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Readerly Exploration #7

Due Date of Assigned Reading: December 4th

Title of Assigned Course Reading: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read? 

Big Takeaway: Teachers and administration do not implement research about the effectiveness of phonics instruction to the appropriate extent in many American classrooms.

Nugget: I am surprised by the resistance to explicit phonics instruction. I understand the frustration teachers feel about being told how to teach. However, phonics instruction is backed by brain research. The teachers who refuse to teach phonics frustrate me because they are doing a disservice to their students. I am also surprised by the belief that if you give students enough print and read to them, they will eventually catch on. I do not understand how teachers can believe students can learn to read without explicitly teaching them the connection between graphemes and phonemes. Making this connection is how you read! I was also upset by how teachers would tell students to look at a picture and guess if they did not know a word. There are so many words in the English language. How will students learn new vocabulary if they cannot sound out a word or dissect it for morphemes?

Title of Assigned Course Reading: Smoke Signals in Reading Education 

Note: This article was blocked by a paywall. Even after making an account, it still asked me for my credit card information despite offering a free trial. I also could not find this article in Murray Library’s database.

Readerly Exploration: First, I opened both articles and found that Smoke Signals in Reading Education was unavailable. I then looked at the readerly exploration tasks and chose to make a concept map. I like making concept maps and decided making one would help me understand the factors that lead to why children are not being taught how to read. Next, I read the article and added to my concept map while I read. I am pleased with how my concept map turned out. It is interesting to see how it depicts the cause-and-effect relationships described in the article. For example, it traces elementary students’ low reading proficiency scores back to university professors who do not adequately cover how to instruct students on how to teach reading. Finally, I will reflect on how this readerly exploration allowed me to understand what I read and master course content. Making the concept map allowed me to see the factors that lead to an insufficient percentage of students scoring proficient on reading assessments, with one of these factors being teachers not incorporating research in their instruction. This exploration also allowed me to understand balanced literacy in a new light because it reinforced what balanced literacy is not. Many teachers in this article seem to use balanced literacy as an excuse not to teach phonics. I wrote on my concept map that teachers use balanced literacy to avoid research and disregard phonics instruction. However, placing balanced literary and explicit phonics instruction in separate bubbles led me to question why teachers cannot use both balanced literacy and explicit instruction in the classroom. The teacher can first explicitly teach a phonics lesson and then choose a shared reading text highlighting that skill or lead a shared writing where students create a story using words that consist of that skill.

Multimedia Documentation

I created this concept map on the tables of the Makerspace while I read. I above image is the concept map as a whole, and the following images are close ups I took of individual sections.

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Readerly Exploration #6

Due Date of Assigned Reading: November 27th 

Title of Assigned Course Reading: “She’s My Best Reader; She Just Can’t Comprehend”: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension” 

Big Takeaway: Due to an emphasis on fluency over comprehension, many fluent readers are labeled “strong readers” despite struggling to comprehend a grade-level text. 

Nugget: I was surprised at how teachers place students with high reading fluency but on-level or readiness comprehension in high reading groups. When I assess students in my placement classroom, I record how they answer comprehension questions and how fluently they read the text. I like that we do this in my classroom because we can support the specific needs of our emerging readers. Teachers need to understand where students need support to provide targeted instruction. It does students a disservice to assume they have high comprehension skills because of high reading fluency because it restricts access to instruction in comprehension strategies they may need. The fact that many teachers associate high comprehension with high fluency also surprised me in light of the video we watched about the girl who read Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. She was still practicing reading fluency, but she still comprehended the story. Assuming that this student cannot understand text based on her fluency would also do her a disservice. I fear teachers would only allow her to read only decodables to practice fluency when she should be able to read authentic texts and picturebooks.

Title of Assigned Course Reading: Why Reading Fluency Should be Hot! 

Big Takeaway: Teachers should encourage repeated reading that strengthens prosody, which is reading with expression reflective of the text’s meaning. 

