futurespecialeducator-blog

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Amanda Maye Kirk

4/7/2019

Readerly exploration 7

Readings:

Manyak (2014) “Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction”

 Manyak (2014) “Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction”

Take Away: In Manyak’s article “Four Practical Principles for Enhancing Vocabulary Instruction” he gives us four principles. These principles are “1) establishing efficient and rich routines for introducing target word meaning, 2) providing reviewing review activities that promote deep processing of word meanings, 3) responding directly to student confusion, 4) fostering universal participation in and accountability for vocabulary instruction.  This process was created by a collaborative team of researchers and classroom teachers.  

Nugget: One nugget I really appreciated that it was a collaborative project in which teachers were involved.  Many times, teachers are just part of the study itself, rather than the research of the study and the things that work.  It’s important to listen to teachers on what they see and what they think does and doesn’t work because they are in the practice daily.  

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration I explored the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world or generating new questions about the world from texts that are read. I visited the Student Union at Messiah College.  I chose to go to the Union because there are tons of posters everywhere.  Many times, it is assumed that college-aged students can read these posters.  However, I was curious if there is anything that an international student may not understand the words used or the sometimes even the slang.  My RA is from Japan, sometimes when we’re talking, I’ll say an idiom and she will not know what it means.  These posters don’t necessarily show this right now; however, I know that I have seen it before.  This being said, not a lot of people are aware of the vocabulary they use when writing something; especially on a college campus.  Sometimes it might be helpful to have several people look at the poster(s) and relate the message back to you or tell if there was anything that is easily misunderstood or that could be misperceived.

Multimedia Connection: When I went to the Union, I took this picture of the posters and I was thinking about my students. In my future classroom, I hope to be a self- contained teacher.  It is very important to know that sometimes the posters and things around the school may not always make sense to our students.  We should help them understand the things around them as it pertains to vocabulary.

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Amanda Maye Kirk

3/12/2019

Readerly exploration 6

Readings:

Tompkins (chapter 8)

 Tompkins (chapter 8)

 Take Away: In Tompkins’s 9th chapter of Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach, she explains the text factors of stories, nonfiction, and poems as well as how to teach students about text factors. The chapter outlines the various narrative genres and their matching categories and descriptions. In the folklore category: a) fables- brief tales told to point out a specific moral, b) folktales- stories where heroes demonstrate virtues that triumph adversity, c) myths- stories created by ancient people that explain natural phenomena, d) legends- stories, including hero tales and tall tales, that tell of courageous deeds.  In the fantasy category: a) modern literary tales- stories that are written by modern authors that are similar to folktales, b) fantastic stories- imaginative that explore alternate realties that contain elements to found in the natural world, c) science fiction- stories that explore scientific possibilities, d) high fantasy- stories that focus on the conflict between good and evil.  In the realistic fiction category: a) contemporary stories-stories that portray today’s society, b) historical stories- realistic stories set in the past. The chapter also introduces the various narrative devices.  On page 304, there are 7 devices and what describes them.  These devices are 1) dialogue, flashback, foreshadowing, imagery, suspense, symbolism, and tone.  A good narrative would include each of these devices.  

Nugget: I really enjoyed the outline of a plot diagram on page 301. The way that they outlined a plot diagram is different from when I was in school.  It uses different terminology to explain the same general ideas.  We start with the problem begin with the problem being introduced. Then as we move through the story, we start to see the roadblocks that the characters face.  After that we reach a high point that reaches the answers or the highest point of the problem.  Finally, we solve the problem.  

Readerly exploration: For my readerly exploration, I explored 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.  I interviewed my RA, Hosana, I see her as a mentor in my faith.  She’s been through quite a bit in her life.  One of the biggest and most important things in her life was learning English.  She natively speaks Japanese.  She has some interesting perspectives when it comes to her schooling experience and learning English.  I started by asking, “when you learned how to write in English did you use anything to help guide you?”  Her response was that her teacher had them write journal entries every day.  Hosana called this a pen pal system.  She would typically write about her day, turn it in, and she would five me feedback on basic grammar.  She still holds onto those notebooks to see how far she’s come since first starting.  As she flipped through the pages in these notebooks, she saw her English improve significantly. Next, I asked her if she ever used any graphic organizers when learning English. She said that she often used diagrams specifically for learning grammar.  Finally, I asked Hosana is she’s ever used a plot diagram when reading a story.  She said that she’s never filled out a diagram, but she did have classroom discussions about the problem and solution in English literature.  

Multimedia documentation: This is a picture of the grammar diagram that Hosana often used when learning English. I really enjoyed the points that Hosana made as a person whose first language was Japanese and she had to learn English speaking, listening, reading, and writing. I hope to use lots of visuals in my future classroom to help guide the learning process.  Visuals help to aid in the learning process in terms of being able to guide the sequence of events, comparisons, key ideas with sub ideas, etc.  They all have their own purpose and can solidify the information provided for students especially when it comes time for students to have to do these kinds of things on their own.

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Amanda Maye Kirk

3/10/2019

Readerly Exploration 5

Readings:

Tompkins (chapter 8)

  Tompkins (chapter 8)

 Take Away: In Tompkins’s 8th chapter of Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach, she dives deeper into the meaning and factors of comprehension, as well as increasing student motivation. Tompkins defines comprehension as the goal for reading in which the reader understands what they’re reading based on making sense of the words. “Comprehension is a creative, multifaceted thinking process in which students engage with text.” (Tierney, 1990- Tompkins, page 225).  She then goes on to explain 4 different types of comprehension: 1.) literal comprehension- readers pick out the main idea, sequence events, notice similarities and differences, and identify explicit reasoning for events/ actions. 2) Inferential comprehension- readers use clues in the text as well as implied information along with their background knowledge to draw inferences.  3.) Critical Comprehension- readers analyze symbolic meanings, distinguish facts from opinions, and draws conclusions. 4) Evaluative Comprehension- readers begin to judge the value for a text using specific criteria and personal standards, detect bias, identifying faulty reasoning, determine the effectiveness of persuasive techniques and assess the quality of a text. There are several comprehension factors that are outlined in figure 8-1.  There are 6 reader factors: 1) background knowledge helps students to activate their prior knowledge of literacy and the world to link to what they’re reading. 2) Vocabulary helps students to recognize the meaning of familiar words and apply word- learning strategies to understand and communicate what they’re comprehending. 3) Fluency helps students have cognitive resources available to understand what they’re reading when it’s read with fluency. 4) Strategies help students to direct their reading with their understanding and troubleshoot problems when they occur. 5) Skills help students note the things that support the main ideas, sequence them, and use other skills. 6) Motivation helps students to confidently engage in their reading and likely comprehend successfully. There are 3 factors of text comprehension. “Genres have unique characteristics, and students’ knowledge of them provides a scaffold for comprehension. Text structures help students recognize the important ideas more easily when they understand the patterns that authors use to organize text. Text features help students apply their knowledge of the conventions and literary devices used in texts to deepen their understanding.” (Tompkins, page 257).

