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Readerly Exploration 7

Readerly Exploration 7 - Week 15 - 12/4/23

Hanford (2018), “Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read?”

Wills Lloyd (2021), “Smoke signals in reading education: What is with the spate of articles about changes in reading instruction?

Big Takeaway

The big takeaway I think the authors wanted was that both phonetic and decoding, as well as reading comprehension and word identification need to be taught, more phonetic than word identification, as students learn to decode reading better and make more comprehension within the area of reading.

Nugget

I learned that there is a lot more unnecessary debate in schools than there needs to be. If research is saying something is effective, we should be doing what is effective. I also learned that we are not wired to read, which I think was a really cool element to learn. I had never thought of it that way, but after reading about it in comparison to oral language, it made complete sense, its a lot more of explicit learning.

Narration

I first set up my question boxes, as annotating in the sidelines would not be effective since there is not a lot of room. I made sure to quote the part I had read that made a question pop into my head, and then I added my question and comment with it. This allowed for me to engage in the reading a little more by allowing me to ask and process the questions and feelings I had as I read, as both of these articles raised some alarming questions and made me feel some type of way about how education is being handled right now. I was definitely rather shocked at some of the things I was reading, especially challenged by the parts that talked about teachers ignoring or getting annoyed with the research that was clearly telling them an effective way to teach so that students don’t fall behind. It kills me inside to think of all the students who are just left to inherently try to read by simply being provided materials and left to try and squeeze out meaning from words they can't even decode let alone define. This was a very very interesting read to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to engage in it, especially with some of the things I see going on in my field placement that aligns with some of the topics in these articles.

Engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension (pre-reading, reading, responding, exploring, applying)/As you read, annotate any questions that arise for you in the margins.

Reading 1 - Smoke Signals

“... is about whether early or beginning reading instruction should promote fundamental skills (letters and sounds; “phonics”) or higher-order skills (enjoying reading; getting the author’s ideas)” - Why is the second question even an option? While it is good to focus on the author's purpose and ultimately easier for teachers to focus on, how in the world are students going to even get to the author's purpose without understanding the author's writing and word structure?

“...that simply engaging children in “reading” (book tubs, readers’ workshop, etc.) would allow them to develop reading skills independently.” - While this is important I wonder why teachers think this notion is actually the main way they should go? Why do they think that this is the main path of reading instruction? What about those who can't read? Motivation only goes so far, before students who can't read quickly lose interest and never develop decoding skills.

“The advocates for whole language approaches argued that teaching decoding was preventing traditionally under-performing students (viz, African American students) from the “good” instruction that privileged children were getting” - Under what conditions do we classify this as “good” instruction? Is it simply because kids from better socioeconomic backgrounds are perceived as typically better readers and so the teaching is perceived to be better? Is it ignoring the issue of privileged children having home lifes that potentially help with teaching reading at earlier ages and stages, differing from less privileged children’s homes? Probably.

Not a question but more a comment, I think this author is funny, very clearly echoing my thoughts on this issue as well. 

Reading 2 - Hard Words

“Research shows that children who don't learn to read by the end of third grade are likely to remain poor readers for the rest of their lives, and they're likely to fall behind in other academic areas, too. People who struggle with reading are more likely to drop out of high school, to end up in the criminal justice system, and to live in poverty.” - What in the world are we doing? I do see this in school, especially in Urban settings, so why are we not raising so much heck that this is getting fixed? I’m curious about how no child left behind factors into this as well, seeing as clearly there are still many children left behind.

“This was not just poverty. In fact, by some estimates, one-third of America's struggling readers are from college-educated families.” - It makes me wonder, is it home life? With how busy the world is nowadays, could it be the lack of parental home reading involvement? Both parents often work, so could it be an issue of that if it is not just poverty?

“The human brain isn't wired to read.” - Interesting. Why? I understand the learning process factor, but something so important to basic societal survival, why are we not more hardwired to read?

“He referred to letters of the alphabet as "bloodless, ghastly apparitions"” - While I can understand, especially for the english language, how letters can make reading confusing with all of their different rules and sounds, how is working on only vocabulary identification (word identification) going to be any better? Wouldn't kids get confused about why words are the way they are and have no explanation? Or even more so, when encountering new words they don't intrinsically know, wouldn’t it be the same process of if they were able to sound it out? Either way the student is going to have to research the word to define it, why is the extra step of phonetic awareness considered a bad thing? If its unfamiliar either way, would it not be better to at least be able to read the word before trying to comprehend?

