Assessment

I really enjoyed how the book opened up with assessment by relating it to our lives. We really do use assessment everywhere and do not realize we are using it. Some examples were how we assess what to wear after knowing the weather. Also, we assess the food and service at a restaurant. When it comes to the classroom, assessment should be more than something to just cross off the list of things to do. In my opinion, checklists and records are the best way to  show you results of different students. I agree with Cunningham that assessment should be natural and a productive part our literacy instruction as an educator.

I really thought the checklist on page 216 of attitude interest was really beneficial. I would like to use this in my classroom. I think it is very important to know what your students like to read and how they view reading. A project you could do for this is telling the students to go home and bring back their 3 favorite books. They then present to the class why its their favorite and so on. 

Questions to Consider:

What are some things you want to have a checklist for in your classroom?

What are your own personal experiences with standardized testing?

This is a self evaluation. I think these are very important. This might work well for students who are struggling with fluency. You could have the checklist taped to their desk or with them when they are in a reading group.

Guided Reading (article)

Guiding Reading in the Primary Classroom

Guided Reading: Good First Teaching for All Children by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell. Heinemann Publishers, 1996.

The goal for guided reading is for students to use strategies such as context clues, letter and sound knowledge, and syntax or word structure to help them become more fluent readers. This article talks about different steps for guided reading. 

Before reading: Set the purpose for reading, introduce vocabulary, make predictions, talk about the strategies good readers use.

During reading: Guide students as they read, provide wait time, give prompts or clues as needed by individual students, such as "Try that again. Does that make sense? Look at how the word begins."

After reading: Strengthen comprehension skills and provide praise for strategies used by students during the reading. (Mary Kreul) 

Certain techniques are most useful when using guided reading. When putting your students in a group, you need to keep in mind their different reading levels and abilities. Also, you need to have a wide variety of different level books for eah of the students. Teachers should choose books that are easy enough for independent reading, meet the instructional goals for the group, and are interesting and motivating to students (Kreul,1996).

I really like the idea of having these cubes in my small groups I make for the class. Each group can take a turn by rolling a dice and answering the question that they roll. It seems like a fun way to answer questions about what they read instead of just writing the answers down on a piece of paper with a pencil. It mixes it up a bit. 

Building Vocabulary

Building Vocabulary

Vocabulary is critical to reading comprehension. (Cunningham, p. 95) When we read, if we know the definition of the words we read, then we will be able to understand what we are reading. On the other hand, if we are reading and don’t know the meaning to a lot of the words then our reading comprehension will be greatly impaired. As educators, we really need to focus on helping our students build their vocabulary because in return, it will make them better readers and writers.

One thing Cunningham mentions is providing as much realism as you can in your classroom.  I strongly agree with this. As he mentions, we all learn best when we have real life experiences that we can relate to.  I like the idea of having read aloud posters on the classroom walls that have a picture of something then three words describing it. I want to make sure my classroom has a lot of creativity throughout it.

When I work with kids, they seem to get really restless when they have to sit and write definitions. I have seen some of their teachers incorporate different activities to help with vocabulary along with definitions that helps. For example, for each of their spelling words, draw a picture of what it is, and also put the word in a sentence after reading the definition of it. I think this helps kids get creative and apply the words rather than just writing the definition.

Below are some ideas I would like to have hanging on my wall.

Reading Comprehension

When talking about comprehension, the very beginning of the chapter talks about children who have a hard time comprehending what the read. They say its not that the struggling ones simply can’t think but more that they don’t think while they are reading.  Cunningham suggests this is because they don’t know they should think. They haven’t been taught that. Like the child that has never been read to or has heard people talk about reading that goes into a school and is taught letters and words. That child does not know to think about what he or she is actually reading.

I,  personally, definitely understand what Cunningham is saying because I as a child really struggled with reading comprehension. I still do now. I was not read to a lot as a child and learned the letters and words and didn’t really pick up on actually thinking about what I read. I was good at reading the words quick and knowing every letter and sound. I use to think I was a really good reader because I could read really fast and usually never got a word worng. I finally realized though I had no idea what I was reading.  In my opinion, your not reading if your not understanding. What you are reading.

Below are some good activities for children to help them stop and think about what they are reading. I really could have used some of these ideas. Especially when I was younger, most of my teachers just focused on teaching how to read the words more than teaching me how to understand and think about what I am reading.

Word Study

I have to agree with most researchers saying that vocabulary is learned indirectly through teacher read-aloud and independent reading. I want to make sure and have a classroom where children can learn how to evaluate their own vocabulary knowledge and develop a sense of word curiosity that will push them to continue to develop rich, lively, and valuable vocabularies.

How can I do that?

I like the scale for the kids to hold up fingers to describe how well they know a word.

1= I have never heard of that word

2= I heard the word but I don’t know what it means

3=I think I know what the word means

4=I’m sure I know what that word means

5= I can make a good sentence with that word

It not only lets the students evaluate themselves but also the teachers have a good understanding of what words the students struggle with.

How can I encourage independent reading?

When I was a kid, I remember not really liking to read. There is one thing though that always encouraged me to read: the reading couches and loft. In Kindergarten, we had a center in the room that was for reading time. It had a big loft with pillows and comfy couches. I remember looking so much forward to reading just because of that center in the room. I will definitely have a reading center when I am a teacher. I feel it encourages every student to enjoy reading and try new things. I know it did to me.

Choral Readings (Class activity)

Choral Readings:

What are they?

• reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. After hearing the teacher read and discuss a selection, students reread the text together. 
• Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, vocabulary knowledge, motivation, and enjoyment of literature.

Fluency

      Fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression. (Cunningham p. 49) The beginning activity with reading the words that were all stuck together really introduced this concept well.  I was reading the words, but I had to pause and really look at them very closely to read them. Therefore, I was having a hard time really understanding what the summary was. I knew most of it, but I didn’t know a lot of detail about it. 

There are several things mentioned in the text that can be done for struggling readers that I found really informative. One being, having a “After lunch bunch” reading club. This is simply just having five or six students come read with you some just plain fun books. You make sure and include all the readers and least once a week but include struggling readers several days.

There are three components to fluency.

• speed
• Prosody
• Accuracy

a

Developing fluency should be a huge goal in our classrooms with the students.

I agree with Allington when he mentions the three reasons why some students struggle with fluency.

• ·      Struggling readers are given material too difficult for them to read

o   When I was in school, our teachers had all of us read the same book no matter what are reading level was. It was more of a class wide reading level so therefore you should be reading where everyone else in 4^th grade was which for me was not the case. I was as struggling reader growing up and this never helped me with anything.

• ·      Struggling readers read  much less than more capable readers

o   I was never a strong reader when I was a kid, so I never enjoyed reading and that lead to me not reading as much to those students who were good at reading and enjoyed it.

• ·      Teachers call on the struggling readers a lot to read aloud and quickly interrupt them to correct their errors.

o   I always got so much anxiety as a kid when I got called on to read. If anything, it worsened my reading along with my confidence to read better.

 Questions to Consider

1. 1.     What contributes to making a fluent reader?
2. 2.     What are some things in your opinion that can encourage fluency with your students?