Nugget: I found the discussion about prosody interesting, as I do not remember ever being asked to read with expression in elementary or middle school. The only specific instruction I received that improved my prosody was fourth and fifth-grade church theatre. I distinctly remember reading through the script with the rest of the cast and using what we learned about the story to read our lines. I remember the director complimenting how nicely I read with expression, and that stuck with me all these years later!  Thus, I felt excited when I read later in the article about using Readers Theatre and having students “perform” texts. I had such fond memories of doing plays as a child, and I never made the connection that these plays could have made me a strong reader. To the greatest extent I can, I will try to incorporate reading performances in my future classroom. 

Readerly Exploration: First, I read “She’s My Best Reader; She Just Can’t Comprehend.” About halfway through, I remembered one of my favorite books I read over the summer, The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa. This novel serves as a commentary on the value of books. The main character, Rintaro, faces three individuals who abuse books and must convince them to change their ways. The first individual he confronts is known only as an old man wearing a white suit, whose life goal is to try and read as many books as possible. He keeps every book he ever read as a trophy in his mansion. Rintaro teaches him the lesson that how quickly a reader finishes a book is irrelevant because what matters most is how deeply they process and connect to the content. I then read the next article and realized it also warned against teaching students to read quickly but instead focus on reading with expression and meaning. I found it interesting how what these articles discuss is very similar to what Natsukawa perceives as happening in society. In schools, we teach children to read fast instead of reading intentionally, and it is the issue of speeding through books for the sake of claiming to be well-read that Natsukawa chastises his readers for. Thus, engaging in this readerly exploration led me to consider the lifelong ramifications of teaching children to read quickly rather than meaningfully. I do not want my students to speed through books just to say they read them. Rather, I want them to engage deeply and reflectively with the content.

Multimodal Documentation: “‘It’s not true that the more you read, the more you see of the world. No matter how much knowledge you cram into your head, unless you think with your own mind, walk with your own feet, the knowledge you acquire will never be more than empty and borrowed.’” (Natsukawa, 2021, p. 33)

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Readerly Exploration #5

Due Date of Assigned Reading: November 13th 

Title of Assigned Course Reading: “Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms” 

Big Takeaway: After observing read-aloud and non-read-aloud time, researchers observed that children with low initial vocabulary knowledge benefitted from acting out or seeing illustrations representing a word during read-aloud time, children with high initial vocabulary knowledge benefitted from exposure to vocabulary in different contexts outside read-aloud, and all children benefit from incorporating phonemic awareness in vocabulary study. 

Nugget: I found it interesting to read about the five different kinds of vocabulary instruction: act/illustrate, analyze, contextualize, define, and word study. While I read, I enjoyed connecting the article to what I observed in field. For example, when I taught students the word “embraced,” I asked them to hug themselves and told them they were giving themselves an “embrace.” I now know this is an effective strategy to use during read-aloud time with students still developing on-grade-level vocabulary. I have also seen evidence of the article’s claim that contextualizing vocabulary outside read-aloud time benefits students with on- or above-grade-level vocabulary. These students enjoy using the vocabulary they have learned in CKLA Knowledge in other areas, such as CKLA Skills. While my mentor teacher always praises these students for making these connections, perhaps they would benefit from specific prompting to use these words, such as, “What word did we learn about describes how I feel right now?” 

Due Date of Assigned Reading: November 13th 

Title of Assigned Course Reading: “Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom” 

Big Takeaway: Word study enables elementary students to practice engaging with spelling patterns and apply strategies when reading and writing. 

Nugget: I liked how the article summarized the research into nine “tips.” When thinking about my placement classroom, I think tips six and seven would be most beneficial. When my students sound out a word, they often skip over letters. Therefore, I think the suggestion to read slowly and look for familiar parts would help them. Additionally, I like the idea of having a word wall in my classroom. While my placement classroom does have a word wall, I have not seen it used in instruction yet. I hope that I will get to see this because the article mentioned that teachers who use their word walls as a teaching tool are more likely to have students who use them in their writing. Additionally, I like the idea of changing the word wall depending on the focus skill. Doing this ensures that it is always relevant and helpful for students. 

