vocabulary

I really enjoyed reading the articles about vocabulary this week because they caused me to reminisce on my own experiences with vocabulary as a student. All I can remember about learning vocabulary was doing the vocabulary workshop textbook worksheets every single day. We had to define the words, use them in sentences, find synonyms and antonyms and use them in matching questions. The worksheets in our vocabulary workbooks were dreadful and boring. I remember always memorizing the words to pass the vocabulary tests and then never using them or understanding them again. The article "Vocabulary Lessons" makes a great argument about the importance of teaching vocabulary in a meaningful way. I like how they discussed using a word wall that the students actually created. When the students come across a new word in their readings, they get to write it down and stick it on the word wall themselves. The STAR method (select, teach, activate, and revisit) for providing explicit instruction is also a great thing for teachers to use. Teaching students how to utilize a dictionary is also a good point that was mentioned in the article. I know several students are too intimidated by using a dictionary because it is so huge and they don't even know how to use one. By teaching them, teachers can help students to gain independence. As we have read in several other articles during this class, exposing students to a wide range of literature is crucial. The article discusses how crucial it is in terms of vocabulary development.

Did any of you all have to do boring vocabulary worksheets all throughout Elementary school? Or, did you all have memorable experiences with learning new words like some of the strategies taught in these articles?


This bulletin board is specifically for math word vocabulary but I loved the idea of how easily accessible it is to students in the classroom.

teaching comprehension

I've always known that it's very important to teach students comprehension skills, but the thought of having to teach such skills makes me nervous. I struggled with comprehension my whole life and I never had someone explicitly teach me the skills for how to comprehend text. The article by Pardo explores every single aspect of teaching comprehension and the information was very eye opening to me. I never realized how insanely complicated the process of comprehension is until I read this article. I'm nervous about being able to teach my students how to comprehend text because it is such a difficult thing to teach. However, I am thankful that all the readings this week gave me some great ideas as to how I can incorporate teaching comprehension skills in my classroom.
Has anyone else ever felt nervous about being able to successfully teach comprehension?

Here are some cute comprehension games that can be played with elementary students.
http://www.education.com/activity/comprehension/

Poetry Performance activity

 Poetry Performance

Poetry Performance is using poetry activities to help students develop fluency.

Monday: The students should form small groups. They will go to the library and find a poem that all of the students would like to perform at the end of the week. An approved poem needs to be copied for each student in the group. The teacher needs to introduce and review the purpose and procedures for poetry performance. Invitations to the poetry party that will be on Friday will be sent home on this day.

Tuesday: Each student needs to read the poem individually then discuss the poem with his or her group. As the students read they will need to mark words that they do not know in order to discuss them with the group and add them to the word wall. 

Wednesday: The group needs to be responsible for assigning the role to each group member. The students also need to discuss the cadence and prosody throughout the poem. A rubric will be presented to the students for guidelines that they all need to follow in their performance.

Thursday: As the teacher circulates, the groups need to get together with other groups to practice performing their poetry.

Friday: Have a poetry party, turning the classroom into a poetry house, for all of the student to celebrate all that they have learned during poetry week. Invite parents to the poetry party to show their appreciation for the student’s poetry accomplishments. Have each group perform in front of the class following the rubric.

Here is a sample rubric for incorporating performance poetry into your classroom:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson78/poetrubric.

All about fluency

The article by Deeney makes a fantastic point about the inaccuracy of one-minute fluency measures. I agree with her in that they are helpful for identifying students who cannot read accurately and quickly but I still think they are highly flawed. We all saw for ourselves in class last Thursday when reading about viruses that speed and accuracy are far from the only 2 things that constitute a fluent reader. Several of us admitted after reading it "fluently" that we had absolutely no idea what we had just read. That activity and this article proves the argument that comprehension must be a part in defining fluency. By using the limited one-minute measure assessment, teachers are completely missing out on the important factor of reading comprehension that creates a legitimately fluent reader.

One great thing I took away from Cunningham and Allington in this week's readings was how to get my struggling readers to read easy books without insulting them and embarrassing them. I definitely have the same concerns/questions that other teachers do about giving some of my students lower reading level books. I worry they will get picked on or made fun of by their classmates or feel discouraged because I've given them easier reads. It was very helpful to get some ideas as to how to overcome that concern. Also for the textbook reading this week, I loved the concept of fluency development lessons. It reminded me of the 10 important words lesson idea because it's something teachers can use every day in the classroom. I definitely will plan on using FDLs in class everyday because after the 3 readings this week, I now understand how crucial it is to incorporate fluency into reading education.

