Advanced Literacy 662: Christine

I have enjoyed blogging for the most part. It is an efficient way to respond to the readings and through the blogging I have found it is easier to process the information and connect it to my experiences. I enjoyed the readings that talked about practices and less about research. I like when articles tell me how to put research into practice instead of just interpreting research. I feel like I had some background knowledge on early literacy, however, it was very helpful to learn new ways to apply all that I knew about early literacy into practice. I particularly felt like I learned the most about read-alouds and their value. I also loved hearing how my colleagues put research into practice and how the collaboration makes us better teachers. I think by reflecting about the readings in class and through the blogs allowed us to share with each other the information we gathered from the readings and how we apply that to our lives. And I agree with Kathy, we all struggle with the same issues and sometimes it is just nice to know that others feel the same way and learn how they are coping and working through their issues. Whether or not I will continue to blog is up in the air. I enjoyed blogging about issues I am passionate about and like to know that others are passionate about the same things.

I feel like I have so many ideas for home-school connections but they are never put into place because of one reason or another. Last semester for our families class I arranged a day for parents to come in and we did a center rotation. 13 families showed up that was way more than I had anticipated but we had a great time and families spent quality time with their children inside the classroom. I also had an idea for a game day. I thought that once every nine weeks we could invite a handful of parents into the classroom for about an hour and the parents could take a group of children and play a board game they bought or a game we had in the classroom. I also thought that we could invite parents to read a book to the class. For example, each Friday a different parent or family member could read a book to our class. These ideas were turned down by my principal for a variety of reasons. The first was that the parents would have to pass the background check in order to come into the classroom, second our school has a policy that a parent cannot volunteer in their own child’s class, and third she was concerned about parents and families that worked and would not be able to come into the classroom during the school day. I have many arguments about these points that I will not get into. Watching the video I gained new ideas about home-school connections, but I am not sure how they would work in my classroom. The first was the stuffed animal that went home with the journal. I thought this would be a great literacy connection to the home. However, I could just imagine the condition that the stuffed animal would come back to school in. We send home book in  a bags and I had a parent complain about the smell of the books after they had been in some of the other children’s homes and I don’t blame her. Then I could just imagine how many new journals I would have to purchase after some families didn’t return it. I thought of doing a paper doll of some sort instead of the stuffed animal but the stuffed animal would be much cuter and cuddly, and a printed paper journal instead of a store-bought one. The other idea would be to send home a book and a sketch pad for the child to report on the book. I was trying to figure out a way to send home a book and have the parents responsible for the book, maybe writing up a contract. But I am definitely all about home-school connections and wish it was easier to do at my school.

The Gersten and Geva article kind of contradicted what we practice in our school, and I am not saying that either is bad, but they are different views. At our school you can not retain a child if they are in ESL, and I am not sure if that is for every school because of No Child Left Behind or not, but that is a heated debate with out teachers. Although I do not believe in retention, I do believe that a select few children, less than the number actually retained can benefit from another year of kindergarten. Not all ELL students are proficient in English, most have heard English at home or at a preschool environment. For some, Kindergarten is their first experience with school and English. I do believe that sometimes it is best for their first year of Kindergarten to be about learning the new language and their second year to be learning the content. That is just what I think and I am sure there are those who think differently. As far as labeling a child learning delayed when they do not even understand the language, I do not agree with that idea. How can we hold a child accountable for content in a language they do not understand. If I moved to a different country where a different language was spoken, I would not want my children to be held accountable for content in that language until they knew that language. Is this not why we give them standardized tests in Spanish or with a translator? 

I do believe that the content must be explained to ELL students in a way they can understand even if that means using their native language or using body language. And through these strategies, the more they learn and that is fantastic! But I do not agree with holding them accountable for material. I think Sarah described it best when she said she came out of Spanish class with a headache. This is what tour children must feel like when they leave our classrooms at the end of the day from just trying to learn English, not even trying to learn the content. And a lot of the learned English is through learning the content, I know this, but I just don’t feel like we should have high expectations for these children, I think we should appreciate what they can do and what they know and continue to work on improving their learning.