Readerly Exploration Task: I chose the readerly exploration to “write down two or three goals as a reader for your next reading assignment.” First, I read both articles all the way through, stopping for a dinner break after reading the first. After I read each article, I wrote down my big takeaway and nugget. Finally, I chose the readerly exploration I wanted to do. Along the way, I noticed that making connections to my field placement came easily. I also began to create this picture in my mind of what my future classroom would look like. These successes led me to create the following two goals: 1) Record professional connections while I read 2) Create a multimodal representation of how I understand the reading. Creating these goals required me to review what I read to consider how my reading could have been more effective. For example, I remembered the professional connections I had made, like how my placement school’s SOAR time, where students switch classrooms for ELA, reminded me of Williams et al.’s argument for homogenous small groups. Also, the image of my future classroom combines arguments from both articles. It has a kidney table for this small group instruction, a word wall that changes for different units, and anchor charts that help students visualize words. Reflecting on how my reading could have been more effective served as a review of how I connected to content. Writing these connections down will allow me to reflect even deeper, which is why my goal is to do this next time.

*Edited Sunday, December 3 to add the Multimedia Documentation

My goals I created for this readerly exploration were

1) Record professional connections while I read

2) Create a multimodal representation of how I understand the reading.

While they were included in the Readerly Exploration task, I wanted to ensure I had every component.

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Readerly Response #4

Due date of assigned reading: October 2

Title of assigned course reading: “Collaborative Reading and Writing: Learning in the Company of Peers” (Chapter 4) 

Big Takeaway: For collaborative reading and writing to be effective, teachers must explicitly teach routines, have a purpose or goal for each activity, and scaffold students to ensure productivity. 

Nugget: After reading this chapter, I realized that a lot of preparation must happen before students are ready to work collaboratively. For younger students, teachers need to explicitly teach skills that I take for granted, such as how to ask for help or disagree with someone. Teachers also must be very intentional with the activities they choose for students to complete collaboratively. I especially liked the concept of deliberative practice because it is structured to ensure students are challenging themselves and engaging meaningfully with their peers. The ReQuest approach was interesting, too. Teachers should scaffold students as they practice working in pairs, discussing a text, and formulating questions. This scaffolding can take the form of modeling what pair work looks like, providing a procedure for discussing the text, and providing question words for students to use. I can see myself using either of these practices in my classroom. 

Title of assigned course reading: “Small-Group Reading Instruction: Targeted Support through Guided Reading.” (Chapter 5)

Big Takeaway: Small-group reading instruction enables students to practice what they have learned in whole-group instruction, receive scaffolding based on individual needs, and use their developing reading strategies alongside peers. 

Nugget: I love sharing stories with children, so the guidance for class discussion is helpful. I liked the idea of having a ring of comprehension questions I could grab before the discussion. Using similar questions each time gives students practice answering them and allows them to know what to expect. I also liked the suggestion of having students direct their answers to the class instead of the teacher. Perhaps, to give students practice with this, I can have them discuss their answers in pairs or small groups before I call on a student to share with the class. Or, I can have a simple prompt, like “Tell your friends!” to encourage students to face the class instead of looking only at me when they talk.

Readerly Exploration Task: I chose the task where I documented my initial response after I read. First, I would read the chapter. Then, if something stood out to me, I would record how it made me feel or what it made me think. I would continue to read until something else stood out to me. Documenting my thoughts as I read was easy because I tend to do this. Whenever I read for fun, I annotate my books, and this task reminded me of that. I appreciated this readerly exploration because it allowed me to connect what I read to my elementary school experiences, what I see in field placement, and what I hope to do in my future classroom. I always understand the content better when I can provide an authentic example of how I observe it in my own experiences. For example, chapter four provided a sample calendar for introducing literacy routines in the classroom. I remember this calendar well because I connected it to my field experience and noted that I wanted to use something similar when I teach. Similarly, I remember how the text explains dyad reading because I wrote a question. What I observe in field placement is slightly similar yet very different from how the text describes the approach, and my question highlights this comparing and contrasting that took place while I read. 

Multimedia Documentation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gy6suTu2Z7vpKi3_OX-IuxbgQaNAiioy/view?usp=sharing

This is a link to my notes I took while reading. In yellow, I highlighted what came from the text. Underneath, I wrote my reflection.

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Readerly Response #3

Due Date of Assigned Readings: Monday, September 25

Title of Assigned Course Reading: “Defining Balance, Finding Balance” (Chapter 1) 

Big Takeaway: Literacy teachers should provide students with a balance of phonics practice and interaction with authentic texts, narrative and informational texts, opportunities to read, write, speak, and listen to language, and direct and dialogic (interactive) instruction. 

Nugget: The idea of having balanced reading and writing instruction stood out after reading this chapter. In the first-grade classroom I am in now, students receive very few opportunities to write each day. Students copy two or three sentences the teacher writes on the board and formulate only one independently. My mentor teacher says she wishes there was more time for writing practice, but it is not a part of the curriculum. I would love to incorporate the dialogic instruction this chapter discussed. This instruction would take the form of small groups, where I scaffold learners while they build sentences. This task is challenging for many students in the class, and I learned after reading this chapter that addressing writing to an equal extent as reading would enable them to become more proficient in both skills. 

Title of assigned course reading: “Independent Reading” (Chapter 7) 

Big Takeaway: Independent reading is essential for students to practice readerly habits; therefore, teachers should support students by providing various genres, teaching students how to choose texts, and monitoring their reading strategies. 

Nugget: I had not heard of “book talks” before, but I would love to incorporate them in my classroom. By leading a book talk, students have the potential to demonstrate essential literacy skills, such as retelling a story and making text-to-self connections. When students recommend a book to the class, they also practice using details from the story to support an opinion. The chapter discussed a teacher who did this in her first-grade classroom, and I think this is an ideal age for students to begin book talks. I believe students will be motivated to read and share their opinions when they see their peers doing so. The result will be a classroom community that loves and shares books, which is what I would like for my classroom. 

Readerly Exploration Task: Since I was home the weekend I did this readerly exploration, I interviewed a family member. I chose my sister Grace because she does not like reading, and hearing her thoughts about balanced literacy seemed interesting. First, I selected two quotes to share with her. One was from chapter one, which discussed the importance of incorporating direct instruction and productive struggle. The second was an excerpt from chapter seven explaining how to use books in thematic inquiry projects. I assumed it would be difficult for my sister to talk about reading because she does not like it, but I was very wrong. My sister had many opinions about these quotes that she was excited to share. 

In my sister’s twelfth-grade English class, students can complete a review packet about Lord of the Flies in small groups or independently. Grace says she always works alone because she “just wants to get it done.” She acknowledges that literacy classrooms need more “balance” (and I was very excited that she used this word because I had not explained balanced literacy to her). Grace says she does not mind direct instruction when a teacher is passionate about a book. However, she also admits this can get “boring” after a while, demonstrating the need for more exploration-driven tasks. When the conversation turned to whether students should be able to choose the books used in elementary literacy instruction, Grace became even more engaged in conversation. She expressed frustration about how her elementary reading classes were structured, with slower readers placed in lower groups. Grace always felt like teachers rushed her to finish a book without granting enough time for her to understand and interact with the material.

This conversation reinforces the importance of having a balanced literacy approach. By incorporating direct and task-based learning, students feel constantly engaged with literacy. They do not grow bored, which is essential because this boredom can lead to resentment towards the subject. I realized students need to have a say in what books they read, especially at the elementary level. Chapter seven talks about the importance of allowing students to choose what they read, and my sister demonstrates what can happen if students do not have this option. She often mentioned that she was “never much of a reader” but admitted that this may not be true if she had the freedom to choose what she read in elementary grades. Structuring literacy class to incorporate an inquiry project, where students can choose what they read to answer a question they created, is one way to enable students to spend more time with interesting materials and think critically about their interests. My sister said she wished she had projects such as these when she was in elementary school.

Multimedia Documentation:

This is a picture of my sister and I after our interview. She provided me with much insight about how a balanced literacy approach may benefit students who do not consider themselves to be readers in the way I do.

