Writing instruction Blog #2

When I look back and reflect on the writing instruction I received in school, the picture is quite fuzzy at best!  I remember being instructed in specific areas of grammar, underlining different parts of a sentence with different colors, correcting verb tenses and putting the correct punctuation into sentences.  These activities were done on worksheets that had been run off for the whole class to complete the task.  I remember that I usually had to get help from friends that I was sitting around and that very little if any of this ‘learning’ ever transferred into my writing.  This was defiantly a traditional writing approach where the teacher broke writing down into the different parts and taught each one specifically.  For me I do not remember a time when all of these parts became a whole, and I saw myself as a writer.

When I look at the writing curriculum/instruction I am giving to my young students I realize that there are some similarities in what I experienced as a student many, many years ago.  The ‘Every Child A Writer’ curriculum is very traditional.  While I believe there are many benefits to this program for students learning how to write, I also believe that it is missing qualities that could be addressed using an acquisition/process model.  My students receive direct explicit instruction in phoneme segmentation, letter and sound identification and letter formation.  When students know these prewriting skills they are taught first to label a picture and then to write one descriptive sentence.  The sentence needs correct grammar including upper and lowercase letters, spaces, punctuation, single subject and single predicate.  Students are taught how to use a web to plan their writing and how to edit a piece they have done and rewrite that piece for publication.  These are all skills and strategies that effective writers need to be successful, and having the specific objectives to teach these young writers creates a foundation for them.  At this point in students writing I believe traditional/formulaic writing that we ask our students to do should be replaced with acquisition/process view.  As we read in Essential Linguistics (Freeman and Freeman 2004) teachers can create conditions for authentic writing and then help students express themselves through their writing.  They go on to emphasize the importance of internalizing this process, which includes students having a choice in their writing. 

Knowing what I know now about writing instruction I believe what I was missing in my writing instruction and what is missing in the ‘Every Child A Writer’ curriculum is: writing for authentic purposes, giving students a choice in what they write about and that there is no connection between the reading and writing process.

Learning vs. Acquisition Blog #6

Looking at the list on page 48 of Essential Linguistics written by David and Yvonne Feeman (2004) and being asked to label the activities either (L) for learning/word recognition or (A) for acquisition/sociopsycholinguistic made me think about the possible ways for children to receive and practice new learnings.

I found it easy to determine if some of the activities listed were an (A) or (L) as they were very straightforward in terms of where they fit.  There were several on the list that were a little more difficult to define specifically as one or another.

Several of the activities on the list that we as a class decided to mark both (A) and (L) are independent activities I have my Kindergarten students do during our literacy centers.  One of my student’s favorites is, “ask students to look around the room and find words starting with a certain letter.”  We call this ‘write the room.’  The Kindies walk around the room with a clipboard holding a paper that has a word typed down the side relating to our unit of study(an acrostic writing) and a small flashlight and look for something in the room that starts with the same letter of the letter they are looking for.   When we first start this activity my students will use their classmates names to fill in as many of the lines as possible.  After they understand this task, I tell them they can no longer use each other’s names, color words or words from our job chart.  As I think about this activity, it starts out as a (L) learning word recognition activity, one they do after direct explicit instruction, but then as the activity continues to develop I believe it turns more into an (A) acquisition activity.

Another activity that fell into both categories that is part of our center rotations is, “Make alphabet books on different topics.”  During this center activity, which our fantastic technology teacher set up for us, the students start with a blank alphabet book.  They do a picture search for items that start with the same sound as the letter they are working on in their book.  The understanding for this activity began with a (L) activity, learning the letter names and corresponding sounds, and then moved into an (A) activity, as they were able to construct meaning using graphophonics, and semantics.  Students truly own their learning when they are able to apply what they know to activities where they have a choice in what they are doing.  The learning is centered on the student and not on the teacher in these activities.

I believe a balance of the two viewpoints is the best possible approach to teaching my kindergarten students and our ELL students.  As teachers our job is to use best practices in teaching and reach all of our students regardless of where they are academically and socially.  As young students and ELL students begin to learn any new task having the opportunity to practice and use their new learned skill with an acquisition-based style will help them apply and own their new learnings.

Children's literature review Blog #5

The First children’s book I choose to review was Lion’s Lunch written by Fiona Tierney.

In the beginning of this story a little girl is walking through a jungle singing happily when a lion pounces from behind a bush and roars at the little girl, “What are you doing in my jungle?”

The first component I see that might interfere with comprehension is a student not knowing what a jungle is.  The second component that will affect the comprehension of this story is understanding that the lion is seen as the ‘King of the Jungle’.

The students could be shown pictures or a video of a jungle so they can become familiar with what it looks like.  They could also be given labeled pictures of some of the animals that live in the jungle, with the picture of the lion being noticeably larger, as the teacher explains that the lion is the ‘king’ or ‘boss’ of the jungle.  These two activities will help our ELL students begin to build some background knowledge necessary to understand the meaning of this text.  Irujo (2007) tells us that even for students with good educational backgrounds, culture differences can result in not enough background knowledge, which will directly affect comprehension.