"Is this your science or my science?" - While I understand different teaching philosophies, how do teachers not see researched facts as effective and factual?

Here are my questions in their actual format, though they are also typed out above.

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Readerly Exploration 6

Readerly Exploration 6 - Week 14 - 11/27/23

Rasinski (2012), “Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot!” (CANVAS)

Applegate, Applegate & Modla (2011), “She's My Best Reader; She Just Can't Comprehend’: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension” (CANVAS) 

Big Takeaway

The big takeaway I think the authors wanted was that students are just being pushed for speed reading instead of both accuracy, fluency and comprehension, which is incredibly detrimental as they are able to read text, but not take anything away from it, either because they are too focused on the reading accuracy or speed itself, or because they are unable to read and comprehend at the same time.

Nugget

I think the nugget I got from these readings is that students are falling behind. While this concept is not entirely new, these readings helped reinforce the trend we are seeing in schools with students functioning at much lower levels than what they should be being at in their actual grade, which causes them to fall behind, lose motivation, and struggle as they grow up and need the skills they aren't learning more and more. When there is nothing to build on, you cant add more skills and expect students to just grasp things, so unfortunately there is just a struggle and cycle of lack of development due to the push to get as many kids caught up and together as possible, with or without cutting important learning corners.

Narration

First I read the articles and picked out the excerpts I wanted to use. Then I talked to my boyfriend about what I read in the texts and explained some of the concepts to them, as well as some pedagogical language, before summarizing a bit more about what we were going to be doing and why we were doing it. Then I set up a recording device and recorded his and my responses to the excerpts and each others responses, having a discussion with each other. With this, it was rather easy as he is in a family of teachers and hears from me about my adventures in school, as well as my rantings about the issues I see, and then we found it easy to talk about because he was able to understand what I was saying as well as speak from his own personal experience with his schooling and his heard stories. I found reading the study a bit difficult as always, those being hard to follow. What was fun about this was enjoying hearing my boyfriend’s thoughts as well as engaging him in discussions about what I am both learning and what we both see and hear about from school and family members, plus he said something really good towards the end about pushing kids through which made me think. I wanted to do this readerly exploration with him because of that reason, since I knew he’d have some form of context and connection with this topic, especially since he has shared before his complaints about the school system that he experienced. This exploration helped me think more about how we students my age today still may be affected by these schooling changes, and also the readings helped point out to me how far we are behind and how its only getting worse, so something needs to change, and it starts with this.

Explore relationships with other people through reading by using texts as a shared experience with another person/other people or to gain insight into the perspective of another person / Choose an excerpt from your assigned course reading(s) and share with a family (ish) member to get his or her insight and perspective on it.

“A growing number of studies are demonstrating that fluency is a major concern for students in grades 4 (Daane et al., 2005; Pinnell et al., 1995) and 5, in middle school (Morris & Gaffney, 2011; Rasinski et al., 2009), and in high school (Rasinski et al., 2005). Moreover, authentic fluency instruction as described earlier in this article has shown remarkable potential for helping a wide range of students beyond the primary grades improve their fluency, overall reading achievement, and motivation for reading.”

“The most obvious and disturbing element of these findings is that there may be a considerable number of teachers who are judging the reading proficiency of their students based solely on speed, accuracy, and prosody, divorced from thoughtful comprehension.”

Here is the audio recording of my discussion! It is sped up to fit (again sorry if it is too fast)

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Readerly Exploration 5 - Week 12 - 11/12/23

Silverman & Crandell (2011), “Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms” (CANVAS)

Williams, et. al. (2009), “Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom” (CANVAS)

The main topic I think is how different ways of teaching can really forward how well students learn letters and thus vocabulary, whether during read aloud or general class study time. Specifically how the 5 strategies in the first one help with engaging and explaining to students, and the second one explaining how to forward spelling understanding of the vocabulary they might be learning or already know.

I learned what a word study was, or at least more in depth as to what it was and looked like, and it made a lot more sense once I read the second article because I’ve heard it talked about in class and in my school I teach at, which allowed me to understand why my teacher was focusing more on the word families and strategies to identify them instead of plain word identification based on memorization.

