I-Search Paper-Revisions

I revised my paper by adding a more attention grabbing introduction. I made the reader want to learn more about my quest to understand my topic of boys and literacy. I went back and checked over my interview summary to make sure it was concise enough. I also checked to make sure each section transitioned well from one to the next. I then looked over my conclusion and it seemed like I didn't need to change it in looking at my first draft. Overall, I think I learned a lot about my topic after this assignment.

Learning Blog 8

I really enjoyed Ch.11 in our book Reading to Learn in the Content Areas. This chapter is perfect and very important. As a future elementary school teacher, I know that all students are unique and can often struggle with academic courses, especially reading and writing. This chapter provides teachers with strategies to use to support those diverse learners in all content areas in classrooms and schools.

As educators we often define diverse learners as those who might be at risk for academic failure and who need special understanding and attention. In every classroom, teachers find students who are diverse in many different ways.  As educators we cannot treat all students the same because, they are all uniquely different and learn differently as well. I was very excited when the authors indicated that all content teachers, not just special education teachers, must practice equity pedagogy. This means striving to educate all students and not treating or instructing each individual the same way-but rather with respect to their different diverse needs.

I really enjoyed this chapter because the area of special education is of great interest to me even though I am getting my license in Elementary Education. As a first year teacher I could be put into an inclusion classroom so I want to understand what that is like. Also I am later on considering getting my masters in special education. I know a little about IDEA and differentiated instruction and they are important to the success of us as teachers meeting the diverse needs of our students. Also I learned more about RTI, or Response to Intervention, than I previously knew and definitely see it as a very useful tool. The RTI model is used as an alternative approach to determine the eligibility for special education and related services. This approach can be used on all students to determine where their strengths and weakness are.

At risk students are in danger of dropping out of school because of low achievement, because of educational disadvantages, low socioeconomic status, or underachievement. There are also many other reasons for underachievement such as poverty, low self-esteem, and poor school attendance.  Teachers might see to these students as the “lazy” or “hard to teach.” But it could be a product of learned helplessness; in that they have failed so many times that they believe they cannot do it. It is also very important for educators to be patient with these students. Educators need to be positive and caring enough to realize that change for the students takes time both academically and emotionally. It is important for educator to understand that not all students are able to be resilient to the long term and short term challenges they face. Teachers need to encourage resilience in their students by fostering positive communication and encouraging them that you will be with them every step of the way.

Students from low-socioeconomic status, low self-esteem, ESL students, and ELL students may need more encouragement and assistance in the classroom. But ultimately what the need the most is, a teacher who is patient in working them, positively encouraging them to do their best, and reassuring them that you will be with them every step of the way. These students often struggle with reading the most and as a result, they will try to avoid reading at all costs. As a future teacher I want to help change their attitudes toward reading and help develop a desire and joy for learning and reading that they can enjoy forever. The chapter gave some great strategies I can use to help my students like differentiation for struggling learners or the PLEASE strategy. The chapter also gave some great strategies for struggling readers like concept formation study guides, beginner-oriented texts, and interactive notebooks. 

As a future teacher doing all I can to help all my students succeed will require extra effort, patience, time, require the use of many different strategies, but in the end all my students deserve the best education possible if they are to develop a desire and joy for learning and can feel safe in my classroom because they will know that I will be with them every step of the way.

What are some of the cultural and economic issues that students have to deal with? The military has a huge impact on the drop-out rate of students. Resources are another key factor as well as lack parental involvement. No Child Left Behind has significantly impacted  the drop-out rate in schools. Support systems are also very important. As teachers we need to need to take all these factors into account in trying to help our students. 

In terms of resources talk to local businesses about donation resources like time funds toward resources. In terms of parental involvement offer parents to come in volunteer in your classrooms and establish a connection with parents of your students so they can be involved with their child's education as much as possible,

Learning Blog 7

I really enjoyed reading Chapter 8 in our book, Reading to Learn in the Content Areas, and how it talked about writing to learn in the different content areas. The quote at the beginning of the chapter “To read is to empower, to empower is to write, to write is to influence, to influence is to change, to change is to live", by Jane Evershed, really made me see the impact writing to learn can have on my students.