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Readerly Response #2

Due date of assigned readings: Monday, September 18

Title of assigned course reading: “Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling” 

Big takeaway: Students in a K-1 class successfully told multimodal stories with the help of teachers who facilitated story-telling workshops and peer reviews, demonstrating how teachers should avoid assessing children solely on their written story-telling ability. 

Nugget: I enjoyed reading about the story-writing process students engaged in. The mini-lessons taught essential story-telling skills that traditional literacy lessons do, such as character development and setting. However, I was impressed with the amount of freedom and hands-on experience the children who received multimodal story instruction had. They could access many materials and make their stories as creative as they wanted, with fun characters and surprise endings! Not only did this unit teach children how to tell stories, but it also taught the process of doing so. For example, children practiced peer review when classmates shared stories. I would never have considered introducing the peer review process as early as kindergarten and first grade, but the students did a good job with it from what I have read in the article. For example, the peer's comment about changing voices for each character is a helpful suggestion based on a previous lesson. I learned that children are more capable of expressing their creativity than I had thought, as evident through their scripts, performances, suggestions, or the school’s museum night. 

Title of assigned course reading: “Why Children Need Play” 

Big takeaway: When children partake in dramatic play that enables them to formulate engaging themes, delegate roles, and use symbolic props, they practice skills conducive to learning and school readiness. 

Nugget: I did not realize there was a difference between unproductive and productive dramatic play. I learned that quality dramatic play happens when children play together, formulate rules, assume different roles, and use props as symbols for other objects. When I become a teacher, I should facilitate this high-quality dramatic play. Instead of having students play with iPads during free time, I should provide open-ended toys and materials so they can make their own games or props to play with. 

Title of assigned course reading: “Building Language and Literacy Through Play” 

Big takeaway: Dramatic play is essential for child development, as it enables children to practice the language they have learned, social-emotional skills such as empathy, and the ability to problem solve. 

Nugget: I learned that roughhouse play can benefit the frontal lobe’s development. I have always negatively perceived roughhousing as being “inappropriate” play. I had not realized that, when responsibly supervised, it can help foster self-regulation skills. To support these self-regulation skills, I think it is important for parents to talk with their children about expectations for this play so children can practice explaining when roughhousing is acceptable and when it is not. 

Readerly Exploration Task: For this week’s task, I formulated three questions and researched one of them. First, I read all three readings and wrote the big takeaways and nuggets. Then, I reread them and formulated my questions, which I documented in the multimedia portion. Since incorporating play in the literacy classroom is not something I had thought about before, coming up with questions was not a challenge since there is still a lot I would like to explore. After reading the article “Kindergarten Scores, Storytelling, Executive Function, and Motivation Improved through Literacy-Rich Guided Play,” I unexpectedly realized I was limiting my perception of play used in instruction to games teachers create to make learning fun (Cavanaugh et al., 2017). Cavanaugh’s article made me realize that student-driven play can teach core concepts in addition to social skills, even though I had previously wanted to limit this play to recess. This article describes how students partook in a teacher-driven letter sorting activity where students sorted items into the corresponding letter bin (for example, a valentine into the “v” bin). The control group only completed this activity, while the experimental group had the opportunity to create an additional letter-sorting game. I was surprised by how creative the students’ games were. Some students designed a shopping game where they pretended to purchase toys to sort into the correct bin. Other students created a story using all their objects. Before reading this article, I assumed that to be effective for learning literacy content, the teacher needed to have a more active role in children’s play, like how the teachers in the “Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling” article provided instruction and templates for students to use to create their stories. However, the article I found reported that students in the experimental group outperformed control group students on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills assessment. Researchers determined the effect size of incorporating student-driven literacy play to be .57, demonstrating moderate effectiveness (Cavanaugh et al., 2017). I learned that students should have the opportunity to engage in self-driven play during core subjects such as literacy, with the teacher serving only as a guide. Students only had fifteen minutes to create and engage in their invented games, but it still impacted their literacy development, and this finding surprised me. I realized that children learn more core content from their play than I had thought, as the article reported that most students enjoyed creative freedom and used it responsibly without getting off task. In other words, I can trust students to engage in self-driven productive play, so I should not limit this to just recess. 