Nugget: I really liked the part of the chapter that included a chart on ways to teach comprehension strategies.  Figure 8.5 on page 271 shows us 12 strategies for teaching comprehension and the instructional procedures to follow for each strategy.  Comprehension was always something that was extremely hard for me to do in elementary school.   Therefore, having strategies to help guide my students will be extremely useful to me as a teacher.  

Readerly exploration: For my readerly exploration I was able to get back into contact with my English teacher from junior year of high school. We discussed comprehension in the classroom.  She discussed the hardest part about teaching comprehension for her being the various levels of students in one classroom.  She wants to slow down for the lower level learners to fully grasp everything; however, she doesn’t want to lose the advanced level learners.  They have very different needs and we cannot ignore them.  She emphasized the idea of reading aloud in class because it allows students to be able to comprehend at an equal level orally.  By reading aloud it can also give students the opportunity to hear it read with emotion, hearing thins read with emotion will allow students to understand the emotions of the characters related to the events in the story. However, this should serve as a model because we also need to find the balance of allowing students to make their own connections and comprehending the story.  

Multimedia documentation- This is a screenshot of part of our conversation.  I really liked the points that Mrs. Kerrigan made when she gave some modeling pieces in class to help students then do it on their own especially because they’re in high school and will need to reason with these skills as adults on their own. As a future special educator, it’s very important to model these skills for my students because it is an important skill to have in life.  

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Amanda Maye Kirk

2/27/2019

Readerly exploration 4

Readings:

Gambrell (2010) Seven Rules of Engagement: What’s Most Important to Know About Motivation to Read

Tompkins (chapter 10).

 Gambrell (2010) Seven Rules of Engagement: What’s Most Important to Know About Motivation to Read

Take Away: In Gambrell’s article “Seven Rules of Engagement: What’s Most Important to Know About Motivation to Read” she discusses the role of student’s motivation in their own literacy learning.  A student’s motivation and engagement with their reading and reading achievement significantly affect their achievement.  Our job as teachers is to support their motivation with practices and activities related to the students lives.  This will ultimately provide access to a wide range of interesting reading materials and time for students to engage with these materials and practice sustained reading.  We as teachers have a large responsibility to praise our students and motivate them. We should also model student reading journals and a wide range of choices for reading materials.

Nugget: It is extremely important to let students choose their own reading materials.  This coincides with student motivation, if they like a particular topic, then they’re more likely to like the

Tompkins (2017) Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 10

Take Away: Chapter 10 of Tompkins’s textbook discusses how to teach guided reading, the strengths and weakness found in basal readers, how to use literature to concentrate units in a balanced literacy approach, how to use literature circles to teach reading, and finally describing the reading and writing workshop program.  

Nugget: I really liked looking at the literature circles.  It reminded me of the discussion groups we had in children’s literature.  I really enjoyed being able to talk about the same book and what we each got out of it or the connections students make to one another in the book.  I really liked seeing this mentioned in this chapter and hope to use them in my future classroom if time allows.

Readerly Exploration:

For my readerly exploration I engaged in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension by first reading the assigned readings. Then, I met with Mariah Frey to discuss what we found compelling about what we read and the least compelling about what we read. Compelling: For the Gambrell article, she really liked the fact of knowing that we should make sure we are up to date on the most recent books and interests of the students. She feels like some of the things mentioned in this article were common sense, but needed to be said as reminders. We hear very often that times are changing and we need to know how to grab the attention of our students. Previously neither one of us had discussed the point of adding to our classroom libraries based on these interests, but it makes complete sense why you should just like Walmart sells things about the most recent boy band or television show.  For the Tompkins chapter we discussed basal readers still following the reading process.  Originally, Mariah thought that they were very scripted and not very useful; however, she can now see the connects made with the basal readers and how they also follow the reading process.  Least Compelling: For the Gambrell article Mariah and I discussed that we both really liked the article but want to emphasize that there is a such thing as too much motivation as well as not motivating enough. The level of motivation we need to give each of our students will vary depending on their level of need.  She discussed having a negative experience in elementary school with silent reading time where she felt like she had the need for motivation and wasn’t being given it. Likewise, I experienced a similar situation and still don’t really fancy reading.

Multimedia Documentation: Here’s a picture of Mariah and I in my dorm room discussing the most compelling and least compelling things about the Gambrell article and the tenth chapter of literacy for the 21st century.

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Due Date: 2/12/2019

Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 2

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: Using the five stages of the reading process (1- prereading, 2-reading, 3-responding, 4- exploring, 5- applying) along with the five stages of the writing process (1-prewriting, 2-drafting, 3-revising, 4-editing, 5- publishing) will allow students to take these two intimidating tasks and chunk it.  By chunking we allow students to take something big or intimidating and see it as a bunch of smaller pieces.  With this we have the writer’s craft as well.  The writers craft offers us 6 traits that we should see in our student’s writing: 1.) ideas, 2.) organization, 3.) voice, 4.) word choice, 5.) sentence fluency, 6.) conventions. Using the different steps provided for the writing and reading process, students should be able to compare the processes.  Ultimately, as a class, students should come to find the purpose for the reading and writing strategies.  

Nugget: On page 62, the author presents us with a chart comparing the reading and writing processes.  I’m a visual learner.  Seeing the processes line up with one another and overlap in certain aspects solidified my understanding of what I read.  I feel like this chart would be a helpful poster to have in the classroom.  By having a poster, it will give the students the responsibility to find the information they need. I feel like the more resources we provide and display for our students that they’re more likely to be successful.

Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 6

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: Students should be able to identify and explain the components of read and writing fluency.  The components of reading fluency are 1.) automaticity, readers should be able to read automatically and figure out unfamiliar words quickly, 2.) speed, fluent readers can read at least 100 words per minute,3.) prosody, fluent readers should read with expression and appropriate phrasing.  The components of writing fluency are 1.) automaticity should come to a writer, they shouldn’t have to stop and think about words and what they mean or how they’re used, 2.) speed, students need to write quick enough to keep pace with what they’re thinking, 3.) writer’s voice, a writer should develop their own sense of individuality in their writing.  Finally, the chapter touches on how we can assist older, dysfluent students.

Nugget:  I really appreciated the chart on page 203.  This chart went into detail regarding dysfluent readers.  I want to be a special educator (specifically in the higher grades), this being said it is important to know that I will have dysfluent readers.  This chart breaks down reading and writing into their subdomains and tells of the common difficulties students may have if they’re dysfluent.

