A Making Words Lesson

In Chapter 5 of Classrooms that Work, by Allington and Allington, the text discusses "making words" lessons (75).  Allington and Allington note that Making Words activities exemplify guided discovery. The authors write, "in order to truly learn and retain strategies, children must discover them" (75).

In the first few weeks of this course (Reading Education 430), I have learned that it is crucial to equip students with reading strategies.  These strategies will help them master reading with comprehension and fluency.  I want to be able help students develop strategies that will help them approach unknown words with confidence.

While direct instruction is often necessary and effective, Allington and Allington write that students must "discover" reading strategies on their own so that students may access and implement those strageties independently.  Teachers can construct Making Words activities to guide students towards developing reading strategies.  Rather than telling students exactly how to combine smaller words to form longer, more complex words, teachers use this activity to help students realize the effectiveness of this strategy themselves.

Here is a great video documenting a Making Words lesson in action.  This video really helped engrain in my mind, what a Making Words lesson entails.  I loved seeing the excitement of the faces of the children when they discover the secret word (or the long word made up of all of the letters).

As the video conveys, a Making Words activity involves the teacher picking out a long word in which multiple smaller words can be constructed with letters from that long word.  Students explore possible words by manipulating the order of the individual cut-up letters they recieve.  At the end of the activity, the secret word, or the long word, is revealed to the students through their construction of smaller words.  I love that this activity emphasizes word patterns, word combinations, and requires students to utilize strategy to determine the secret word.

Can you think of any other guided discovery activities that could help teach reading strategy?

Also, how might a teacher ensure that the strong readers in the class will be patient enough to wait for others students to complete the activity? We don't want these stronger readers blurting out the secret word!  It must be kept secret until all students are able to adequately explore the letters and practice word construction.

Read, Read, Read, and Read some more!

I found this week's assigned reading interesting, practical, and applicable.

The article that outlined the International Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children's joint position statement on reading emphasized the significance of literacy in our society.  This article elaborated on some of the challenges that educators face in the classroom such as variation of student backgrounds as well as the challenge of catering to ESL students.  I appreciated the fact that the article urged educators to embrace this diversity and to ensure that instruction promotes learning for all children in the classroom.

Here is a photo I found on a Educational Psychology Blog that captures diversity in the classroom.  Teachers must welcome and embrace diversity and constantly be attentive to the needs of all of the students in their classrooms.

Blog URL

Donna Bell and Donna Jarvis offer some enlightening suggestions for reading instruction within pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in the article, "Letting Go of 'Letter of the Week.'"  The suggestion to incorporate meaningful, real reading tasks seems so obvious after having read this article. I also admire the fact that these teachers utilized print material from the child's environment to guide their instruction.  For example, Donna Bell affirmed to her kindergarten students that they indeed already knew how to read by asking them to "read" familiar logos such as the McDonald's "M."  Children gained feelings of competence towards reading on the very first day of kindergarten as a result  of Ms. Bell's instructional strategy.  I also found her incorporation of student names inherently logical and it's effectiveness as described in the article was noteworthy.  In addition to these instructional strategies and practices, I also want to incorporate Ms. Jarivs' technique of writing instruction.  Ms. Jarvis took steps to affirm children of their writing competence and then taught her students how to edit and revise their writing.  Brilliant!  She encouraged them by boosting their confidence and then taught them that good writers edit and revise their work.  I feel as if these terms, "editing" and "revising," take the focus off of the child's mistakes and channel the focus towards improvement and correction.  

These teachers expertly affirmed children that they could in fact read by showing them familiar environmental print and asking them to "read" this print.  

Google Image Link

Finally, I found the article, "Supporting Phonemic Awareness Development in the Classroom," useful as an aspiring teacher.  The authors offered detailed activities for the classroom that incorporate phonemic awareness development.  

I especially loved the instructional idea centered on the children's book, "Cock-a-Doodle-Moo."  

Google Image Link

We, as teachers and potential teachers, want to teach reading in the most effective way possible.  Ms. Bell's use of environmental print motivated her students in a huge way.  How else can use the child's experience with the environment to influence our instructional strategies?