As the story progresses we find out that the lion is really a bully, and wants to eat the little girl because she does not belong in the jungle.   She says, “If I can do something nobody else in the jungle can do will you let me stay?”  She reveals that her special talent is drawing; the lion orders her to draw a picture of him.  The picture she drew shows a ‘Great Big Angry Lion’, which upsets the lion because he says he is handsome and tells Sarah because she can not draw he is going to eat her.  At this point in the story the rest of the animals in the jungle find the courage to stand up to the lion.

The third component that could affect the student’s comprehension is the understanding what a bully is and how a caring majority can stand up to a bully to help to make a change in the bullies behavior. This could be a time when the rest of the class could get involved.  The students in the class could role play several simple situations where one student is bullying another and some of the other students can play the role of the caring majority.  These role-play examples will need to be planned and purposeful for the age group of the children.  

The fourth component that could affect comprehension is genre.  This is a narrative text, and if ELLs are not familiar with this genre it would be helpful to explain the organization of a narrative text. Using a graphic organizer with the features written down, and a picture next to the words if appropriate, the student could draw a picture of examples from the story as it is read.  For example under orientation (tells who, where and when) the student could draw a picture of the little girl and the lion in the jungle.  Under the heading of series of events, the student could draw a picture of each of the major events that occur.

The second children’s book I chose to review was Big Red Barn written by Margaret Wise Brown.  I use this book to introduce our farm unit to my class.  It is about the different animals you might see on a farm.

The first two pages in this text read, “By the big red barn in the great green field, there was a pink pig who was learning to squeal.”

The first component I see that might interfere with comprehension would be the concept of a ‘big red barn’ and a ‘great green field.’  There are many ELLs that would not know what a barn is, what it is used for, and why it would be important enough to write a story about.  Then, I cannot imagine coming from a country where there is no open space, and where the number of people per square mile is larger than one can imagine, and this student is to understand the concept of a great green field!

The students could be shown more pictures, and maybe a video of a barn, a field and even a farm to help them understand this concept.  If there were anything similar to this in their culture it would help to make a connection.  I do however think the best way to expose an ELL to these concepts would be to actually visit a farm.

The book goes on to talk about the different animals that live in a barn and the sounds they make.

The second and third component that would interfere with comprehension is vocabulary and understanding how the author intergraded the sounds the animals make into the text.  The names of all the animals that live in the barn might not be familiar to ELLs.  Before the student is read this book it would be helpful to show them pictures of the animals.  The teacher could name the animals as they are looking at the picture, and then make the sound that the animal makes.  The student should be given time to interact with these cards, experimenting with animal names, sounds and talking about specific attributes that make the animal unique.  For example if shown a picture of a pig, the ELL student might ‘oink’ and point to or say ‘curly tail.’  Irujo (2007) says that everything an ELL teacher does should revolve around vocabulary acquisition explaining, repeating, reading and playing with words in all areas of instruction.

While the author is telling the reader about the animals in the barn, she introduces a few baby animals and their names. 

The fourth component that might interfere with comprehension is the understanding that some baby animals have different names than their parents do. (Not to mention male and female animals often have different names as well!)  Only after the student has an understanding of the animal names would I introduce the different names for the babies.  One way to help this understanding would be to play a game of concentration with picture cards.  Students could take turns trying to find a match between the parent and baby animal.  This game could start out just matching pictures, then later if students get a match they say the name of the adult and baby animal.

Understanding a foreign language text blog #4

            As I stood looking at all of the foreign language texts to choose from, I was immediately drawn to anything that had pictures, as this seemed it would be the best way to make some sense of the print that was on the page.  My first text choice needed to be something I should be proficient in, and there was one book that had a couple of sketches in it so I decided to take a closer look at it.  It was a Russian text written by Moliere.  The first pages of the text were a ‘Biographie’ on him.  I know this because the word biographie looks familiar to our English translation biography, and because there were dates on the page.  Next to his picture were the dates he was born, and passed away and then throughout the biography there were other dates listed within his life time that must had had significant implications of his life.  I was not able to read any of these, but recognized the numbers.  Then as I looked into the book, I realized that it was a play.  On the first page I saw, ‘Acte 1 Scene 1’ and using meaning that I had from this structure, I knew it was a play.  The people in the sketches were dressed in clothing from a period of time long, long ago and there was a man and a woman in them, but I was not able to gather much more information than that.   To scale back the difficulty I chose a picture book that was also a Russian text.  I was drawn to this book for several reasons, the first was the title, first written in Russian, but below it said “A Chinese Cinderella.”  I am familiar with the English version of Cinderella, and thought this would help in making meaning of the story.  The next structure that I saw was the detailed pictures on every page.  Even thought I still could not read the text, the pictures gave me some clues as to the similarities and differences between these two versions of Cinderella.  In the Russian version fish bones seemed to play an important role in the story, but I could not determine what that role was.  When actually looking at the text, I noticed a few of the symbols in Russian looked similar to our English letters, but not enough of them to make sense of what was printed.  I also did not know if the familiar symbols in Russian made the same sound as their English look a likes.  It would have been helpful to have a Russian-English translation dictionary, or an understanding of the sounds that go with the Russian symbols to try and decode what was written.  The thought of ‘translating’ even the easier text seems like an overwhelming and daunting task, and after working that hard to decode I am sure my comprehension would have long been lost!