Engagement with Chapter 2 and 6

I really enjoyed these two chapters as they took two aspects of literacy (reading and writing) and broke them down for me.  I personally struggled in the areas of reading and writing in literacy and this forcibly made me strongly dislike literacy from middle school until 11th grade. It was only then that I found a new sense of my abilities in these areas.  Not only did my teacher help me feel like I was capable, but she also provided helpful aides to accomplish the tasks individually.  She was bubbly and clearly loved what she did so she made learning literacy very interesting, along with this she provided many visual aides that were hung all around the room for us to continually reference.  Being able to reference these posters plus her energy helped me feel like I was capable.

Readerly Exploration

For my readerly exploration I have chosen to 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.  At first, I reached out to my English teacher from junior year of high school, she wasn’t able to get back to me right away so I decided to have a conversation with my mom. My mom is a speech pathologist in a school district.  She often works with struggling student and I wanted to get her perspective on this topic. I asked my mom, “what are your recommendations and beliefs about teaching reading and writing for all levels?” She started off by saying that exposure to reading and writing skills are vital and should be taught as early as possible due to their everyday use.  My mom does some group speech therapy in a self-contained classroom as well as in their life- skills classroom (same group of students).  She gets to see them work through life skills and reading that is applicable to them.   The teacher in the classroom tries to keep the reading material up to date and interesting for them so that they can truly benefit from the skills obtained from this practice such as reading comprehension.  The students will typically write about an event that they have participated in, heard about, or want.  They always use laptops to help guide spelling and grammar.  During this time to teacher is making notes on the google document and guiding the students to correct certain things without necessarily saying how. Finally, I asked my mom how she felt about posters in the classroom.  She said she think they’re useful, but there should be a line.  In her district, they use Reader’s and Writer’s workshops at the Elementary School level.  The classrooms are covered in strategy/ rule posters.  The kids often know where to look for the information they need, but for some kids, it’s visual overload.  Overall, she does support the use of written language used through a classroom.

Multimedia Documentation

This is a picture of a classroom with many visual aids.  I hope that I can also do this for my students.  Visual aids are extremely important for not just literacy, but all subjects.  I was this in my classroom so that the tips and tricks I provide for my students are remembered and used.  The more that students see something and practice using it, the more likely they are to remember it and use it.

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Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 3

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: When planning literacy instruction, we need to carefully link our instruction with assessment.  This is especially important when it comes time to assess a student’s literacy development.  This testing can be helpful in determining a student’s reading level as well as their literary strengths and weaknesses.  Ultimately, from these results you will make goals to help them best meet grade level standards (or above grade level standards for advanced students.)  Aside from keeping assessing literacy skills teachers should also keep a running record of student’s reading levels.  In doing this you are recording a child’s abilities on a book they’re already familiar with and have had the time to practice the high- frequency words, decode unfamiliar words, and use reading strategies.  This shows the assessment in true use and how it is working aside from the assessment.

Nugget: I really enjoyed/ appreciated this section on Nurturing English Language Learners.  It suggests 4 different types of literary assessments that could be used to near accurately reflect what they know.  These types are oral language assessments, reading assessment, writing assessment, and alternative assessments.  Often times we just assume that ELL’s are below level, but with adjustments like this we could come to find that ELL’s are just like the other students and can be classified into three levels. Below level, on level, and above level.  

Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach.  Chapter 11

Gail Tompkins

Takeaway: The chapter explains 3 different ways to differentiate instruction in order to help students be successful in their work inside and outside of the classroom.  These 3 modifications are: 1.) differentiating the content, 2.) differentiating the process, 3.) differentiating the product.  Using these modifications, you can effectively work with struggling reader and writers.

Nugget:  On page 371 it discussed making your instruction rigorous, relevant, flexible, and complex.  By recognizing the diversity of levels and backgrounds of each of our students we can truly start to understand each student’s needs. Some students may need extra assistance while others may be able to move on pretty quickly from a subject.  Applying these tools to our instruction and then connecting it with the differentiation of content, process, and product can ensure that each student is being effectively challenged.

Engagement with Chapter 3 and 11

For my inquiry project I have decided to continue my inquiry from last semester but shift my focus from below level ELLs to above level readers being ELLs.  I really appreciated the ELL connection in chapter 3.  At some point or another most teachers will have an ELL in their class. This ELL or these ELLs could be at varying level of English proficiency. This connection and adaptation that the author made for literary assessing is very important for all teacher, not just ESL teachers.  You want to see the full potential of all of your students, just because they have one label (ELL) doesn’t mean it automatically attaches another label.  

Readerly Exploration

For my readerly exploration I explored 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.  I interviewed my roommate, Megan.  Megan is an applied health science major with a psychology minor. I asked her, “is literary assessment the most effective way of monitoring a student’s progress in literacy development?” She initially said yes and no. She said that certain students may appear to fall behind in these assessments because of their lack of testing skills as well as their ability to apply learned tools to rereading the same text becomes irrelevant.  She said that those that are good at taking tests are put at a greater advantage in that they can process the information in a different way and thus score better.  I then asked her, “do you think that doing a running record would be more effective in monitoring student’s progress?” (I also explained what a running record was).  She thinks that this is a better form of assessment because students are given a fair advantage of reading a text that they’re familiar with.  She thinks that advanced readers can often get lost in this type of assessment.  They may process this information much quicker than the average reader.  Thus, these assessments could be useful, but may need to be more frequent in order to challenge the student.  You don’t want students staying on the same book that is “easy” for them, you want to move them onto a book that will stretch their skills.  Finally, I asked her, “do you prefer the formal assessment or the running record for documenting your progress?”  She said that she’d prefer the running record because she’d feel more comfortable talking about and engaging with the text.

Multimedia Documentation

I used a picture of a test where a student got a gold star and “good job” written on it.  I chose this picture because I feel like certain students are never given the opportunity to earn the gold star because the assessment isn’t on their level. However, if we put the assessment on their level, I feel like every student could be earning the “gold star” or any sticker for that matter that can be seen as a reward for working their hardest.