First, I laid out the design of my flow chart time line, and then I decided how I wanted to interact with it and the literature, which I decided was doing a pre reading, during reading, post reading, and post reflection to fully track my timeline of how I read and what way I organize the reading process. Then I went through it, making sure to accurately follow and fill out as needed. Finally I reflected and filled in the last segment as I recapped and worked to comprehend the articles. Something interesting to me was the recap of what vocabulary is - that its a socially mediated process - because I remember talking about this in South Korea in one of my classes as well as in previous messiah classes, where both instances were talking about the theory of language acquisition and how it has developed, and how children copying or learning from social interaction, with those fluent or adults helps them acquire language. Engaging in this activity helped me understand the flow of how I read, as well help understand working with the process it takes to comprehend literature, whether at an elementary level or current as an adult reader.

Reflect on the contributions of reading experiences to reader identity in an effort to better articulate who he or she is as a reader - Make a concept map or timeline of your comprehension of this text from  when you started reading to when you read the last word.

(See pic)

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Readerly Exploration 4

Readerly Exploration 4 - Week 9 - 10/9/23

Mesmer (2019), “Introduction”

Mesmer (2019), Chapter 1, “Know the Code: Teacher’s Reference on How English Works”

The big takeaway from both these readings (as they talk about the same thing) is that the aim of the book and the chapters is to help teachers teach English by providing definitions and examples of how phonemes and more help with speaking, reading and writing.

A lot of new things stood out to me, such as the break down terminology of all the different parts of teaching English. Things like phonemes, graphemes, rhime, onset and coda are all new technical terms that I learned about.

So I first read the readings, not sure what to do for my exploration, until I realized the way I was reading this time. I decided that I needed to revamp my motivation for myself for the reading for the next time, by creating goals with how I read this time based on my struggles and strengths. I did enjoy this reading as well, learning a lot about the break down of English and how to teach the specific parts of words. When growing up, I don’t remember learning all the terms for words and their parts and how they go together in regards to remembering them easier. I just remember suddenly gaining word knowledge. So to think about this in a broken down way with pedagogical terms, is something I found to be interesting. As for my strengths and struggles reading this text, my strengths were being mildly interested in the topic, as it is in regards to something I am very passionate about, and will be incredibly helpful to my future especially with my minor. I also was able to understand all of the terminology used. However, my weaknesses with this one was just wanting to get the reading over with and not really wanting to divulge deeply into this text as much. I also struggle with remembering all the specific pedagogical vocabulary in rote recall. Engaging in this readerly exploration however, allows me to check myself and make sure I try and go back on my understanding, as well as cause me to be better for the next reading.

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Reflect on the contributions of reading experiences to reader identity in an effort to better articulate who he or she is as a reader - Based on your successes and struggles reading this text, write down two or three goals for yourself as a reader for your next reading assignment.

Goal 1 - I will read deeper, meaning I will spend less time skimming and guessing, and more time actually reading in a deep focus on the words.

Goal 2 - I will engage in discussion for at least another reading. I learn and remember best by externally processing, and so I want to process a reading with someone.

Goal 3 - I will try and research or write down pedagogy notes for future reference, or try and come up with memorable things to associate with the terms.

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Readerly Exploration 3

Readerly Exploration 3 - Week 8 - 10/9/23

Fisher, et. al. (2020), Chapter 2, “Whole-Class Reading Instruction: High-Level Support for Learning”

Sipe (2002), “Talking Back & Talking Over: Young Children’s Expressive Engagement During Read Aloud Storybooks” (CANVAS)

The big takeaway that the first reading wanted to get across was that while independent reading is important, whole-group reading is also incredibly important because it is the time to teach new concepts and skills and gives way to teaching basic reading routines so that independent reading can then happen.

The big takeaway from the second reading is about expressive engagement and how important it is for students to interact with books in ways that give them multiple avenues to digest the story, such as inserting themselves into the story, creatively acting it out, correcting the books characters, making noises along with the text or pictures and more.

A nugget I liked was the responses children give for expressive engagement are often what teachers may perceive as off task instead of understanding and engaging with the content of the book. The fact that children are making motions or are asking questions or are yelling out in reaction to the story shows that they are comprehending and engaging and teachers may shut that down, not recognizing its actually good for the students.

