Reading is the pinnacle for all academics. Not having the foundation for reading detrimentally affects students. Phonological awareness is only taught in primary grades but I agree that it should be taught throughout all grade levels. Phonics seems to be difficult because English incorporates over 40 sounds. I like the idea of saying nonsense words like during a game of “war”. In fourth grade, I tend to focus on the fluency of reading so the students can read accurately and quickly. I like the idea of reading the same piece three times in a row to build a child’s fluency – building their confidence and fluency levels. I also focus on building vocabulary. In fourth grade, I teach students to use context clues but oftentimes we have to use a Frayer model (definition, synonym, part of speech, sentence, and picture) to learn a new word. This helps the students learn the new word and gain more knowledge about this word. I loved the idea of using an ice cream sundae as an example of a main idea and its supporting details. I always use box and bullets but appreciate the use of graphic organizers for my students who are lower leveled readers.
Trip to Hawaii Videos
I really enjoyed this assignment because I have only been to Hawaii once and would love to go back, especially since I had to scrape ice off my car this morning! This reminds me that I should always hook my students into my entire lesson – I often use simulations or grabbers in an effort to get them involved. I agree that graphic organizers should be used because they can help maximize students’ exposure, knowledge, and organization. I use them a great deal with my students who struggle with reading or writing or cannot organize their thoughts individually. However, I use foldables and other organizers daily in all subjects. Many students are now visual learners due to the technology they are continuously interacting with, and graphic organizers help students “see” the picture. Since I am a fourth grade teacher, I have often allowed my students to create their own graphic organizers either on paper or the computer. They need to take ownership of their graphic organizers because this helps them complete them and actually use them throughout the lessons. I agree that we constantly are working on improving their cause and effect skills in fourth grade. This video was a great review of the different graphic organizers in grades K – 5 and how they build upon each other as students become older.
Expository Texts – Understanding Text Organization PowerPoint
I believe it is important to teach organization with all texts because this sets the students up for improving their comprehension for both fiction and expository stories. I believe that most people remember more information if they make notes while reading. It is important to teach students how to compare and contrast. This is a skill we are currently working on in fourth grade because my students can talk/write about their differences but have a difficult time seeing the similarities between ideas, which surprised me. I like the idea of telling them about the “signal words” and will introduce this concept to them next week. As I mentioned in the trip to Hawaii summary, I really love having the students involved in making and completing their own graphic organizers (they love to decorate them to their liking).
Expository Text Structures - Lewis and Clark, Website/Reading
The PowerPoint began by comparing expository and narrative texts and I believe most students understand the difference between the two styles. I do agree that boys prefer non-fiction based on the fact that I always have four to six boys that I cannot get to read a fictional book but they love reading the non-fiction books. This was an interesting PowerPoint since “Expanding West with Lewis and Clark” is a fourth grade standard. It is always challenging to have fun with this topic because it is at the end of our school year. I liked the idea of sequencing events with a timeline – my students in the past have used a computer program to create a timeline for their biography project. This helps students see the big picture in chronological order. I have never used the Problem and Solution graphic organizer but like the idea of the flow, and believe that we could use it when we start talking about the American Revolutionary War in a few weeks! I think it is difficult to find primary sources for our students to be exposed to but this is an important standard in fourth grade because they must know the difference between primary and secondary sources and then be able to compare the sources. Finally, I really enjoyed reviewing the SQ3R since I am tutor for studying skills and just printed off slides 45 and 46 to use with my students. It is important to get the students involved in their reading and finding out information about the topics instead of the teachers always being in the front of the classroom.
Fry Readability
I chose to examine the reading level for Number the Stars since I just finished it for another class and did not have any of my fourth grade teacher edition books at home this weekend. For the 100 word passage, there were almost 6 total sentences. The average amount of syllables per 100 words was approximately 130. This indicates that the book is in the fourth grade section on the Fry Readability Graph. This was a difficult task to complete and would not like to do this for every book I had read – very thankful for DRA and AR levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment