Standard Five: Literate Environment

• Understand the role of routines in creating and maintaining positive learning environments for reading and writing instruction using traditional print, digital, and online resources.

One way I create a positive and maintained learning environment is by sticking to the schedule. My students know what subject comes next and when we are close to the end of the day by the routine of our classroom. If I do things out of order, they can get out of hand. The like the structure of the classroom, and they are actually upset if I have to skip a certain subject. Another thing that our school does to keep a positive school environment is called Brave Bucks. They are used for outstanding behavior. I give mine out sparingly so my students must be on their absolute best behavior and go above and beyond for their Brave Bucks. I give them out for perfect reading scores occasionally, and I will not give them out if they ask for them. I will say that the best way to get students to do their best work is to believe in them. I have one particular student who I had to get on about his coloring because he would just put a few scribbles and say he was done. I told him that I knew he could do so much better than that and now he is very proud to bring his work to me and I make sure to let him know how great of a job he has done.

Artifact: This is another student's work that I had to have redo his paper because his first attempt was not his best work. I just tell my students that they are capable of anything they set their minds to and that I know they can do great things, and they will do whatever you want them to if you just show that you believe in them.

Standard Four: Diversity

• Provide differentiated instruction and instructional materials, including traditional print, digital, and online resources, that capitalize on diversity.

One of our standards is to provide students materials so that they can conduct research. We do this by reading non-fiction books about different animals that we may be focusing on, and by showing videos/slideshows of these animals. The students then write what they remember about our research and draw a picture of it. Not only do we provide research on animals and the way they live, but we focus on how Kindergarten students may live differently in other parts of the word. This is apart of our social studies unit as well as a Tech Step that we are required to complete. In the Tech Step, we are to watch and discuss a slideshow about how Kindergarten is different in other parts of the countries, and then we are to create our own slideshow about what we like about Kindergarten in our country. This is a great tool to get students familiar with the computer. We have also discussed different holidays that are celebrated and the differences between cultures. 

We also use our own experiences to see how we celebrate different holidays. I think it is very important for students to realize that we do not all celebrate holidays and other occasions the same way because as a child I did not realize those things. I was always under the impression that we all celebrated things the same way and it wasn't until later in life I realized that we are not all privileged the same as another person.

 

Artifact: I do not have any photos from a lesson we just completed on celebrations, but several students discussed some occasion where their families get together for different events and it was interesting to hear the things that they remember from those occasions. Some gathered at their grandparents, others had celebrations at their homes, and others went out of town to attractions.

Standard Three: Assessment and Evaluation

• Administer and interpret appropriate assessments for students, especially those who struggle with reading and writing.
• Analyze and use assessment data to examine the effectiveness of specific intervention practices and students responses to instruction.

During this course, I had already identified some struggles with a few of my students. I knew that one of my students was struggling with phonemic awareness. I had been working on alphabet flash cards with him as well as putting him on the computer to work on an alphabet site to hopefully increase his letter and letter sound knowledge. About halfway through the school year, I was introduced to an intervention called Great Leaps. We would work on this Great Leaps page for a minute a day to see if his letter knowledge would increase. I also find a short amount of time during lessons to just work on a certain letter that day, and I will ask him what the letter is and what sounds it makes a few different times. Through these assessments and evaluations, I have seen little progress. Although he is making some progress, it is not enough that he is where he should be. He has been placed in an IPAP group where he is taking out of the classroom for 40 min about 3-4 times a week to focus on phonemic awareness. I am also in the process of referring him for special education services, but am not sure whether it will happen due to parent consent. I know next year, he will be able to receive Title I services that will hopefully help him progress more rapidly.

 This was one of the better Independent Oral Reading tests for the student. Since the assessments have been getting more complex, he is able to identify less words.

This is the Great Leaps Assessment that we work on for a minute a day.

Another one of my students was struggling with blending. He can sight read very well and sound out the words, but has trouble blending unfamiliar words. We have been working on the "arm method" of blending words, and elkonin boxes. He will sometimes be able to sound it out and other times, he needs me to blend the first two sounds and he can get the rest. He also has some difficulty with rhyming which we are focusing on as well. This student's comprehension seems low as well when using questioning during reading. Many of these problems I think are contributed by his age. He is a young student so I think with maturity, it will correct itself, but in the meantime we are focusing on these skills to help.

This is an example of the elkonin boxes that I would use in the classroom with my student.

Standard Two: Curriculum and Instruction

• Provide appropriate in-depth instruction for all readers and writers, especially those who struggle with reading and writing.

From the courses I have taken this past semester and the activities I have conducted, I have learned that there is more than just one way to define a struggling reader. In this case, there is also more than one way to assist a struggling reader. Since I had never been a struggling reader, I had difficulty wrapping my head around the concept. I thought a struggling reader was someone who could not sound out words, and in some cases, that may be, but in several cases that is not the problem. A struggling reader can have difficulty with phonemic awareness, blending, comprehension, inferencing, character traits, etc. The most important thing is to pinpoint the problem to begin the assistance. During this course, I discovered that even though my one student had extreme difficulty with phonemic awareness when read to, he had average comprehension skills. I also discovered that my other student could sight read well and sound out words, but his blending was a little weak. He also had low comprehension skills. Using the answer frames from the book, I tried to build on their strengths to help with their weaknesses. I believe that some of these activities were a little hard for my students, but others helped them think a little deeper. I've made some of my own conclusions about how to help these students and the school has helped me decide what I can do to help them as well. For some of my students, further assistance from outside sources are needed, but for the other students, I can adapt my lessons to fit their needs.

