I agree that literacy should be taught across the curriculum because it is easy to integrate with all subject areas since they all incorporate some aspect of literacy. It is difficult to teach all of the literacy components separately during the “assigned” reading and writing times. I have been teaching social studies and literacy together lately because my fourth graders are learning to take notes on the S.S. curriculum. They also are responding to events with their own personal reactions and they love completing R.A.F.T. (role, audience, format, topic) papers. With the Common Core, I believe there is a stronger emphasis on spreading literacy across the curriculum because we are raising the text complexity for all students. These “pirate plans” looked interesting and was an entertaining approach to integrate information across all areas including the arts.
RTI Articles and PowerPoint Presentations
I found all of these articles useful and teeming with information. I feel very comfortable with the RTI process here in Georgia since I have always had at least 6 students a year on this tiered system. I have had students go back to tier 1, but have also had students that have been staffed into tier 4 with special education. I believe the RTI program is helpful for early prevention and providing students several opportunities to succeed in their academics. I wish there was more information about the behavioral side of RTI since I have seen a lot of students lately tiered due to their behavior. I agree with Brozo that that there is more pressure on the teachers to meet the needs of all learners in all subject areas. I also agree that we need to increase print encounters and experiences with informational text for all students. In fourth grade, I focus a great amount of time on note-taking and reading/understanding informational texts. I am always surprised at how much students do not understand on how to critically evaluate information from nonfiction texts. By the end of fourth grade, my boy students love informational texts especially if they like sports, history, or science. When I read Brozo’s opening statistics in his Response to Intervention or Responsive Instruction? Challenges and Possibilities of Response to Intervention for Adolescent Literacy, I found that I was not surprised by the low achieving scores and how our high school graduates are not prepared for college. I met several friends in college that could not write papers nor understand the basic fundaments of literacy. Unfortunately, a lot of students that are “sweet” and “low-achieving” students get looked over. I have tiered many students in fourth grade that have always struggled but are the most caring children you’ll ever meet. I never want to do a dis-service to my students and I hate to see them struggle. I often use the visual aid of the pyramid and discuss with my families that this is a team effort to improve their child’s education. Why should we let students struggle if there is a program that will offer them different strategies and interventions to help them succeed at school and later in life?
Reading Rainbow New Theme Song
I grew up watching the Reading Rainbow and remember loving the adventures I would go on as a child since I was not into reading individually. I did not see much of a difference in the theme song other than they modernized it and made it more “pop” sounding. It still has the lyrics “I can go anywhere, friend to know, and ways to grow” which was the most important part of the message to me growing up because as a reader, you are always growing. I think it is a great program that lets children “go anywhere” and “be anything” while reading and exploring.
Writing Express with First Graders Video
I love how this teacher had the students interact when constructing a sentence! It is a wonderful idea to have all of the students involved as much as possible during lessons. I feel that students learn more when they are actively participating instead of just listening. I appreciated how he stressed the importance of what a sentence actually does. I was surprised that the students knew a sentence has two parts: “name something” and “what it did”. He reminded the students about capitalization and punctuation throughout this activity. Then near the end of the video, he talked about expanding the sentence, which is a concept that many students struggle with. The teacher asked “Where?” which made the students think and expand their sentence. Overall, this was a great lesson with first graders learning about the essential elements of a sentence.
PowerPoint Presentations & Articles of Literacy
I disagree with the quote by Francis that “Children do not outgrow reading difficulties” because I believe that with the correct amount of motivation and scaffolding, a child can become successful. Children need plenty of time to practice their skills and help to guide them. Many students tend to dislike reading because of reading programs that place pressure on them (i.e., Accelerate Reading). Students need to learn how to read for entertainment and should have a choice of what to read. I appreciated one of the presentations that started off saying “Literacy begins at birth, and is a lifelong process!” because I truly believe that it is something that grows with everyone throughout their entire life. The Conquer the Code presentation was very informational about how reading is the union of comprehension and decoding. I have some fourth graders that have excellent fluency but lower comprehension skills. However, most of my students struggle with both fluency and comprehension because they go hand-in-hand. It is vital for students to be taught phonological and phonemic awareness so they can properly decode. I am noticing more and more fourth grade students that do not know the basic phonic rules and cannot decode because of this. After looking at the 44 sounds in the English language, I understand why it is one of the most difficult and confusing languages in the world today. I guess I never really thought to analyze and separate out all the different sounds in our language. However, students need the ability to “play” with their native language early in their life so they are aware of letters and their sounds before they try reading and writing. I like the different phonological activities they listed in the presentation and agree with all of the examples. It is important to teach children that learning how to talk, read, and write can be FUN!
WebQuests
WebQuests have become a very popular way to integrate technology within a students’ learning. I have never made a WebQuest but I often use them for my fourth grade students. I frequently use those that are related to our social studies and science curriculum. I know my students love when we travel down to the computer lab to “play” on the computers. I think WebQuests are helpful in a student’s education because it is designed to be interactive where there are specific tasks and questions the students have to discover while on this quest. The students have to search for information on given links, play curriculum-based games, analyze charts/data, read timelines, etc. The only problem with WebQuests are sometimes the links are out-of-date and do not work. Nevertheless, one of my favorite WebQuests that relates to our science curriculum is http://mrscienceut.net/phasesofthemoonwebquest.html.
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