            To make sense of this text I used clues from pictures, text structures, cognates, and background knowledge.  Even with all of these strategies I could not make any sense of the text at all.  I found myself feeling frustrated, overwhelmed and not too sure I was interested enough in this learning to continue what would have been a huge process.  Going through this exercise reaffirmed what I know about Kindergarten children coming into school, but made me think more in depth about what an ELL student must feel like and the specific nature of their needs.  As a teacher with ELL students in my room I will need to:

            * Create an environment where students feel safe and comfortable

            * Make as many connections from their language, background knowledge and text structure to English as possible.

            * Provide picture clues whenever possible

            * Provide opportunities for the students to have conversations (if they are comfortable) to help them make meaning of what is surrounding them as well as to help to continue to develop their oral language.

            * Make sure to scaffold their learning, and keep a clear focus on the objectives of the lessons you are teaching the ELL children.  I think it would be very easy to over teach and therefore not have any learning solidified.

             

           

Oral Language and the reading process

     I believe that Oral language provides the foundation for learning to read, and is related to overall reading achievement.  There is some debate over the acquisition of oral language. Behaviorists believe that it is a learned behavior; some developmental psychologists believe that because children develop language rapidly without instruction that humans have a special capacity for language.  Sociologists with a focus on the environment believe that language is developed for social interactions and Chomsky, a foremost linguist, believes that children have an innate capacity for language (Freeman 2004).  Although we know that oral language is acquired I believe that it needs to be continually fostered both at home and in the school setting.   Oral language becomes the building block for establishing success in all areas of literacy. It will be very difficult for students to learn to read a language they do not understand.  To some degree I think there are similarities between some incoming Kindergarten students and ELL students.  Although the degree of not understanding the language would be greater for ELL learners, many incoming Kindergarten students either have not been exposed to, or have not had to use oral language skills before they come to school. Teachers can model oral language by purposefully talking with their students and teaching them how to have these conversations with each other. Theses conversations can be about books that have been read to the class, a unit of study in the classroom or how to ask a friend to play at recess.  

            An effective way to teach children the reading process is through scaffolding. Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (Gibbons 2002) helps us to understand that teaching children in the zone between what they can do with out any adult help and what they can do jointly with a skilled expert is where the most effective teaching will take place.  Students will need direct explicit instruction within their proximal zone in the five components of literacy.  In phonemic awareness students need to understand that the sounds of spoken language work together to make words.  In phonics students will understand the relationship between the letters of the written language and the individual sounds of spoken language. Fluency is the connection between word recognition and comprehension.  Students will need to know what fluent reading sounds like, so they have an idea what they are striving for.  Beginning readers and ELL students will have a much more difficult time reading/decoding words that are not part of their oral vocabulary.  It is important for teachers and parents to continue to develop student vocabulary.  Comprehension is the reason for reading.  Combining everything students know and understand about the process will make them successful readers.

            Although these two skills are learned in a different way, oral language through immersion fostered by the teacher, and the reading process that requires direct explicit instruction they are interdependent on each other and our students success depend on both.

Teaching Philosophies

After interviewing a Kindergarten teammate of mine, I realized that we share many of the same philosophies when it comes to teaching literacy to our young learners.

Here is our list:

Respectful and Caring relationships with both the students and their parents is key.  For many of our students this is their first experience in school and building a trusting relationship is a must to get their educational process started.  It is also important that parents realize that educating their child is a team effort, not just the job of the teacher.

Teachers need to meet student’s literacy needs where they come in and use what they know about the student to build for their learning success.

Teaching literacy needs to include a comprehensive, balanced, and differentiated program of instruction. This program would include the five critical elements of a comprehensive, research-based literacy curriculum, which are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Students need direct explicit instruction in all 5 areas of literacy, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

Students should be assessed and monitored on a regular basis and their instructional needs should be matched with teacher instruction.

Reading and writing should not be taught as separate subjects but integrated in the curriculum.

Students should be taught using current best practices.

Students should be engaged in writing for authentic purposes.

Students need to be given choices in their learning to enhance intrinsic motivation around reading and writing.

Students need to be given the time and opportunity to talk about and share their learning with other students.

In order to live up to this philosophy and meet the needs of our young learners we both agree that all Kindergarten classes should meet all day every day free of any tuition.