading processing system.

Mary Cappellini talks about small group instruction. Small group instruction also calls for the teacher to know each student individually in order to successfully group the students. Look at their language patterns in order to choose book that are leveled with not only their reading level, but also speaking level. Students with various levels, but use of similar strategies, are good to put in the same group because they can cross check with each other. Pick developmental stage of reading first by seeing if the student can successfully use their strategies and reading process system, then pick the book that matches the developmental stage. Do not go down or up a level after one book, test many books before making a final decision. It is possible to sit with an individual child during small groups to help them.

Reflection on Chapter 5 & 10 of "Catching Readers Before They Fall"

Chapter five talks all about a comprehensive literacy framework. The framework is interesting and I like the way they describe the title that they give to it. It is comprehensive because it is "complete and broad" allowing in the become beneficial for all types of learners through its "various needs in multiple instructional ways".

The comprehensive literacy framework has seven components that have to so with reading and writing to, with and by the children, they include...
-read aloud
-share reading and interactive read-aloud
-guided reading
-independent reading
-morning message
-community writing
-independent writing

Learning reading and writing interchangeably helps advance both subjects... "writing can foster reading competence and vise versa if the learner becomes aware of the reciprocal nature of these acts" (pg.90). Which could be a reason why I'm writing this blog. I just read a chapter and now I am writing about it, which allows me to practice both skills and become more familiar with the content being discussed.


Chapter ten talks about assessment. Assessment and instruction go hand and hand. Instruction is ongoing, authentic, and informative. That is exactly what assessment should be too. Assessments allows the teacher to understand the student's processing system. There are many ways to assess, but Katie goes through the process she uses that allows her to stay organized and focused. She uses a binder full of class grids, monthly meetings, guided reading sheets, and a section for each student that consists of notes, reading records, and other material. I appreciate Katie's assessment process and how organized it is. I would like to try this once I get into the classroom, but I am also willing to try other assessment systems until I find what works best for me.

Reflection on Chapter 4 "Catching Readers Before They Fall"

      Stop with the "sound it out". 

It is super interesting to me how commonly used this method is, but it is not very beneficial. 

Within my field experience this past Thursday I was attempting to guide a kindergarten student in reading a sentence on her homework paper. Admittedly, I tried the "sound it out" method and did feel like it was not beneficial. Now I know what is....

M- Meaning (semantic) 

S- Structure

V- Visual

These are the key methods of beginning readers. 

It depends on which one to use, it is determined on how the student is reading. But it is not just visual anymore, "meaning and structure push us swiftly across a line of text, we are in a constant state of application" (pg. 57). Students should constantly self-monioring themselves by asking themselves... 

M- Does is make sense?

S- Does is sound right?

V- Does it look right?

Teachers need to model this? How make mistakes! Make mistakes in your teaching of meaning, structure, and look. Show your thought process to the class and the way you fix your mistakes. Mistakes need to be recognized and teaching students to always be listening to themselves read and write will help notice them. 

Stop the "sound it out" and start the "MSV". 

Reflection of Chapters 1-3 "Catching Readers Before They Fall"

        These chapters brought up some very key ideas that can help teach reading. The biggest idea to stick out to me in chapter two was the fact that struggling readers and indeed struggling and they are not to blame. "If struggling readers are not learning how to read, then we need to look at ourselves and our teacher" (pg. 11). Thats me, I'm the teacher. It is my responsibility to form the struggling student into a successful student. So how?

     Teachers have to realize that struggling readers do not have the same thinking skills as successful readers. They need to reconstruct what goes on in their head when reading and form their processing system. Once a student has a successful processing system that does things such as predicting, making connections, inferring, synthesizing, visualizing, and self-monitoring all at the same time, then they will start thinking like successful readers. The earlier a child learns how to use their processing system, the better. That is my job to have each child learn the processing system as soon as possible.

     Vygotsky is a genius. I am thankful to have been learning about Vygotsky and his theories since my high school education. The process of using the zone of proximal development through scaffolding and gradual release of responsibility to lead students to move information from the out of reach to the zone of actual development is key to learning. Not just reading, but every subject in and outside of school can be best learned by using Vygotsky theory, I know this from person learning experiences and personal teaching experiences. The simple idea of assisting a person in something that they can only achieve with help can produce remarkable learning. Another advantage is "when teachers understand the zone of proximal development, they strive to know their students better and try harder to vary their supports, questions, or instruction for different students" (pg. 35) which advances the classrooms community.

     Vygotsky's theories call for a specific style classroom, that being sociocultural, meaning "setting up a classroom environment that fosters talk, having students working collaboratively, developing projects based on student interests, and encouraging students to support each other as learners" (pg. 48). Personally, I strive to have my classroom be sociocultural. I understand that I will not serve as the only teacher in the classroom, that the students will be capable of teaching each other and I want to allow teaching and learning to flow between every person in my classroom easily, which will be made possible through sociocultural.