Writing is one of the most complex communication processes. It’s easy to express yourself verbally because people can see your body language and gestures but it’s another thing entirely express yourself in written form using careful word choice and organization in order for the reader to comprehend. It requires the students to understand thinking in abstract terms, synthesize information coherently, and their ability and skill to apply other abstract skills. Writing truly complements to reading, if it allows the students to clarify and think critically about what they encounter in reading, and because of this it should be included in all content areas Writing is a process. It’s a process that includes: drafts, grammar, spelling, revisions, formatting, etc.  In writing especially I think rubric are important because they allow for students to write for a purpose and know exactly what is expected of them for each assignment.

I think computers and technology can not only keep the students engaged and spark their interest but, they can be a very helpful tool in the writing process. With computers and technology students are able to write drafts quickly, revise them easily, and save anything they have written. It also makes things easier for the teacher because they are better able to look at students drafts early to see if they are going in the right direction with the assignment as opposed to paper and pencil drafts.

Writing fits right into every stage of the P.A.R. Lesson Framework and this chapter has some really good writing strategies for each stage of PAR. Some strategies to use in the Preparation phase are Cubing and Brain writing. Those in the Assistance phase include: Learning logs and poetry/bio poem. Those in the Reflection phase include: Guided reading procedure and GIST strategy.

Writing and reading go hand in hand with each other and depend on each other. They are both just as important. Reading to learn is just as important as writing to learn. The author says in trying to explain writing to learn, it is a “catalyst for further learning and meaning making” (214). It is a complex process that you can discover a lot about the world around us and the same for our students. The book states “When writing is viewed as way of discovering rather than as merely an avenue for testing knowledge, learning is the result” (214). As a future teacher I want my students to investigate, explore, and discover all they can about themselves and the world around them through reading and writing.

Overall this was a great chapter and I learned a lot of different strategies that into every stage of the P.A.R. Lesson Framework that I could definitely use in my future classroom. I also learned a lot about how complex writing can be and as a future teacher I want my students to become great writers and develop the desire writing just as much reading. I want them to see the impact that writing has on their daily lives and the world around them and in all the different content areas. One of my favorite quotes from the book sums it up best “Writing is a skill, an art, and a tool that can be effectively used for learning in all content areas” (251).

Practice Quiz 9 Questions

Questions

1) True or False: Previewing activates schema, establishes purposes for reading, engages students in asking questions about text headings, and directs them to important information.

2) Which of the these study strategies would you use in the assistance phase?

A. Previewing

B.Interpreting Graphic Aids

C. Mnemonics

D. Songs and Raps

Learning Blog 6

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from Chapter 6 in our book, Reading to Learn in the Content Areas, and how the authors discussed incorporating other types of resources into the classroom instead of or in addition to the traditional textbooks used in schools now. I was really excited that the authors saw this as an important topic to be included in this book, which is mainly geared toward future teachers, because I feel strongly that as future teachers we need to diversify our resources in the classroom and incorporate diverse text forms as much as possible. The chapter discussed different multi-modal methods that can be used in the classrooms today. It showed the reader the importance of the use of technology in their classrooms to challenge students to become educated citizens in the 21^st century. The learning blogs we do for this class is a great example of this. As students we are engaged in the realm of technology that will give us as future teachers, a knowledge of and desire to integrate it into our curriculum as much as possible to help our future students succeed in the 21st century.

I liked how the chapter talks about why textbooks cannot stand alone. All textbooks have limitations. The strength of a textbook can provide one source of great information and over viewing of information of topics, but the inability to provide the depth of information on a topic or concept that is truly needed in terms of reading comprehension.  It is hard to draw a line when it comes to textbooks because educators say they do not go in depth enough, but complain that they can sometimes be too long or too difficult for the students to use.  If used as an overview source and supplemented with quality outside sources textbooks can be a great asset. A great way to supplement text books is through the use of trade books, or books that are considered to be in general use that the students can get from a library or book store.  They are useful when students are starting to write research papers, or reading stories on certain topics and subjects, because textbooks only give an overview of different topics.

I really liked the Literature circles strategy mentioned in the chapter. The literature circles are highly interactive, which I think is one of the best ways for students to learn, and are appropriate for a wide range of topics and concepts. As a future teacher I could definitely see myself using this in my future classroom along with some of the other strategies mentioned in the chapter.

Overall I liked this chapter because it was a very student-centered chapter. It encouraged me as future teacher to step outside my comfort zone the same as I would ask my students to as they read, spend time looking into the textbooks and clarify any problems that my student are having with any part of it, and encourage my students to be critical learners of what and how they read no matter what the content area was. It also has made me more aware of the importance of going beyond the textbook and traditional instruction models in the classroom and made me aware of how textbooks can no longer stand alone and need to be supplemented with additional resources and text.