I haven’t had much experience with ELL students. Last year the little spanish boy in my class had an older brother so his english was really good and he ended up being one of the brightest children in my class. This year I don’t have any ELL students. However, I remember when I was in high school and for my child development class we volunteered at a preschool. Well, during my stay a new student came in and didn’t speak any english, neither did the family. I remember when he came in we all just smiled at him, he was probably so overwhelmed. But I also remember the teacher trying to learn some spanish words, using her hands a lot  and speaking very slowly. Sadly this boy withdrew from school before we could see how he learned English.

2001; 1; 255 Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 

Jan Turbill  Literacy Curriculum 

A Researcher Goes to School: Using Technology in the Kindergarten 

This article highlighted the lack of technology in kindergarten literacy. It stated that  ”implementation of technology was hindered by lack of time and expertise to explore and understand available software, teachers’narrow definition of literacy as including only paper-based texts, and lack of understanding of and confidence in the potential of the use of technology in the early years.” 

I find this to be true in our own school, and not just technology in literacy but technology in general. I am privileged enough to have the kindergarten smart board in my room, so I have easy access to it. However, it is a traveling smart board so any of the other 10 kindergarten teachers can come get it whenever they please. Sadly it has not been used by anyone but me in the 2 years I have had it. I am definitely more technology savvy than some of the other teachers in the building, most come to me for help, but we all need get on the technology bandwagon so we can actually teach something to the kids besides stuff they already know.

I put my kindergarteners on Microsoft Word and we went over the keys on the key board and I had to giggle when I pointed to the space bar and asked if anyone knew what it was and one boy answered its to jump or shoot. Hence the need to teach technology (hahaha). 

In our class we use the smart board to read books on tumblebooks.com, we also use it to read stories on starfall.com and we watch their movies and play their games. The kids also do the same in our computer lab, however, the computer lab is on flex time. So, teachers have to sign up for a time, which leaves room for teachers to forget to sign up or forget they signed up (me included). There is also no computer lab teacher so it is up to the classroom teacher to facilitate the computer learning. Well, if the teacher doesn’t know much then she can only teach the students what she knows. I don’t agree with this situation but there is nothing that can be done to change it. 

I will just say that I love using running records and they are very easy for me to do, I understand some people feel differently. I had a lot of practice in college using them. A professor of mine would record children in her class reading and we would record the reading on a running record and compare. We did this very often! So I feel very comfortable using them as an assessment tool.

One reason I enjoy running records is to group children in my class into reading groups for guided reading. for the children who can read a 3-4 we will work in small groups to read 5-6 and so on. Another way I can use them is to group children based on their cues. For example, if a group of children are relying solely on the picture cues, I can give a mini lesson on sounding out, using the first letter, etc. I also love watching progress so doing a running record every once and a while lets me see who is making good progress and who needs more support.

It has been a really “yucky” week at our house and I still don’t feel well, but apparently many feel the same way.

I had a different view of reader’s theatre before reading these articles and watching that film clip. I went to a seminar last year that talked about reading in the classroom and how typical kindergarteners read less than 10 minutes a day. So with this thought I incorporated a book basket into my centers where each group at a basket of books associated with their reading level that they were to read when they were done with their work. There were many different ways this seminar told us we could incorporate reading and one of them was the idea of reader’s theatre where they described one child would read a book to the rest of the kids in their group. But this article and film clip go so much more in depth. I always thought that I wanted to incorporate the children more in read alouds but always thought that props and puppets were time consuming and expensive. But this teacher involved the children without spending any money and minimal time. All she had to do was read the story enough times for the children to memorize it and put it on sentence strips and she was done. I believe that is a great and useful idea and I would like to incorporate it into my inquiry project.

I will just start out by saying that my Microsoft Word experiment is beginning to look like a success. It is still just in the beginning stages but when we went down to the computer lab last Wednesday, the kids were amazed that the space bar did something besides allow them to jump in a computer game. I will try and remember to take a video and post it. Some children just played with the keys and experimented writing words, other kids actually wrote sentences! It was pretty awesome.

