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.
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.
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."
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?
As always I think it is very important that as educators that we always teach our materials in varied approaches. For example, some student will benefit from one-on-one instruction, wheres others will be more comfortable tackling the material on their own. I think with the subject of reading it is crucial that we build our students self-esteem about reading. I really liked the Bell & Jarvis examples of different types of literacy. I also liked the idea of having your students keep reading blogs so that you and they are able to see what they're reading and what they enjoy reading so that you can expose them to new material. In addition, it's important that your classroom library have a wide range of material of varying reading levels so that your students can challenge themselves or find something they are comfortable with.
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