Using questioning during reading is one way to help with comprehension.

Relating to how a character feels within a story is another strategy to aid comprehension.

Standard One: Foundational Knowledge

• Analyze classroom environment quality for fostering individual motivation to read and write (e.g., access to print, choice, challenge, and interests).

During my normal classroom routine, we start out the morning with a story. The story will go along with the weekly story from our reading series. We'll discuss different parts of the story; it could be things we know, things we've just learned, or things we found interesting. Also, during some free time, my students have a chance to pick out books from our classroom library to read. About once a week I have a "Reader's Choice" day where I will read one book that a student picks that morning. I've found that this motivates the children to read. They love seeing their books be picked that morning, and it makes them feel valued. 

I think it is very important to allow students pick their own books to read or be read to because from what I've learned with previous experience and prior knowledge from reading articles is that students are more interested in reading if they have an interest in whats being read. Not only will they be more interested in it, but they will comprehend it better as well. 

From this past semester's experience, I've also found that stories they can relate to help with their comprehension as well. My students' favorite story that I read while using the answer frames was "The Case of the Bad Stripes". They had asked me to read that book a few times during the week we were discussing it. I believe they enjoyed the colorful artwork, and they could relate to liking/disliking food, being sick, and being nervous to start school. We had several conversations on these different topics that helped them understand what was going on in the story.

From my experience of allowing the students to pick a book once a week, I believe I will continue this during the next school year. I may even allow the students to bring their favorite book from home that way they can explain to us what makes it their favorite book and it may give the students another reading series to consider.

Course Activity: Brief description and artifacts for Powtoon Portfolio

Standard 1: Foundational Knowledge

• Analyze classroom environment quality for fostering individual motivation to read and write (e.g., access to print, choice, challenge, and interests).
• I will reflect on our brain breaks where students are able to choose a book to "read" with their peers or by themselves, our reader's choice days where I allow the students to choose what book we read that day, and our journals (which will be my artifact) where some days students are given a prompt and other days they are given just a topic to write about.

Standard 2 Curriculum and Instruction

• Provide appropriate in-depth instruction for all readers and writers, especially those who struggle with reading and writing.
• I will reflect on our station portion of the day where they are broken in to three groups and one station changes throughout the week to fit the needs of the students. My artifact will be a variety of work that shows how I change the station to fit the needs of the students within the group I am working with.

Standard 3 Assessment and Evaluation

• Administer and interpret appropriate assessments for students, especially those who struggle with reading and writing.
• Analyze and use assessment data to examine the effectiveness of specific intervention practices and students responses to instruction.
• I will reflect on some of my struggling readers fluency assessments and how I have focused my station time to working with on flash cards, great leaps, or sight word study (which will be my artifacts).

Standard 4 Diversity

• Provide differentiated instruction and instructional materials, including traditional print, digital, and online resources, that capitalize on diversity.
• I will reflect on working with our tech steps, spellingcity website, and traditional worksheets on a variety of different instruction. I will provide pictures and student work as my artifacts.

Standard 5 Literate Environment 

• Understand the role of routines in creating and maintaining positive learning environments for reading and writing instruction using traditional print, digital, and online resources.
• Again, I will focus on our daily routine of morning meeting, station time, and journal time to focus on a positive reading and writing environment. I will provide pictures of our stations and student work as artifacts.

I will be using PowToon for my portfolio.

Word Study Instruction in the K-2 Classroom

Three important ideas/things from the lesson today are you can use a multiple of assessment tools to complete ongoing assessments on word work for example: journals, use small groups during centers and use a variety of activities to teach word work, and make word walls show word families and words that you use everyday, but the most important thing I learned today is allow students to explore real reading and writing. This means to allow them to explore where they would see the kinds of words they are looking for or to figure out how to spell certain words from using other words that they know.

I picked this article because I do a lot of word work within my Kindergarten classroom now, and I was interested to see if it would this article would give me different strategy ideas to use in my first grade classroom next year.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/word-study-instruction-k-2-classroom



I chose this image because I think it reflects my teaching philosophy, especially when it comes to reading and writing. I allow my students to explore writing on their own before I check their work and we will have conferences about their spelling or grammar (in their case, whether or not their sentence made sense.) I think it is important for the students to be able to teach themselves or each other because I believe it sticks in their minds better that way. A teacher must teach content as well, but after the main content is taught I give them the opportunity to explore the content on their own.

Ch 9 VoiceThread

https://voicethread.com/new/myvoice/#thread/6780003/

What Works in Fluency Instruction

Three important ideas/things from the lesson today are repeated oral readings have a positive impact with guidance from teachers, parents, or peers have a positive impact on word recognition, fluency, and comprehension, more independent silent reading is not always best, and independent silent reading should not be the only form of reading practice, but the most important thing I learned today is that this article was not very helpful. I think I have learned more from my course text books than from many of the articles I have read recently on this website. I am also learning more from experiencing struggling readers in my classroom and doing what works for them. I don't think there is ever only one strategy that fits every struggling reader so we research and try several until we can find some that truly helps a struggling reader. Even though this article states that there wasn't a correlation to more reading equaling a better reader, I do believe that the more you read, the better you will become and the stronger vocabulary you will have. I think reading more often to become a better reader is better than just throwing in the towel.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-works-fluency-instruction