To do this activity, I read the articles first of course, before going and picking the activity. After picking the book activity, I tried researching books that had to do with reading books to a class, which was probably not the most helpful search yield. Then I thought of my young school years and remembered the iconic book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and how teachers and classmates and even my parents found interesting ways to use that story for engagement and fun activities that facilitated learning. So I looked it up and reread the story, picturing reading it to a class and how the readings’ lessons would factor into the lesson I would be doing if I used the book, and I realized it fit into a lot of what the readings were talking about so I decided that I would write about it since it can be used for and tied into both reading topics. Nothing too interesting happened with this readerly exploration, but I did get to read the book again, after literally not touching or reading it since I was taking care of my younger siblings many years ago. It was good for me to do this readerly exploration though because it did give me a sense of how books like this can help with the reading topics, as well as give me ideas for what to look for and use in the future for my classroom!

[Read a wide variety of genres and formats of texts to grow in their knowledge and experiences as a reader - Find a fictional text that communicates the same or similar big ideas of the assigned reading and choose an excerpt that represents those shared ideals]

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle: I picked this book because it is easily able to be used for everything the articles talk about. It is really good for whole group reading, as it can be used for an interactive read aloud. It is also really good for dramatism, where the kids can act it out, dress up for it, and engage enthusiastically with it, its good for talking back, because it has a pattern to it, so the kids may be able to say it along with, or before the teacher, or be like “no don’t eat more! Whoa that's a lot!”, good for controlling/critiquing because the kids can criticize how much or what the caterpillar decides to eat, good for inserting since the kids can talk about how they would or would not eat something the caterpillar is, and its good for taking over because the kids can make a caterpillar, a rhyme, a costume, or anything really to go along with the book that allows for the child to take responsibility of the reading.

I can just picture reading this as a kid, as well as reading it to my future kids and students and having them engage in fun ways. The art style is truly awesome.

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Readerly Exploration 2

Readerly Exploration 2 - Week 7 - 10/1/23

Fisher, et. al. (2020), Chapter 4, “Collaborative Reading and Writing: Learning in the Company of Peers,” (pp. 82-96) Fisher, et. al. (2020), Chapter 5, “Small-Group Reading Instruction: Targeted Support Through Guided Learning,” (pp. 114-128)

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I think the big take away from the first reading is that allowing for students to have small group time is incredibly important, especially in regards to working on collaborative reading and writing, because kids need that time to develop their self-motivation as well as their social skills and their collaborative learning skills. In the second reading I think that the big take away is that in small groups, making sure proper scaffolding and peer work is happening and is level and age appropriate for each group and child so that their learning can be just right for them as well as actually productive.

I address a lot of things that stand out to me in the video, so those are addressed there, but to just add, I thought that the part about the reading framework was interesting, and reflecting on how low some of my kids in field are, it was not shocking to see that the reason they can't all properly read yet is because they are not at 99-100% on accuracy of word recognition.

I chose the task because I wanted to just kind of ramble about my thoughts on this one and reflect on the connections I made and thought about during the reading. There was a lot I felt about this reading and I also really wanted to just pour out the things I connected to and thought about on this one. To do this assignment though first I read it, and as I read I began to mark down some things I thought were interesting or I connected to. Then I thought about more in regards to my life experiences and then finally I sat down and recorded a video to kid of just ramble about my thoughts and connections in a free verse kind of style that helped me connect and reflect on the material better by allowing me to externally process a bit. I didn’t really have any trouble reading this or understanding, (i think), but the only thing interesting that happened as I recorded was I totally stumbled over my words and had to edit that, and I also recorded one whole video that ended up not having sound, so I had a lot of external processing on this one. I also found that my video was way too long so instead of re-recording for a third time I just sped it up. Engaging in this reading and content was very helpful though in shedding some light on things happening right now in my school, as well as gave me some insight into what I’d like to do for the future which I find incredibly helpful for me and good for my mastery of the content.

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Engage in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension (pre-reading, reading, responding, exploring, applying) - After you read, document your initial response to what you’ve read. Consider how the ideas you read about made you feel and what they made you think about.

Plan: Take a video of my rambling thoughts and connections.

I apologize, in order to get it to fit I had to speed it up. If there is any way to slow it down feel free (I know its long too I'm sorry)!