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Readery Exploration 1 of 7

In Brighton, Moon, and Huang’s article Advanced Readers in Reading First Classrooms: Who Was Really “Left Behind”?  Consideration for the Field of Gifted Education, they conducted a study in which answered two questions, “1) How did the reading growth of a cohort of advanced primary- grade readers compare with a cohort of average- ability readers and a cohort of struggling readers from kindergarten through second grade in RF schools? 2) How did teachers in RF schools address the needs of their advanced readers?” (page 262).  The study found that the growth overtime for literacy in advanced readers was significantly slower in comparison to the struggling readers in which progressed at a much faster rate.  This is very interesting to me, I wasn’t expecting the rate to be much less for the advanced group; however, if they start out advanced, they are being challenged on their own level just like the struggling readers.  The struggling readers aren’t being stretched as far. They’re only stretching to grade level, whereas the advanced readers are stretching way past grade level and hitting a more challenging goal.  But this is just simply a thought.  For the second research question, there were four major themes that emerged from the data. “1.) A strict adherence to the adopted basal readers defined program fidelity, 2) compromises in other curriculum and instruction further limited opportunities for advanced readers, 3) degree of fit between the core basal readers and advanced readers resulted in a lack of challenge, 4) the varied understandings and misunderstandings surrounding differentiated instruction led to limited rigor for advanced readers.” (page 270-271).  It seems as though there was a lot of instruction in order to help the below level readers catch up and no differentiated instruction for the varying levels in which each group would be equally challenged and working on their levels. Due to the extreme amount of time spent on trying to catch up the below level readers the advanced readers are given no time to practice their skills during the school day.  

           One nugget from this reading that I really liked were how to take this information from the study and actually apply it. First, we must accept that advanced readers may need differentiated instruction. Second, it says that practitioners should use creative mechanisms to ensure that all non- reading content is delivered at an appropriate age.  Third, we need to develop the talent found in culturally diverse students, nonnative English speakers, and students from impoverished backgrounds.  Fourth, we should view fidelity as composed of structural and instructional components that aren’t detached from the reasoning and decision making.

           For readerly habit, I explored 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. I had a phone call conversation with my dad about a few different components of the reading.  First, we discussed the reasons why he thinks there is a smaller progression for advanced readers than the below level readers. He believed that there’s minimal room for growth for the advanced readers where they reach this quota and can become stuck and challenged.  He also believes that another aspect is teachers saying oh you’re doing great so I’m going to go help the below level readers.  This made me question further.  Quick context: my brother and I were always read to as kids, my dad and mom made it a very big thing to read to us every night.  Once we reached elementary school, we were both considered below level readers.  My brother eventually caught back up with his peers about 2 years later.  I however, only caught up once I was in 3rd or 4th grade.  So I challenged my dad with the question, “As a parent if Tyler and I were advanced readers that weren’t being challenged to our abilities how would you feel?”  My dad said that he would be upset and frustrating knowing that there could be something done that wasn’t being done for us.  He said that everyone should be receiving instruction at their level and being challenged for their abilities.  He suggested something individual.  I extended this to say individualized instruction, meaning the students would be working at their own level and pace.  He then made a shift back to parental involvement in a child’s reading.  He said he feels like a parent reading to/ with their children is very important and can’t really hurt anything.  He said if anything it can model reading and start the process.  I stretched this and asked about parental involvement in the reading process for school.   He said that it can most certainly affect a child’s reading ability.  The more practice and help a child receive during any homework it is shown to help the student improve in school.  But what about those students who have inactive parents or absent parents… what happens to them?  Are they more or less motived?  He challenged this to say that parental involvement in the reading process can’t necessarily hurt anything, but parents being uninvolved could hurt the process. At the end of this conversation I realized that we shifted from the initial topic of the research; however, I think it’s important to talk about parental involvement in these academic differences.  

           Multimedia Documentation: I chose this meme because I feel like it should represent students reading by themselves at their own level and pace.  Such as silent reading time.  The one thing about this I also want to touch on is the confidence and drive to read rather than feeling stressed or bored by it.  I think the interesting thing we can mention about this meme is that it almost doesn’t leave room for potential correction?  

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Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC & I

Post Number 8 of 8

10/15/2018

Reading due: 10/19/2018

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

             Sipe’s article, “Talking Back & Talking Over: Young Children’s Expressive Engagement During Read- Aloud Storybooks” discusses the examination of a subset of oral responses young children, particularly K-2, have made during interactive read alouds of picture storybooks.   Sipe also lists out a set of responses and how we as educators might want to interpret them.  He then goes on to discuss how the knowledge of these responses could be seen as a practical use in our classrooms.  The nugget I liked was on page 480 of the article.  I appreciated the chart named, “Influences on children’s expressive engagement in stories.” Sipe discusses four different elements we as teachers should think about: cultural context, individual reader characteristics, textual characteristics, and teacher/ classroom characteristics.  For cultural context it says the culturally constructed attitude and stance toward stories, both oral and written.  This is extremely important to recognize that our students each have a culture and that their culture may come through in their engagement, connection, and reflection of reading. The individual reader characteristics writes that previous experience with hypertext and other malleable formats, previous experience with storybook variants as examples of the protean quality of texts, thereby inviting talking back and taking over.  It is really important to recognize a child’s history with text or past experiences.  This is important because it can format how a student engages, connects, and reflects with the reading.  Textual characteristics writes some texts may encourage this type of response more than others. The so- called postmodern picture book may tend to invite more of these responses than stories in a more traditional linear format. Teacher/ classroom characteristics writes the teacher’s approval or disapproval of these types of responses, the classroom’s explicit and implicit rules for storybook read- alouds.  What “counts” as response in a particular classroom interpretive community.

           For my readerly exploration I had a lovely discussion with Mariah Frey.  We engaged in the reading process to increase the likelihood of text comprehension. We talked about seeing the real- life examples of allowing students to interject. We both personally didn’t have the ability to do this when we were students.  However, we see the benefit of using interjection when it is appropriate. We think we would need to find that healthy balance where we as the teachers still have control over the situation. We also discussed the elements from my nugget and how important it is to recognize that our students have different thinking and connections to make with literacy as well as varying responses.  We then discussed what Dr. Buckley has to say about varying ways to get to the same answer.  Although the answer is typically the same in math (with the exception of open- questions and open-ended questions), there are varying ways to get to the same answer.  Finally, we discussed a teacher’s personal response to what a student has to share, we often find that teachers seem to have an automatic response (okay, great, awesome… moving on).  This barely acknowledges the student and most definitely doesn’t connect personally to let our students know that we appreciate their thinking and learning.  

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Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC & I

Post Number 7 of 8

10/15/2018

Reading due: 10/17/2018

Holdaway (1982), “Shared Book Experience: Teaching Reading Using Favorite Books”

            In Holdaway’s article, “Shared Book Experience: Teaching Reading Using Favorite Books” discusses the shared book experience. The shared book experience is a teaching model developed in New Zealand to introduce children to literacy education. The model is based on the use of popular children’s books and teaches children to master literacy skills the way they master spoken language versus written language. One nugget I liked was on page 296 of the document was the examples given on how to carry out this behavior at different levels of development.  It goes into detail separating it by segment.  For example, “Text: “I must get something for my baby to eat!” she said, “I will be back.”  So away she went.”  The predicted response to this text was, “Response: Must baby bird a eated Dat way went. Fly a gye.”  Thinking about particular responses can help us know whether a student is understanding the text and how they are interacting with the text.  It’s important to know how students are interacting with the text given so we can know whether they are understanding or maybe need more help comprehending their own ideas.