Will you consider using FDLs in your classroom every day?
What are your thoughts about choral reading and echo reading from the chapter in our textbook this week?


This article provides some more activities that you can use in the classroom. There are different activities for each component of the fluency definition.
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/fluency.html

making words and ten important words plus

The ten important words plus activity describes in the article by Yopp and Yopp is genius. I think this activity is unique and outstanding because of all the different strategies it incorporates for learning vocabulary words - reading them, recording them, talking about them, using them in their written summaries, and thinking about them in alternative ways (Yopp and Yopp, 2007). It's common knowledge that repeated exposure to an unfamiliar word will help students to eventually learn the word, but this article incorporates repeated exposure with multiple types of exposure. I honestly would not change anything about the activity and I see myself trying to use it in my classroom someday for sure. I also really love the Making Words activity discussed by Cunningham and Cunningham. Playing the game in class was a blast and I'll definitely be using it in my classroom on a daily basis. I loved both of the articles this week because they provided practical ideas that I will use in my classroom.


Check out this website for some more fun word building activity ideas...
 http://www.reading-activities.com/word_building__activities

phonics

I found the readings for this week to be way over my head. I didn't realize that reading how to teach reading via phonics can be so confusing. However, I did take some good ideas for phonics activities from Cunnigham and Allington in ch. 5 of the textbook. I never understood how the "guess the covered word" game works but I liked the idea of the "using words you know" activity. I think it's great for students to rely on words they do know and use their knowledge to find other words that have shared letters/letter patterns/beginnings/endings. The "making words" game was also a good idea for students to be able to use what they know to build bigger words they may have never written before. The book, as well as the articles, focus on the importance of breaking words down into sections that look familiar and then piecing them together. It also discusses how sounding out words is crucial to reading unfamiliar words. Both of these skills are important in helping students to read.
Which phonics activities do you think would be most beneficial in teaching students how to read and write in your classroom?

Here is a link to an early literacy tool: phonetic flip charts
http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/phonic-flip-chart/

a new way to teach reading?

I found myself torn between opinions as I was reading the article "Letting Go of Letter of the Week". I really liked how the strategy they used to teach reading helped to excite children about their ability to read and write. It was touching to read about the moment when the students realized they actually can read and write based on their ability to read McDonald's signs and write scribbles or pictures. However, I can't say that I fully agree with the strategy they used to teach reading and writing. While I see that it was successful for the 2 teachers in the article, I can't picture it being successful if I were to try it in my classroom. It seems somewhat unrealistic. I was a nanny for a 2 year old and as we rode in the car he would yell out McDonald's, Burger King or any other restaurant he recognized. However, he was not yelling out the words on the signs because he was able to actually read them. It's hard to say that children could read the word "billing" in a book just because of having a classmate named "Bill" and seeing "ing" in the word Burger King. I'm sure there are some pros to the strategy they used in the classroom, but I personally don't agree with it and I wouldn't use it in my classroom.
Would you use the same method they used to teach your students? Or would you stick with the traditional learning letters and learning letter sounds? 

What a great way to get students thinking about real life examples of letters. When they see the emblem on a Honda car, they can apply what they've learned about letters to recognize that the logo is the letter "H". Encourage the students to come up with their own examples of things they see in every day life! (Ignore the writing at the bottom about pregnancy.. it's not relevant. I just liked the picture for an activity idea)

This is WAY TOO CUTE!!! http://pinterest.com/pin/230176230925646682/

fantastic classroom ideas

I must start off by saying I have never loved reading a textbook so much in my life. Throughout the reading I started putting posted notes on pages because the book offers such great ideas for the classroom that I definitely plan to use. I felt that chapter 2 was like Pinterest in a textbook just providing all kinds of directions for awesome reading activities/ideas. I thought the "Reading and Me" idea was genius, especially the part about making them write paragraphs summarizing their accomplishments. I also loved the teacher record sheet idea because with so little time in the day or time for planning, it's easy to forget to read all types of genres to your students. It's so important that they be exposed to all varieties in order to be successful, well-rounded readers. The reading conferences idea was such a wonderful idea too. What better way to get students excited about reading then giving them a moment in the spotlight with their teacher to discuss anything they want about any book they choose? My favorite idea was probably the "reading parties" that are actually set up like a party with treats and such. Reading parties are not like the typical tangible rewards that help motivate some children to read, they are even better! The best part about all of the ideas given in the textbook is that they are completely realistic and doable. 

Thinking back to your younger years in school, how would you all have felt as students if your teacher did these awesome ideas?