Stop at Incidental Vocabulary 170-176

“A strong vocabulary equips students to actively participate in society as educated citizens and informed consumers” (169).
  
“Word knowledge is not static, but rather dynamic—changing and growing over time as a learner experiences, hears, and reads a word in a variety of places and circumstances” (170).

Content-specific vocabulary relates to terms that are critical, yet specific, to a particular discipline or unit of study.

Academic vocabulary encompasses a set of terms often found among expository texts and formal presentations or speeches but which is not unique to any con ten or academic discipline.
 

The 5 Facets of Word Knowledge

Incrementality: levels of word knowledge develop over time
Polysemy: multiple meanings associated with a word
Multidimentionality: many different types of knowledge to be learned abut a word
Interrelatedness: connections are made between or among words
Heterogeneity: word type, purpose, and prior knowledge influence word knowledge required
7 Tasks and Considerations

Learning a basic oral vocabulary
Learning to read known words
Learning new words representing known concepts
Learning new words representing new concepts
Learning new meanings for known words
Clarifying and enriching the meanings of known words
Moving words into students' expressive vocabularies

Preventing Vocabulary and School Failure
Teaching vocabulary through rote exercises that require dictionary definitions of extensive numbers of technical and specialized terms is a recipe for failure. True knowledge is applied knowledge. Unlike the "definition only" method of learning vocabulary, the teacher should start with concrete experiences in order to instill concepts and words. Full-concept learning of vocabulary, according to Simpson, requires for mental operations:

recognizing and generating critical attributes - both examples and non examples- of  a concept.

seeing relationships between the concept to be learned and what is already known

applying the concept to a variety of contexts

Incidental vocabulary development occurs through conversation, word play, exposure to spoken words from a variety of sources, and reading.

Learning Blog 5

I really enjoyed Chapter 5 of our book, Reading to Learn in the Content Areas, about teaching vocabulary. I definitely think it is important to know how vocabulary impacts all subject areas. Each subject will have its own vocabulary and key concepts that student should know, not just for reading and writing. One of my favorite quotes from the book was “a strong vocabulary equips students to actively participate in society as educated citizens and informed consumers” (169). Which made me realize how important knowing and understand vocabulary truly impacts comprehension and can impact how the students interact with the world around them. Understanding vocabulary is very essential to reading comprehension. As teachers, we cannot assume that the students always understand the material they are reading.  If they do not know the meanings of the key vocabulary and concepts in a passage, they will have difficulty understanding the passage.

The text talks about the two different types of vocabulary, Content-specific vocabulary and academic vocabulary. Content specific vocabulary relates to the critical terms in a specific content area. While academic vocabulary is a set of terms often found among many expository texts and speeches but are not unique to any specific content area or academic discipline.  When I think of academic vocabulary, I think of words that students see frequently but might not know their meaning.  As a teacher I definitely think both types are very important for our student to develop good reading comprehension skills and help them be able to comprehend a very wide range of different texts.

Word knowledge in terms of vocabulary can be confusing for students. The example in the book of “John took a plane” (170), is a great example of how it could be confusing because it could have many different meanings depending on how the student interprets the sentence, so for the students knowing how to recognize a word and actually know what the word means takes practice that comes with being taught effective comprehension skills, and being able to apply them no matter what text they are reading. One of the quotes from the book that really hit me was “Word knowledge is not static, but rather dynamic—changing and growing over time as a learner experiences, hears, and reads a word in a variety of places and circumstances” (170). I want my future classroom to be a text-rich environment, in which my students will receive direct instruction as well as multiple exposures to many different forms of text.

This chapter does a great job of presenting many different effective strategies for teaching vocabulary in each phase of the PAR Lesson Framework that I can use in my future classroom such as context clue discovery, word inventories, the Toast strategy and the Dissect strategy. As a future elementary school teacher I really liked the Toast and the Dissect strategies because I think they will be a great tool for younger readers to understand vocabulary. Overall I definitely think learning vocabulary is very critical to developing and improving reading comprehension and understanding for the students across all content areas. But without a solid foundation and purpose there is little chance of meaningful instruction taking place. I think the books says it best “Just as  house needs a strong foundation, so reading comprehension depends on a strong base of oral language and concept development” (171). By giving students that base in the prep stage and clarifying in the assistance phase and deriving more meaning in the reflection stage, they are building skills they are necessary across all content areas and will help them develop more in depth understanding from what they read.