           I had a lovely discussion with my fellow classmate Lillian exploring the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world or generating new questions about the world from texts that are read.  We discussed our favorite nuggets from the Holdaway article. Lillian’s favorite nugget was the idea of story time reading and instructional meaning can have a different effect on students. She always enjoyed story time in class as a little kid as well as the connections they made as a whole.  She struggled with reading comprehension as a kid and she had slowly lost her drive towards reading and often found herself drifting off.  This being said if you’re asking students to read then you’re also expecting them to understand, but why do we leave students feeling disinterested and misunderstanding their reading?  What can we do to help our students better understand and engage with books and overall become better readers?

           Multimedia: Lillian and I have started to connect since last Spring.  We have found ourselves to get along really well and understand each other.  This particular picture was from our day out shopping when we got boba tea (bubble tea) together.

[futurespecialeducator-blog]

Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC & I

Post Number 6 of 8

10/12/2018

Reading due: 10/15/2018

Jan Richardson, “The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading” chapter 1

Jan Richardson, “The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading” introduction

            In Jan Richardson’s, “The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading- introduction” she discusses guided reading essentials.  Such as the definition of guided reading- a small- group differentiated instruction that supports students in developing reading proficiency.  Guided reading as a whole recognizes that students are on varying levels which is very important in becoming a better reader.  One nugget that I really liked was the quote from page 8, “Regardless of the grade level you teach or your students’ reading stage, the basic tenets of guided reading remain constant: 1) Teachers match students with challenging books that are at their instructional reading level and support their next reading goal.  2) Students become better readers by reading, self- monitoring, and problem solving their way through text, rereading as needed to check understanding. 3) Teachers are intentional in their instruction and responsive to the specific needs of their students.  4) Teachers know when to step in and scaffold and when to reduce support, enabling students to move forward as independent readers.  

           In Jan Richardson’s, “The Next Step Forward in Guided Reading- chapter 1” she discusses literacy routines and procedures that should be established within all K-8 classrooms. The overall idea is to set up our students correctly to be able to read independently.  Throughout the entire chapter it gives an overview of how guided reading fits into a balanced reading program.  This includes ideas for creating a great environment for student independence as well as how to set up independent literacy activities. One nugget that I really liked was on page 17, “The First Six Weeks, K-1: Teaching Routines and Procedures for Reading Workshop.”  I really liked this because I have been in so many classrooms before where all of these procedures have already been in place.  This being said I liked the procedures in place, but I wasn’t sure how to get started implementing these procedures. I appreciated this week by week guide of how to implement important classroom procedures so that my classroom can run in a controlled manner.

            For my readerly exploration, I had a conversation with my mom about the assigned course readings. She is a speech-language pathologist and although she may not conduct guided reading herself she has seen it in practice through the schools she’s been in.  We particularly discussed the 4 constants in guided reading and her opinion on them.  

1) Teachers match students with challenging books that are at their instructional reading level and support their next reading goal.  My mom’s response is that she agrees with this statement and made a good point that there are people everywhere that don’t actually properly do this in their classroom.  It is important to implement this in all classrooms so that students benefit.  

2) Students become better readers by reading, self- monitoring, and problem solving their way through text, rereading as needed to check understanding. My mom’s response was that yes this is true with a strong reader. However, not all poor readers are aware that they are poor readers and may not want to read because it’s too hard, while on the other hand students with poor comprehension skills don’t know what they’re missing.

3) Teachers are intentional in their instruction and responsive to the specific needs of their students.  My mom’s response was that ideally yes, of course you would want every teacher to do this.  However, just like the first point, not every teacher does do this.

4) Teachers know when to step in and scaffold and when to reduce support, enabling students to move forward as independent readers.  My mom’s response was that every teacher should have this as a goal in mind.  We should always be thinking of our students when teaching to have their best interest in mind.

 Multimedia connection:  This picture was taken today when I went to Holland Ridge Farms with my parents.

[futurespecialeducator-blog]

Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC & I

Post Number 5 of 8

10/9/2018

Reading due: 10/10/2018

Miller (2013), Chapter 4, “In October”

Worthy, et. Al. (2015), “What Are the Rest of the Students Doing?  Literacy Work Stations in Two First- Grade Classrooms”

            In Debbie Miller’s “Reading with Meaning Chapter 4, In October,” it discusses the idea of thinking about assessment up front. Meaning you think about assessment before designing specific lessons and activities.  Debbie talks about thinking about assessment up front gets us away from “covering the curriculum” with a bunch of lessons and activities that don’t have the assessment in mind.  Instead, it brings us towards intentional teaching and moves our students toward a more thoughtful, focused learning. This section brought me into thinking about instructional design where we are learning how to design our instructional plans. Professor Fischer emphasizes the importance of sticking to the order of the systems model.  This order is made based on extensive research that allows for the best instructional plan.  One nugget that I liked from Debbie Miller’s 4th chapter is the quote from page 73, “Be precise when you share your thinking.  Say what you need to say as clearly and concisely as you can, then move on.  Use real language and standard terminology when talking with children; nothing says inferring quite like inferring.”  I never really thought about how to properly vocalize my thinking; however, Debbie makes a great point that we have to demonstrate our thinking for our students in order for them to fully understand the knowledge being given to them. Considering that I have only just had this realization after reading this chapter, I think it is very important to start to work on this in my instructional planning as well as my daily interactions with students.

           In Jo Worthy’s article “What Are the Rest of the Students Doing?  Literacy Work Stations in Two First- Grade Classrooms,” it discusses how it is imperative literacy and reading instruction being focused on the provision of meaningful experiences that support elementary student’s academic achievement. The overall meaningful experiences that are discussed in this article are guided reading, student engagement, use of technology in education, levels of reading achievement, revision of educational curriculum, educational accountability and productivity, evidence-based education, the role of classroom activities and varying teaching methods.  One nugget that I liked from Worthy’s article was the quote found on page 180, “Pamela was aware of issues in her workstations.  As she pointed out in an interview, because students were expected to work without teacher direction, she has encountered challenges with the need to monitor students as they worked at the stations.”  I really liked this part because the teacher was willing to admit that her workstations weren’t perfect and how she knew they weren’t ideal. I feel it is really important to take charge of your classroom and instruction and recognize when it can use some improvements because in reality, it’s all about what is best for the students to learn and understand the knowledge and concepts we are giving them.

For my readerly exploration, I chose to share one of my assigned course readings with a mentor in my faith to get her insight and perspective on it.  This mentor for me is my RA, Hosana Kawashima.  She has been my RA for the past 2 years and has been an amazing mentor to me.  We discussed the importance of teachers having the ending assessment determined before writing up the instruction.  At first, when I described it to her she was confused, so I changed my wording and related it better to college classes and she then understood the concept.  She expressed being appreciative of professors thinking about her end goal and how the instruction can be formed around this end assessment.  For example, adding in a review day before the exam to ask questions and go over important topics that are on the exam.  Once she grasped the topic I explained the importance of using this with younger students. What is really unique about my mentor is that she is from Japan and did all of her schooling from 3rd- 12th grade in an online English school.  Having participated in this type of education, Hosana feels like she didn’t get to experience the varying forms of assessment that can be used that aren’t just tests.  I found it really interesting to know that online schooling is very straightforward and is mostly self- guided work in order to reach the end assessment.

 Multimedia connection: This picture of Hosana and I is from last February when we went ice skating as a floor.  I have thoroughly enjoyed having Hosana in my life, she is truly such an amazing mentor.  

[futurespecialeducator-blog]

Amanda Maye Kirk

Instructional Design- Simulation Journal

10/5/2018

Due 10/5/2018

Part I. 

Within our simulation, your first deadline for your Unit Plan pilot project is fast approaching and you will have to submit Part I to Mrs. Fletcher this week. In your In-Service trainings, she’s been walking you through Messiah School District’s approach to instructional design using the Systems Model and has also begun to explain the district’s instructional plan template bit by bit. However, she hasn’t had time to answer all of your questions and seems to expect that you will complete parts of the Unit Plan before you’ve had a chance to really gain your confidence with the process. Not only that, but she’s asking you to do things for which she never intends to provide professional development for you at all, such as how to design a strong scope and sequence for a thematic unit of study. 

Describe how you have felt “giving it a go” when you know there are very real expectations (deadline from your fictional principal and grades from your real professor) and share some things you’ve learned about yourself as a professional as you’ve undertaken this task. 

Honestly, my first time giving it a go I felt stressed and worried that I was doing it incorrectly.  I also felt this question repeating in my head saying, “is this correct, it needs to be correct.”  Another thing that I felt during this time was the stress of the “essential content part of the plan” this was intimidating because I didn’t fully understand it at first and I wasn’t able to fully understand what was expected of that section until the day it was due, but reflecting back I can say the stress was worth it because I now know how to properly complete the “essential content.”  In reality, I know that as educators we aren’t always going to be provided the tools we need to complete our instructional plans to the standards expected by our schools.  This being said the work that we provide we should feel confident in if we personally think it is the best it can be then I feel we are doing it properly until further guidance is given.  Throughout this experience, I learned that it can be stressful working with others on something that involves so much detail.  However, once we had reached an agreement we were able to work well together to hand in our unit plan part 1.  

Part II.

How does reflecting on our simulation in this way help you think about our course driving question differently? (Driving Question: How can teachers create effective instruction that is good for children and maintains the integrity of their philosophy within the constraints of administrative and other external mandates?)

It is a teacher’s responsibility to provide the proper instruction for their students, do to this it is imperative that the appropriate amount of time is spent creating an instructional plan.  I believe that the worst of this part is overdoing it for the very first time.  I’ve heard from many teachers over the years that it gets easier year after year because you can generally keep the same plans but make little changes where it is necessary.  I know that the situation we were put in with our unit plans was very close to reality in the aspect that we aren’t always going to know exactly what to do and how to do it, we are also not always going to know exactly how to do it or there will be a roadblock that seems intimidating but we will always work our way through it.

 Multimedia connection: The first meme (stressed student) is how I felt when we first started the group plan and I had reached a high level of confusion.  The second meme (standards) was comical to me because seeing all of these standards given by Pennsylvania I was overwhelmed, but in the idea of this project we were able to find so many standards that related to one topic and create instructional goals and essential content from them.  It took what was originally intimidating and turned it into something that is achievable with a properly designed instructional plan.

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Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC & I

09/30/2018

Reading due: 10/3/2018

Miller (2013), Chapter 2, “In September, Part One”

Miller (2013), Chapter 3, “In September, Part Two”

                In Debbie Miller’s “Reading with Meaning Chapter 2, In September Part One” it discusses the journey Debbie went through to match her beliefs and practices.  Debbie states her beliefs on why reading and learning matter in the beginning of the chapter: 1) Classroom environments are most effective when they are literate and purposeful, organizes and accessible, and most of all authentic. 2) We cannot underestimate the power of our influence- what we choose to say and do in the classroom profoundly affects the ways children view their teacher, themselves and each other. 3) Learning is maximized when the lesson I design are purposeful, interactive and engaging, with real world applications. 4) The gradual release of responsibility instructional model, integrated into a workshop format, best guides children toward understanding and independence. 5) Formative, ongoing assessment enlightens and informs my day- to- day work with children. 6) A workshop format based on the elements of time, choice, response and community fosters active, responsive teaching and learning. What’s important to recognize about this section is that these are Debbie’s beliefs about education.  The process in September is a teacher’s journey to figuring out who he or she is. This is who Debbie is and she’s setting us up to find our own answers to the question, “Why do reading and learning matter?”  One nugget that I really liked and stuck with me was the September Calendar.  I really like schedules and knowing how things are going to play out.  I also like that schedules can be adjusted according to the understanding and learning of the students.  Schedules can also be adjusted according to the teacher and their belief of perhaps adding lessons for further understanding and learning. Debbie sets up a Calendar for an end goal of “By the end of September, I want my first graders to be able to host a reading workshop for their families at back- to- school night.”  In this calendar it includes a weekly schedule that has guiding questions and mini- lessons, read- aloud, etc.

               In Debbie Miller’s “Reading with Meaning Chapter 3, In September Part Two” it discusses lining up our beliefs to the practice of setting up and arranging our classroom environment.  Our classroom environment sets a tone for so many daily practices. The way our classrooms make our students fell will come from our preparation that aligns with our beliefs and practices. One important nugget I found while reading this passage was taking an active role in answering the questions: “How else might I ensure that most of their chosen books are at their instructional level? What’s most effective” Debbie then goes on to outline 7 things that take an active role: 1) Book talks.  2) Sticky notes. 3) Read- aloud. 4) Recommending charts. 5) Go looking together. 6) Pick one. 7) Conferring.  These are all great suggestions on how to be more proactive in my students reading and gain an understanding that it is important for my students to have a say in the books they read.  I feel it is important to give student the opportunity to pick books they’re interested in and try our hardest to provide books at all levels for the topics they have interest in.  I know that sometimes find books at all levels for each topic can be hard and expensive; however, showing our students that we are invested in them as readers can be a huge thing for them.  

