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Readerly Exploration #7

Reading Due Date: November 27, 2023

Titles: “She’s My Best Reader; She Just Can’t Comprehend”: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension” ; “Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot”

Takeaways: “She’s My Best Reader; She Just Can’t Comprehend”: Studying the Relationship Between Fluency and Comprehension - Students can have high levels of fluency and word recognition and not be able to comprehend what they are reading. It depends on the teaching practices of the students’ teachers.

“Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot” - Reading fluency has become a topic that isn’t very popular or properly taught, but that needs to change so that students are able to become fluent in their reading skills

Nuggets:

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

There is a resurgence of interest in reading fluency

Some researchers believe that there is more connection to fluency and comprehension than meets the eye

There was an assessment designed to assess students who can recall information about a text compared to those who can think about text

Fluent and strong readers scored higher on reading comprehension

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

Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot

Fluency has lost a lot of its allure due to reading fluency becoming a “quest for speed” , its association with oral reading, fluency is often taught as a separate part of curriculum

The goal of fluency should be for students to read the words in text automatically and accurately 

Deep reading is when a student is asked to read a text repeatedly until a level of fluency in achieved

Repeated practice improves the performance of the actual activity practiced

Prosody enhances or adds to a text (emphasis on certain words)

Prosody is related to good reading

Reading fluency is a key component to proficient reading

Reading fluency should be worked on in the lower grades, but teachers in upper elementary and secondary schools should be aware that some students may still need support when it comes to reading fluency

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration, I decided to look at the items that were cited in the article “Why Reading Fluency Should Be Hot” and read one of them. The one I decided to read was “What’s Hot for 2011.” It talks about different skills in literacy and which things are popular or unpopular, and what should be popular or unpopular to benefit students. I found it interesting that the article states that fluency shouldn’t be considered “hot” after the articles that I read. This was interesting to me because it allows me to see that people have different ideas on what is important when it comes to literacy skills and how people may structure their curriculum due to these differences. I think it is important to see things from different perspectives and see information gathered the way it was in the “What’s Hot in 2011” article. I feel like reading fluency is something that would be popular among teachers and other educators but being able to see what people are thinking about the topic makes me wonder why exactly they had those thoughts and feelings towards a specific topic.

Media:

Cassidy, J., Ortlieb, E., & Shettel, J. (2010). What’s Hot for 2011. Reading Today, 28(3), 1-. 

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Readerly Exploration #6

Reading Due Date: November 13, 2023

Titles: “Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms;” “Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom”

Takeaways:

Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms - Certain vocabulary practices, when implemented by teachers in the absence of a highly specified intervention, are related to improved vocabulary outcomes for children.

Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom - Word study is a teacher-directed and student-centered approach to spelling instruction that can help support students’ literacy development.

Nuggets:

Vocabulary Practices in Prekindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms

Some students don’t have the abilities and resources to learn the vocabulary needed for classroom instruction

Extended instruction was more effective in helping students learn words

Read-alouds offer rich contexts for teaching students new vocabulary

Word study used during read-aloud was negatively correlated with other practices

Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

When students used target words in their journals, they spelled the words correctly 85% of the time

Systematic word study helped the students learn the target words and apply the orthographic features that they were learning

Word study was most beneficial for the students with average literacy knowledge and ability

Linking word study to writing through interactive writing lessons supports children’s spelling and writing development

Tips for implementing word study

Assess students’ word knowledge using multiple assessment tools

Use a homogenous small group approach to instruction

Carve out time to prepare for word study instruction

Teach word knowledge, not just words

Demonstrate how word study can be used during reading and writing

Teach strategies that support students’ use of word study instruction

Make your word wall work

“Word Work” should work too

Engage students in extensive “real” reading and writing

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration, I decided that I would reflect on my initial response to the reading right after I read it. After reading “Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom,” I was thinking about how I see some of these things in my field experience in a second grade classroom. The students learn a lot from this approach and it has been really fascinating to see how students are picking up on the spelling patterns and how they can make connections between what they are learning during their lessons and how they can use that in their independent writing time and can accurately sound out words that they have not seen before. This article was really interesting to me because I love seeing how students can develop and learn more in their reading and writing skills throughout their time in a classroom. This reading has allowed me to appreciate the work that the teachers put in to spend time every day doing word work and pointing out these patterns to students so that they are able to gain a better understanding of what they are learning.

