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.