               For my readerly habit I explored the world through reading by using texts to answer questions about the world or generating new questions about the world from texts that are read.  I went to the Murray Library on campus to try to find juvenile books at varying levels.  I decided to go with a topic that I’ve always been really interested in: planes.  At first when I searched on the Murray Library Website in the juvenile section for “planes” I only had 10 results come up, I didn’t think this could be all of them so I took it upon myself to go look and surely enough I found so my juvenile books involving planes and flight.  It important to search various words related to the topic in which your students are interested so that your search can be expanded and found in varying levels.  I personally found 15 books involving planes; however, I saw many more in both fiction and nonfiction at all reading levels.  For example, in the top row, third book over I found a book about Flying A to Z.  This went through the alphabet but related it to planes and airports. As well as a chapter book about flying called Hatchet.  It was surprisingly easy to find books at varying levels about a specific topic. I look forward to finding out my future students interests and helping provide them with books at their level in that interest.  Hopefully, by giving my students books they’re interested in they will find themselves to be like Dory in the meme where they just want to keep reading. 

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Amanda Maye Kirk

Literacy CC &I

9/26/2018

Date Due: 9/28/2018

Wessel- Powell, Kargin & Wohlwend (2016), “Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling”

Leong & Bodrova (2018), “Why Children Need Play”

Scholastic (2018), “Building Language and Literacy Through Play”

                 In Wessel- Powell, Kargin, and Wohlwend’s article “Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling” it discusses that play is an imperative part of literacy and claims that a multimodal emphasis in teaching and assessment better matches the ways in which children learn and make meaning of the things and people around them in their everyday lives.  From this article an important nugget that I appreciated was the time of the comparison between what is currently used versus what should be used.  Such as in assessment, children are often assessed based on their ability to write something on a piece of paper; however, this form of assessment is entirely overlooking the child’s sound effects, gestures, movement, images, and language which all play an important role in assessing a child’s overall performance.  Looking at the multimodal storytelling for classroom use (figure 1, page 4) we can see the skills of writing are still being assessed; however, they aren’t so heavily weighted on their writing.  This added descriptors in all areas to fully reflect the richness of the teacher’s instruction in dramatic performance as well as writing.

               In Leong & Bodrova’s article “Why Children Need Play” it discusses the importance of children engaging in play that creates a pretend scenario by negotiating and talking to peers and using props in a symbolic way as well as children creating specific roles and roles for their pretend behavior and being open to the addition of multiple themes and roles.  “When children engage with this type of play through their early years, they learn to delay gratification and to instead prioritize their goals and actions.” This as encourages children to consider the perspectives, needs, and ideas of other people.  “They learn to represent things symbolically and to regulate their behaviors and act in a deliberate, intentional way.”  One interesting thing I saw in the article was that children are not experiencing enough creative play because of TV, videos, the computer, etc.  These devices don’t leave very much room for the imagination to grow whereas play would enhance this creative element.

               In Scholastic’s article “Building Language and Literacy Through Play” it discusses the importance of dramatic play having the most profound effect on language and literacy development.  There are three elements that must be present in order to promote the highest levels of language and literacy development: 1.) Using a variety of props and objects, 2.) Combining multiple roles and themes, 3.) Creating a pretend scenario and solving disagreements by talking and negotiating.  One of my favorite things from this article is that they provide many teacher directed activities such as: help children see different uses for familiar props and create new props, expand the repertoire of play themes and roles by exposing children to new and varied experiences, help children use appropriate strategies in planning their play with their playmates and later carrying this out in their play.  They also provide us with many ways to create a play- rich environment: making sure there is a long uninterrupted block of time in the schedule reserved for play, refraining from limiting pretend play to the dramatic- play center, extend the play theme to other centers, etc.  These were all super helpful tips help me better visualize how to better incorporate play into my future classroom.

               I chose to discuss the second article (Leong & Bodrova (2018), “Why Children Need Play”) with my roommate who is a pre-physical therapy major.  Her personal opinion is close to mine.  She agrees that students shouldn’t be given electronics much before about 5th grade. We believe this because it hinders the learning experience especially in the category of imagination and communication. Another thing we discussed is the idea of play and how it enhances the awareness of other people.  Megan said that it enhances the overall idea of other people and listening to them.  I talked to her about the other things it adds such as awareness for other people and their individual opinions and ideas. I also added that play can foster a child’s imagination. Children have such amazing imaginations; however, when we give them technology it doesn’t allow for much if any at all. They design the apps and games to be brightly colored and with specific instruction, it’s also only a single person on the piece of technology so they lose the social aspect of play as well.  This got both of us thinking about what other individuals feel about technology in an elementary school classroom, so we asked our friend Trischa (Bio- psychology major) who was quick to answer with a stern no, they should not have technology in the classroom in elementary school.  I agree with this statement and feel that if there “must” be technology to limit it to a special that has a time limit for being on these screens.  Recess, centers, relaxation time, etc. should NOT be spent on technology, these are valuable times for a student to be growing in their play which will overall enhance their literacy skills as well as many other skills.

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Amanda Maye Kirk 

09/18/2018

Due Date: 09/21/2018

Professor Sarah Fischer’s article, “ Reading with a Crayon: Pre- Conventional Marginalia as Reader Response in Early Childhood”

Debbie Miller’s Reading with Meaning Chapter One

In the Fall of 2017, my Math 209 class was given optional extra credit to go see a professor present their research for the year.  At that time, I didn’t know who this professor at all or that she would be one of my favorite professors for turning around my view of literacy.  My view of literacy before her classes were very negative based on past teachers in my life making me think that there was only view or method to literacy and interpreting literature and text.  However, Professor Fischer has helped me to see that that’s not what should happen in literacy classrooms.  A student’s interpretation and feeling towards any particular subject comes from a teacher and from parents/ guardians own personal interpretations and enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm for the subject. In my particular case I had teachers that shut down my personal thoughts and interpretations on literature and text, they also only gave us very specific ways of being able to show our thoughts and opinions on the subject.  This limited me and I grew to truly dislike literacy.  Once the spring semester of 2018 began, my feelings towards literacy were challenged- but in a more positive manner… I actually truly started to like literacy.  Who knew that the presentation by Dr. Fischer in the fall of 2017 about children coloring in golden books would start to change my view of literacy? All of this being said, I approached these the article and the first chapter of Debbie Miller’s Book with my history of literacy in mind.  Debbie Miller’s first chapter in Reading with Meaning she emphasizes goals and expectations, the importance of time management, starting with trust to build a firm foundation with your students, and finally supporting the responsibility of new learning from the start.  One part of Debbie’s reading that I enjoyed was her quote from page 12, “So now, instead of keeping the whole group together in way- too- long mini- lessons, I send children off- release them- much earlier, so that they get to be the ones doing the reading, writing, talking, and learning.” This quote instantly stuck out to me because it is imperative to give our students the resources and then let them lead their own thoughts and learning.  This is something I didn’t really get to experience, but now having been given the opportunity to gain a new liking for literacy.  From Dr. Fischer’s article, “Reading with a Crayon: Pre- Conventional Marginalia as Reader Response in Early Childhood” she poses the question “What purpose does drawing in picturebooks serve in early childhood reading experiences?” Fischer’s overall study presented to use that children can understand the medium that they are drawing or scribbling on (such as putting an x on a mean character’s face) these present evidence of responsive transactions with texts and these interactions with books oversee a child’s future experiences extended beyond the books.  I brought up both the article and the chapter with my roommate who is an applied health science major.  She always thoroughly enjoyed reading.  When we were reminiscing on certain childhood books we found out that we both enjoyed golden books.  However, neither of us could remember what our relationships were with these particular books so we reached out to our parents.  My parents both agreed that I never drew or colored in any of my books. This was primarily due to the fact that my brother and I were only ever allowed to have one toy out at a time, and whenever we had books out they were typically for reading time at night.  Megan on the other hand asked her parents and they both mentioned that they remembered her drawing in the books and they would quickly take away the pencil or crayon to not let it continue. However, they don’t quite remember what she was drawing or drawing on.  Unfortunately, she also no longer owns her books from her childhood because she had donated them to good will.  It was interesting to think that my roommate who is a book lover would ever vandalize a book! However, I’m now seeing it as she was interacting with the story and showing early signs of thinking critically.  I wonder if I was given the opportunity, if I would have drawn in my golden books as well.