Also, in the beginning of this post, I mentioned to challenge of catering to the wide variety of students in a classroom.  How might teachers go about this?

Chapter 3 + The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy

I really enjoyed Chapter 3 of the text.  This chapter focused on early literacy foundation and stressed that each child enters the kindergarten classroom with different skills and varying levels of exposure with regards to reading and writing.  Some children enter into kindergarten knowing how to write their name and knowing the alphabet forwards and backwards.  Other children enter into the classroom with a limited understanding of what the purpose of reading and writing even is.  I now realize that "pretend reading" and "pretend writing"greatly contribute to a child's knowledge of reading and writing conventions and jargon.  I also really enjoyed learning about different methods used to teach and motivate children to read and write.

Early experiences at home contribute to future reading success!  Here is a photo of some alphabet magnets and the link below provides "do it yourself" instructions...

http://chezbeeperbebe.blogspot.com/2009/10/tutorial-how-to-make-plush-alphabet.html

I especially loved the shaving cream writing activity suggestion!

http://feidtsfirstgraders.blogspot.com/2012/04/shaving-cream-spelling.html

This may be outdated but I learned a lot about letters, sounds, reading, and writing from the letter people.  Does anyone else remember these lovable characters?

http://pinterest.com/pin/176907091582136590/

I also enjoyed reading the article about the Jones' family.  This article conveyed the importance of the family unit in regards to literacy. In this family, the Jones', literacy is held in high regard and the adult members of the family are committed to help Kiki learn to read with anticipation, comprehension, and application.  

Teachers must constantly remember that children come from different backgrounds with different perspectives on literacy and its uses.  

How do early elementary school teachers accomodate all of the students in their kindergarten class?  How should teachers prevent initial categorization of students based on their previous literacy experiences?  We don't want children to feel hopelessly behind from their first week of school.

Also, for all you creative folks, do you have any ideas regarding using different materials to teach reading and writing such as shaving cream on desks, letter people, etc.?

Chapters 1 and 2 + Effective Reading Instruction Reflection

I found the first and second chapters of, Creating Classrooms that work & Creating Enthusiastic, Independent Readers, and the article, "What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction," enlightening in that the texts provided me with a basic understanding of multiple factors that contribute to successful classrooms.  Specifically, I learned about the strategies implemented by the most effective teachers.  The article confirmed and complimented the textbook in that both sources outlined similar practices.

Both the textbook and the article claim that the following produce effective classrooms...

• ENGAGE students
• schedule time daily for independent reading
• teachers used time wisely providing adequate instruction and allotting sufficient time for practice, wasting very little time 
• student spent lots of time reading and writing
• students practiced reading and writing while working on other subjects such as science and social studies
• teachers explicitly instruct students on how to develop reading and writing skills
• teachers manage classroom well, very little disruption, disorder, distraction
• opportunities for conversation about what was read
• teachers ask questions with wide range of answers
• focus on problem solving 
• focus on both word meaning and phonetic development 
• teach reading and writing skill in a variety of ways with a variety of materials
• teachers encourage reflection and discussion with fellow classmates
• small group discussion
• teachers read aloud to students
• choose texts that appeal to everyone in the class
• cater to boys and girls and struggling readers
• teachers teach child how to self-check and self-regulate
• "Did I understand the main idea of that paragraph?"
• "What do I think will happen next?"
• "I wonder what emotions this character is feeling right now

Research suggests that these characteristics will produce results!

I LOVE both the Bookboard idea and the rotating book crate idea proposed in the textbook!  I found some photos that relate!

These bulletin boards engage and encourage students by letting them know that their opinion is important! 

I love the rotating book crate idea.  Teachers rotate crates from classroom to classroom.  Each teacher has each crate for 5 weeks--a limited time that provides an incentive for students to read books before they are unavailable! 

I thought the marketing technique for the rotating book crate idea was brilliant.  Can you think of any incentives similar to this one that would excite students and motivate them to read?

Also, how can teachers best work with administrators to decrease time spent adhering to strict curriculum requirements and increase time in their class devoted to the research supported strategies mentioned here?