Media: N/A

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Readerly Exploration #5

Reading Due Date: November 6, 2023

Titles: “Chapter 5 Unit: First Words Decoding”

Takeaways: The first words unit really helps unlock reading for students, some students may get it quickly and others may need some extra support

Nuggets:

Essential principles for teaching high frequency words

Teach high frequency words along with phonemic awareness, individual letter-sound relationships, and concept of word

Ask students to use letter-sound knowledge to read high frequency words

Teach high frequency words in groups that have similar patterns

Use high frequency words to help children learn to decode new words

Practice reading high frequency words in sentences and books

Organize instruction around patterns in words

Lesson Framework

Letter or word practice

Hear-It

Decode-It

Spell-It

Read-It

Activities that show examples and non-examples are helpful for students as they learn patterns in words

Spell-it activities are some of the most challenging for students

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration, I decided to go with the readerly habit of reading a wide variety of genres and formats of texts to grow in their knowledge and experiences as a reader. I found a song that talks about decoding words. It is a Jack Hartman song called Stretchy the Word Snake and it goes along with the activities demonstrated on page 154 for decoding. The overall idea of the song is how you can stretch out words and sound them out to decode them and learn how they should be pronounced.

Media: https://youtu.be/xIBjAWkPzNA?si=_HtifZ8zWXIoBt6O

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Readerly Exploration #4

Reading Due Date: October 9, 2023

Titles: “Chapter 2: Whole-Class Reading Instruction: High-Level Support for Learning”; “Talking Back and Talking Over: Young Children’s Expressive Engagement During Read-Aloud Storybooks”

Takeaways:

Chapter 2: Whole-Class Reading Instruction: High-Level Support for Learning - Whole-class instruction can be extremely meaningful for students if they are given chances to try things out independently for practice and they need to practice different phonics concepts if they are going to apply that knowledge in their writing and reading.

Talking Back and Talking Over: Young Children’s Expressive Engagement During Read-Aloud Storybooks - Students can be actively engaged in read-alouds through expressive engagement which allows them to connect to the readings and even make the story their own.

Nuggets:

Chapter 2: Whole-Class Reading Instruction: High-Level Support for Learning

Read-alouds allow students to develop their listening and thinking skills

An interactive read-aloud has teachers asking questions to engage students in learning

The text selection should be appropriate for the grade level

Shared reading allows students to see the text as it is being read

In direct instruction lessons, the students are told the concept/skill that’s to be learned

Foundational skills are usually introduced through whole group instruction and further deepened through small group, collaborative, and independent learning

Talking Back and Talking Over: Young Children’s Expressive Engagement During Read-Aloud Storybooks

Students may compare and contrast stories with ones they already know to make connections

There are many types of expressive engagement: dramatizing, talking back, critiquing, inserting, taking over

Expressive engagement shows that students are actively engaging in stories and making the stories their own

Teachers play a role in allowing students to be expressive during read-alouds

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration, I decided to do some research on the author Lawrence Sipe. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Theory and Practice from The Ohio State University. He graduated from Temple University with a master’s degree in Psychology of reading after he earned two bachelor's degrees, one from the University of Chicago in English, and one from Bloomsburg State College in Elementary Education. He taught in a one-room school in the time between getting his bachelor degrees and I think that interacting with students in an English teaching setting interested him in how children engage with literature. He believed that picture books invite students to use all kinds of higher-level thinking skills.

Throughout both readings, it was insightful to see how important it is for students to have read-alouds. I think that a lot of the time reading as a part of whole-class instruction gets overlooked and I always loved it when I was in school. 

Media: https://www.gse.upenn.edu/content/lawrence-sipe-memoriam

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Readerly Exploration #3

Reading Due Date: October 2, 2023

Titles: “Chapter 4: Collaborative Reading and Writing: Learning in the Company of Peers”; “Chapter 5: Small Group Reading Instruction: Targeted Support Through Guided Learning”

Takeaways: Chapter 4: Collaborative Reading and Writing: Learning in the Company of Peers - Students can learn even more when they are working with other classmates and get the point of view from their peers rather than only getting feedback from the teacher.

Chapter 5: Small Group Reading Instruction: Targeted Support Through Guided Learning - Students learn well in small groups, especially when scaffolding is put in place so that they can learn what they may be struggling with and can move forward in groups based on assessment data.

Nuggets: 

Chapter 4: Collaborative Reading and Writing: Learning in the Company of Peers

Skilled teachers know that they must be aware of students who are working well ahead of the group, in addition to those who may be falling behind

It’s important to set standards of what is expected during small group work with the first few weeks of school

More peer directed learning can start to take place in second grade

Emergent readers and writers need a lot of opportunities to practice new skills

Chapter 5: Small Group Reading Instruction: Targeted Support Through Guided Learning

In small group reading instruction, there should be frequent assessments so that there can be movement of students into different small groups and to monitor progress

Scaffolds fall into four categories: robust questions, prompts, cues, and explanations with modeling

Three skills that are essential for elementary students to master are alphabetics, fluency, and comprehension

Young children have limited attention for small-group reading instruction

Silent reading behavior is a function of fluency and doesn’t happen until students have some reading skills under their belt

Readerly Explorations: For my readerly exploration this week, I had one of my friends who is a psychology major read page 82-83, section titled The Balancing Act in Literacy Instruction. They said that they think that working in groups can be extremely beneficial for students. They mentioned how being in groups can help with communicating with classmates and can allow some teachers to walk around and help students if they need it. They emphasized that large group instruction for a long period of time can cause students to lose focus of the information and said that they have experienced group learning causing them to lose focus and then not be able to remember what they learned that day.

Media:

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Readerly Exploration #2

Reading Due Date: September 25, 2023

Titles: “Defining Balance, Finding Balance”; “Independent Reading: Practicing, Applying, and Extending Learning”

Takeaways:

Defining Balance, Finding Balance - Children’s literacy instruction works best when it has a balanced set up with differentiated experiences. It’s important for different types of texts to be used in instruction and for the level of support given to be differentiated,

Independent Reading: Practicing, Applying, and Extending Learning - Students need to be spending time on independent reading both at home and at school. To make independent reading more interesting for the students, it’s important to allow them to have some choice over the materials that they read.

Nuggets:

Defining Balance, Finding Balance:

The original notion of balanced literacy was to ensure that students received instruction in phonics while still providing access to meaning-making opportunities in authentic text

In balanced literacy classrooms, students write every day

Students in a balanced literacy classroom aren’t sitting for hours of whole group lesson, but they are being grouped and regrouped for different learning experiences in addition to whole group instruction

Gradual release of responsibility

Independent Reading: Practicing, Applying, and Extending Learning

Independent reading increases students’ fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary

Students need some choice in the material they are reading independently

For some students, listening to books can be an effective scaffolding strategy

Students have to determine if books are in their reading level as well as if the content is interesting to them

Some students have good independent reading stamina while others struggle with focusing

Readerly Exploration: For my readerly exploration, I am focusing on some goals for my next assignment. While doing this assignment, I noticed that I skim through a lot of the information, I try to get things done as quickly as possible, and I tend to not want to focus on the assignment. So my goals for my next assignment are to set deliberate time aside to do the assignment, read the text fully with intentionality, and to collect my thoughts so that I can focus on the assignment at hand. When it comes to thought processes, my goal is to try to look at the next text from as many viewpoints as possible since I know that I tend to only look at things through my idea of the world and I should be more aware of other perspectives.

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Readerly Exploration #1

Reading Due Date: August 28, 2023

Titles: Cambourne (1995), “Toward an Educationally Relevant Theory of Literacy Learning” and 

Britsch & Meier (1999), “Building a Literacy Community: The Role of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Childhood Programs”

Takeaways:

Toward an Educationally Relevant Theory of Literacy Learning - Literacy education should have a system that includes transformation, discussion, reflection, application, and evaluation with incorporating responsibility and expectations set by the teacher to successfully facilitate learning for all students.

Building a Literacy Community: The Role of Literacy and Social Practice in Early Childhood Programs - Early Childhood Programs can strengthen their programs by allowing students to have access to various writing and drawing tools to see their development, engaging the students in various way when stories are being read, and evaluate what is considered “ready” at various kindergarten programs that the students may be going into.

Nuggets:

Educationally Relevant Theory

The idea that a child having discussion with themselves allows them to make their unconscious literacy and language known

Discussions are important, even at a young age

Building a Literacy Community

Students can respond to stories through drawing, writing, or telling their interpretations

Readerly Exploration:

For my readerly exploration, I searched for another article with a similar topic and found the article "Teachers' use of open questions: investigating the various functions of open questions as a mediating tool in early literacy education”. Looking through this article, I saw a lot of connections to the article “Toward an Educationally Relevant Theory of Literacy Learning”. They both support the idea that students, even at a younger age, should be exposed to questions to reflect on reading. Having a teacher be the facilitator for open ended questions as children develop can encourage students to participate in class and student exploration (Svanes and Andersson-Bakken). Having the students participate in discussions can allow students to increase their view on what their classmates know and create the opportunity for the students to engage in even more conversations while allowing the teacher to observe where students’ strengths and weaknesses are based on the topic and the type of learning (Cambourne). These articles both support the idea that young children benefit from being asked questions about what they are learning or what they have recently read. I have never been really aware of the fact that open-ended questions can be helpful at a young age, because I assumed that some of the students wouldn’t be able to participate or know what is being discussed. But building that skill is extremely important and can help them out in the future when they are asked about different content.

Media: https://messiah.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01MESSIAH_INST/1hchmak/cdi_proquest_journals_2803106012