Regarding my literacy instruction:
What can I do ? (agency)
-There are four curricular target areas for literacy in the Book Club Plus page 16-17 which are comprehension, writing, language conventions and literary aspects. In these four areas, there are many sub-areas under the target areas. I can do all of those target areas but some areas might be weaker than others.
What can I do? (readiness)
-As a teacher, I can study more on some of weaker areas such language conventions especially words and grammar. Also, I should read more children's book so I can be able to choose which books are good and which books are not.
What can I do? (action)
-During the literacy instruction, I can give more explict instructions to students and I can also do different reading methods such as read aloud, guided reading, paired reading and silent reading etc.
My placement for both Junior and Senior year in MSU were in kindergartnen class. So I have seen my CTs do many read aloud for their kids because kindergarteners cant really read. While they read the story, teachers kept asking students to see if they are following or not. And I also had chances to do read aloud to students and when I did it, I accessed their prior knowledge because I think it is a good strategy to help students place stories and informational texts in a familiar context. Also, I asks students to predict what is the book about just looking at the cover of the book. So, I am pretty confident doing read aloud. However, now I am placed in 5th grade with no experiences at all in upper elementary classroom, I am worried that I dont know the stuff what 5th graders learn. I have not actually seen a literacy class but I know that they are going learn grammar soon. So I hope to learn more grammar and learn how to write a better paper.
This is my second year being in a fifth grade classroom so I have had a little more experience with seeing the different types of instruction, as well as what areas are covered in the 5th grade curriculum. Like you, I am still very worried that I do not know a lot of what the 5th graders will be learning this year because it's been so long since I have learned it. I also believe that the way I was taught, as stated in our readings this week, is way different than the way we are trying to teach right now. Strategies That Work talks about how we often just read to answer questions and held on to the information until we took the test. When I read that, I had to laugh, because it's true. It wasn't until college that I started having in depth and engaging classes because my elementary teachers were teaching how they were taught )from a book and the paper/pencil approach). I wish that I would have been present in classrooms that were interactive and engaging so that I had more experience with it when it came to teaching concepts to my 5th graders now. I liked that you talked about the four curricular target areas when answering the agency, readiness, and action questions. I agreed with each of your answers to the questions. But I wonder, do you have a reading program at the school that you are at? Our fifth grade at Leslie Middle School is required to do the Reading Street program and as much as I would love to incorporate book clubs into the program (I have discussed this with my MT), it seems impossible. There is so much that has to be done to get through that program within the year and it seems that the gist of it focuses on vocabulary. Yes I agree that knowing vocabulary is important to fluency and the overall meaning of the text, but I feel that focusing a lot of attention on that keeps the students from different comprehension strategies and skills. Therefore, I'm just curious if you have a more flexible program where you can really try and do all those things?
ReplyDeleteLike Breanne, I am also placed in Leslie Middle School, where we use the Reading Street Curriculum. Reading Street is almost scripted and very hard to expand upon - there is just not enough time, and you have to reach certain points in the curriculum. This curriculum was implemented in the Leslie school district last year, and I asked my MT if she saw an improvement in the reading scores since its implementation; she said that yes, she did.. but she also noted that she noticed a decline in a love and joy for reading. As stated in "Strategies that Work" on page 23, "explicit comprehension instruction improves students' understanding of texts they read in school". So, while they may be scoring higher, it must be considered, at what cost? I think that there are pros and cons to both sides.
ReplyDeleteLike you, Sujeong, this is my first experience in a fifth grade classroom; my senior internship was in a kindergarten classrooms, where read alouds were extremely common, and students were just developing skills such as fluency. Therefore, I was really excited to see more advanced reading skills take place. I have not seen a whole lot of it yet, and with the Reading Street curriculum, I am not sure I will see really interactive reading. The reading they experience with this curriculum has them follow along as a computer reads the story of the week to them, which they then analyze using skills that are explicitly taught to them. As Breanne noted, there is pretty much no room for a book club type setting. Sujeong, I would love to hear about the curriculum you use in your fifth grade classroom, and hear your opinions about it!