On a different note, LEA! When I first started reading about Language Experience Approach, I thought it was an approach to teach writing but the more I read about it I believe it is to teach reading. The first article I read about the collaboration of LEA and process writing made me think think that it was more about the writing than the reading, but then I couldn’t understand if the children were writing the stories themselves or copying what the teacher wrote. I did enjoy reading about the small group facilitation of LEA. My school follows Lucy Calkins Writing Workshop and I have tried to facilitate the conferences that she talks about in the book but I think this small group approach would be more beneficial. It is also a good way to create lists of things to write about, which I do try to do individually, but I think that it would be good for the children to bounce ideas off each other. The second article I read about the Language Experience Approach made me think that it was more about reading. They talked about vocabulary and had the children put the story back together using sentence strips. I believe the teacher in the story performed this activity whole group but I thought this would be a great small group activity. Actually, this is similar to what I am doing in my centers this week. We are taking a poem about the wind and breaking it up and they are having to put it back together. We are also taking a sentence from the poem, breaking it apart and putting it back together. 

I now understand LEA a LOT better and am looking forward to using it in my KidWatching project!

Okay, so I go to the computer lab, probably not as often as I should (I am trying to go at least once a week), and one of my literacy centers usually involves some time on the computer. And I agree with the chapter, although it never directly stated, that the computer should not be one child zoned into the computer. I like when two children play together so they can socialize and help each other. However, They are usually playing drill-based literacy games…I know, shame on me, but I never really thought of it that way. When we go down to the computer lab we usually play on starfall.com, which is more of what I think the chapter was talking about, listening to books, watching movies, and interacting with words and letters.

I loved that the teacher in the chapter used Microsoft Word with the children. I think that this would help my students a great deal. We always run in to the problem when the children are logging in that they wrote a wrong letter or two many letters, and they needed the delete button. They also need to learn how to use the return key when toggling between name and password and completing the log-in process. I think if we allowed the kids to work and experiment with the keyboard. We also have KidPix on our computers but I never know how to use it and I think the kids using it by themselves doesn’t have any literacy benefits.

My goal is to incorporate Microsoft Word in our computer lab time. First I would like to just have the kids “play” and experiment with the keyboard, how it works and what it does. Then eventually having them type words and sentences. Which I never thought they would understand but the children in the chapter seemed to understand this concept in preschool. My other goal is to use KidPix in our center computer time. This is where the children most likely work together on the computer and will encourage social interaction.

As I was reading the IRA statement, I had a conversation with my boyfriend about high quality preschool. Neither one of us went to a “high quality” preschool and I think we turned out just fine. Both of us were raised by someone whose first language wasn’t English. His mom is Creole and my grandmother is Italian. But we could both remember them singing to us in their respective languages. And both of us could remember the songs by heart. I think that there is a loss of that no-a-days with both parents having to work and living farther away from relatives, which is saddening. 

The article N is for Nonsensical also made me reflect on my own teaching. We also learn a letter a week but we take a different approach. We have poems and stories that go along with each letter of the alphabet. I enjoy the alphafriend songs because we use them how most use nursery rhymes. I will read the poem the first couple of times and then I will ask the children to come and read the poem. Them mostly mimic my actions in the beginning but I believe this is reinforcing book and print concepts. We also find the letters in the story, and we talk about words that begin with that letter but we also look at words in the story, and rhyming words. By the end of the week the children are singing the song from memory, much like a nursery rhyme. The kids also enjoy writing the letter on each others backs, however, I do not engage in these activities for 55 minutes. I am lucky in my school in that we do not have to follow the reading series word for word so I can incorporate my own centers to be more hands-on play-based centers.

I am also lucky in that our school is a public library site so the number of books the kids can choose from in enormous. We go as a class once every two weeks but as the children bring their books back they can go and check out another one. AND THEY LOVE IT! They love when they get to wear the white clip and go choose another book, they really get interested in reading. I also read their book during snack time and they get so excited to tell us about their book before I read it. So I believe that this is fostering a love for reading.