Multimodal Documentation: These are the three questions I came up with: 1) Have other classrooms adopted a similar multimodal approach to literacy explained in the “Enriching and Assessing Young Children’s Multimodal Storytelling” reading? 2) How have elementary teachers incorporated play in literacy instruction when it is not already a part of the curriculum? 3) How can teachers respond to misconceptions about incorporating play into the classroom as a legitimate form of learning?

I chose question number two to research. When conducting preliminary research, I read the article cited below. 

Cavanaugh, D. M., Clemence, K. J., Teale, M. M., Rule, A. C., & Montgomery, S. E. (2017). Kindergarten Scores, Storytelling, Executive Function, and Motivation Improved through Literacy-Rich Guided Play. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45(6), 831–843. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-016-0832-8

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Readerly Response #1

Due date of assigned reading: Monday, September 4

Title of assigned course reading: “Reading with a Crayon: Pre-conventional Marginalia as Reader Response in Early Childhood”

Big Takeaway: When children draw in picturebooks, they produce concrete documentation of their experience as a reader who aesthetically, kinesthetically, and cognitively responds to a story, character, or setting. 

Nugget: I had never realized how intentional children’s drawings in books are. In the article, Elijah talked as he drew in his book. He asked questions (“Who’s dis guy’s name?”), said the characters’ names, and colored using different strokes (Fischer, 2017, p. 143). His correct positioning of the book and response to his mother that he was reading is also fascinating. Elijah’s interactions with books demonstrate that he does not draw in them simply because they consist of paper. Instead, children understand that picturebooks’ illustrations are meaningful, and drawing is how children interact with this meaning. 

Readerly Exploration Task: I decided to read an article in the citation called “Scrbbles, Labels, and Stories - The Role of Drawing in the Development of Writing.” I chose to do this because I enjoyed reading about how young children engage in text and was curious to learn more. First, I scrolled through the list of citations. This article stood out because I remembered learning about the stages of scribbling in a Child Development course. I had enjoyed learning about this topic then, so I was curious about how the author of this article would apply it to writing. Next, I read the article and wrote a summary paragraph (see below). I did that before writing this paragraph because I wanted to summarize the article before applying it to the assigned one (to avoid confusing the two). After my readerly exploration, I realized the way I understood the article changed. I specify this change more in the latter half of the next paragraph.

This article helped me understand the assigned one. For example, I can identify that Elijah was likely in the controlled or named scribbling phrase. I also learned that understanding their capability of making a product (such as scribbles) is essential to a child’s identity formation. When thinking about this in the context of the assigned article, I realize that perhaps Elijah was not only interacting with the book, as I had previously understood. Maybe he is developing a connection with or sense of ownership of the book when he adds color and changes the physical appearance of it. While he may not understand what he is scribbling, Elijah is subconsciously developing the notion that picturebooks are enjoyable and something to be actively engaged with. Together, these two articles help me understand the experiences children have before they read and write in school, which is essential to this literacy course. After reading the second article, which reinforced how drawing supports writing development, I also formulated some questions: Do children write in books the way they scribble in books? Are children who draw in books more likely to begin writing earlier due to possible motivation to label the pictures in their books or create their own stories?

Multimedia documentation (Summary of “Scribbles, Labels, and Stories - The Role of Drawing in the Development of Writing). Drawing enables children to develop writing skills, as it is practice for providing labels that children will eventually replace with vocabulary. Children go through different stages of scribble. They start to scribble as a kinesthetic act, but as children develop, they examine the product of their scribbling. Children must understand they can make products, like scribbles, because this is important to their identity formation. During the controlled scribble phase, children can control where they choose to scribble, although they cannot comprehend what their scribbles mean. During the final scribble phase, children can name what they draw. Labels allow children to combine writing and drawing, which they now understand as separate processes. Children draw what is important to them and then attempt to label their drawings. When young children compose stories, they often draw their stories before they write to plan. They also may confuse the terms “write and draw,” which is developmentally normal.