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Readerly Exploration 1

Readerly Exploration 1 - 9/24 (week 6)

Fisher, et. al. (2020), Chapter 1, “Defining Balance, Finding Balance”

Fisher, et. al. (2020), Chapter 7, “Independent Reading: Practicing, Applying, and Extending Learning”

The big takeaway from the first reading is that balanced literacy helps students build interest in reading, knowledge, abilities to read and write better, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and oral language.

The big takeaway from the second reading is that students must spend time reading, both at school and home, independently, which helps their reading abilities and interest grow, plus their understanding. Teachers need to facilitate this by giving students options of book topics, time to read, differing levels and constant measuring of their abilities to see if they are growing.

A nugget I got from these readings was how important it is for students to have choice. While this may seem obvious, it stuck out to me/stuck with me because it reminds me that not giving kids the choice to do something can easily quash any passion or interest they have in something. As someone who was very passionate about reading, but vehemently hated non fiction readings and did not like to read them unless it was on a topic I was interested in, I think this is an important thing I learned/relearned.

To do this exploration I found it rather easy. First I read the article a little, skimming the topics to see if anything stuck out to me, and then I picked the task, which was framing it from another class experience. Then I finished reading the articles, and began to reflect on my experiences in Korea before writing down all the things I connected with from the reading and could frame from my Korea experience. Then afterwards I went through the other requirements of the assignment and wrote them. I found it fairly easy to do, as it was mainly reflecting and writing this time, but what was enlightening was remembering back to my experience and having a reason and ability to connect it to something I’m learning now, which really enforces the fact that the class in korea is helpful and that the concepts learned here are also learned and used elsewhere, which speaks to effectiveness. This reading and connection really helped to solidify my understanding of reader choice, and why variety is important, as well as independent reading - and its usefulness in regards to developing personal reading habits that grow into literacy skills in the future - which was something I always enjoyed in school or home anyways; being able to read on my own, especially with the whisper phones or in my room for hours.

_______________ Readerly Habit + Practice ______________________

[Explore relationships with other people through reading by using texts as a shared experience with another person/other people or to gain insight into the perspective of another person - Provide an interpretation of the assigned reading through the lens of another course you’ve taken.

After reading this assignment, it made me think about one of the courses I took in Korea. I took a children’s literature class, which framed my view of English literature in a different light, and as I read I considered some of the things I had learned. We were taught in the class about all kinds of English literature, especially in regards to the usefulness of all kinds of genres. Something discussed in the reading was balanced literacy, and then specifically balanced reading, which means using both narrative and informational texts equally and finding a good balance between practicing different literacy skills. The reason for this is not only to expose children to multiple examples of genres and literacy skills, but to also sample different skills and interests for students, which the class in Korea talked about. In the class, we went over how the genres were vastly different, and then how the different genres helped with English acquisition, as well as exposure to information, culture and different concepts and interests. We analyzed different books and discussed how we could use it to help students learn (for example, a non fiction book about animals can teach about animal vocabulary, or a fictional book about a Korean family and their stories and problems acclimating to American culture can teach about different cultures), as well as how we could find other books like it but in a different genre to help teach different or connecting concepts. Using different genres and skills allows for students, especially foreign ones like my Korean classmates, the ability to sample the many different parts of English literacy, discover the intricacies of the English language (looking at phonemes, phonics, vocabulary and comprehension), and also use it to help teach their future students in the different skills we discussed in class like explicit and implicit learning through the reading and analyzing and writing about the books. In Korea, my professor was very adamant about us reading like we were little kids too, even having us do our own independent reading activities in order to show us how it works for all ages, as well as give us a sample of different cultural and leveled books. Another of her lessons was on how beneficial reading is for all ages, and all children or adults learning a language (English mainly), and she used independent reading that we got to pick the book we read for, for us to be reminded of what it is like to have to read and comprehend fiction and nonfiction books. In the second assigned reading, it talks about independent reading and how important it is for students, especially to keep interest and keep developing independent language skills. Similarly, we highlighted this in Korea when talking about using simple books for English students to take home and practice, many of my peers talking about the childrens books I read when I was 5 that they read in high school or university to work on their vocabulary and language development. Ultimately the topics we went over in my Children’s lit class were very affirming of this reading, and it was really cool to remember these readings’ topics framed in the foreign environment, forwarding the idea that these practices (balanced literacy, independent reading, and literacy practice in multiple formats) are utilized and work everywhere.]