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Readerly Exploration 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36IBDpTRVNE&index=1&list=PLbNuW2oYkBAiH2dHWChvZf6aJpLAMgdWZ

Amanda Maye Kirk 

9/13/2018

Due 9/14/2018

Literacy CC & I

Cambourne “Toward an Educationally Relevant Theory of Literacy Learning”

Britsch & Meier “Building a Literacy Community: The Role of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Childhood Programs.”

            The theme for Friday’s class asks us two questions. What is literacy? What is text?  Britsch & Meier and Cambourne present us as readers with their views and roles of literacy.  Cambourne focuses more on the methods of children’s learning.  Meanwhile, Britsch- & Meier focus on the critical aspects of a child and their family literacy development as ownership and inclusion.  Both articles raise important issues for practice and policy in early childhood literacy and language education.  Learning and practicing literacy is imperative to a student’s overall achievement and skill in this practice.  If our students learn certain literacy skills in the classroom, then they go home and there’s another opportunity to practice and grow in their literacy.  This family teaching dynamic can be extremely beneficial for children; however, as I mentioned before it is a choice to exercise these skills.

           An interesting thought that I liked from the Britsch and Meier is when it talked about adding in more writing and drawing materials in the classrooms, by adding in these materials students can better project their thoughts on their readings and share them with their teacher and peers. I never would’ve thought of using this as an additional form of communicating our readings.  It adds in this creative element that I feel can potentially better portray what the students are trying to say or give off about their readings.

           An interesting though that I like from the Cambourne was the time he took to find the definitions of several words and how they relate to literacy.  These terms include conditions, immersion, demonstration, engagement, expectations, responsibility, approximations, employment, response, transformation, discussion/ reflection, and application.  Seeing a lot of these words prior to reading this article I would not have thought about using them and pairing them with literacy.  However, he explains how these terms are relating by creating  two diagrams titled “The conditions of learning: a model of learning as it applies to literacy” and “A model of classroom literacy learning.”  These models helped me to better understand and see these terms being used in the literacy classroom whether it is through the content, the teaching, or the learning.

           After reading about what literacy is and what text is it made me think of my job over the summer.  I worked at an extended school year program as a teacher’s aide. During this time, we were introducing literacy to our students.  We started by playing this alphabet song by Have Fun Teaching. This was not the first time I saw this “new alphabet video” played before.  The students seemed engaged with the song, even stomping or clapping along with the beats in the back.  What was really great about these videos by Have Fun Teaching is that they not only have a different alphabet song, but they also have songs and videos for each letter of the alphabet.  Throughout these videos it practices the letter, it’s sound/ sounds, and some words starting with that letter sound.  The reason these two readings made me think of Have Fun Teaching’s videos is that they were extremely beneficial to the students I was working with over the summer.  These videos are easily accessed through YouTube and can be brought home to practice and strengthen their learning and understanding of early literacy

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Amanda Maye Kirk 

9/12/2018

Due 9/14/2018

Instructional Design

Part I.

Now that you’ve made it through your New Teacher Orientation in our simulation, talk about an instance in which what is expected of you in this district might be at odds with your teaching philosophy and/or an instance in which what the district says they believe might be at odds with how things are actually run.

           Many school districts may have an idea of how they want the time in the classroom to be spent.  For example, how much time is spent on a certain subject, versus another subject.  I feel like this will most definitely come into play with math and literacy class time due to the standardized testing being heavily geared towards these subject areas. However, being in the classroom with these students five days every week we get a better feel in terms of how much time should be spent in which areas to best fit their needs and potentially their interests as well. By the districts saying that we must spend our time doing this, this, and this we run into the issue of potentially forgetting about our students.  This is especially true with standardized testing because yes, it’s great to see improvement over time in our students.  But, it crosses the lines when it becomes a competition not just district-wide, not just statewide, not just across the country, but it becomes a competition globally.  As a result of this, our students become numbers and their needs may become lost entirely in this abyss that is the world of testing that districts and states say are so great. 

           As part of the simulation we have to create lessons based on a specific template.  I’m sure that many schools have their own ideas of how they want our instructional plans.  However, Messiah School District’s is very unique and detail oriented.  With the amount of detail that goes into our instructional plans there is room to see what may need to be changed and why. This is extremely helpful. I think it is a great idea to have everyone in a school using the same instructional plan template.  This is helpful because there can be collaboration among the teachers to improve their own plans or potentially share plans with colleagues for similar instructional topics.  

Part II. 

How does reflecting on our simulation in this way help you think about our course driving question differently? (Driving Question: How can teachers create effective instruction that is good for children and maintains the integrity of their philosophy within the constraints of administrative and other external mandates?)

           I think that reflecting on our simulation in this way causes me to have to think about the driving question more than I was before.  I like when the questions are posted it forces me into my current beliefs and believing in what my future classroom may and may not look like.  Another huge part is why am I thinking in these ways. I think a huge part of my belief system comes from my own experience in the public-school system.  I’ve learned so many great techniques from my teachers; however, with this comes some personal beliefs on what could have been better and how it would have connected to students better.  

           The simulation gives us a realistic (mostly, minus the many 3rd grade teachers) story of what we can expect to see in a school district in our future. I’m looking forward to continuing to go through this simulation as a Messiah School District employee.