Word Recognition

Reading is a complex problem-solving process in which readers actively pursue meaning 

- (Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2001)

     As I was reading through What Can I Say Besides "Sound it Out"? Coaching Word Recognition in Beginning Reading by Kathleen F. Clark, I found some great 'coaching' methods to incorporate into teaching. Here are a list of coaching cues that I found helpful from reading this article:

1. General Cues: Prompting readers to use their knowledge of word recognition strategies and think about how to apply them to this task

          Ex: How am I going to figure this out?, What can I do?

2. Specific Cues: Prompting specific action to provide readers with more detailed information about the word-recognition task. Focusing on: graphophonic knowledge, word-part identification strategies, and contextual supports. 

          Graphophonic Knowledge Ex: Direct them to consider individual letters and sounds- It's a hard c., The y is acting like an i., What does str- say?, Remember, ph- can make an f sound.

          Word-Part Identification Ex: Take off the (-es, -ed, -ing)., Is there a little word in here? It's a compound word; the first word is..., Is there a chunk you know?

          Contextual Supports Ex: Focus attention on inappropriateness of a word- You said waking [walking] the dog., Use pictures and words., Let's read to the end and see what makes sense.

< This sight word pounding strategy is great for recognizing words. The kids are able to participate in something fun while engaging in word recognition!

This activity I found on Pinterest belonged to a mother of two kids. She writes a set of word cards and her and her child review them daily, once he starts to read the cards fluently without hesitation they are reviewed every other day and are moved to the "even days" or "odd days" tab and new word cards are moved into the "daily" tab. Then the "even days" and "odd days" cards are moved to a day of the week tab, and then to a month tab while the other cards are moved back as well and new daily cards are added (and so on). This is a great way to help students learn words and become better readers! 

Engaged Learners and Reading

     Children need to be active and engaged in their learning process. This is most important when children are learning how to read. In the articles I read for this week's class this was the common theme that I recognized.

     Reading aloud to children is one of the most important activities that you can do to help a child learn to read. There are several aspects of reading that young children learn through the process of learning how to read. One of those aspects is phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the awareness that spoken language consists of a sequence of phonemes. There are several ways to help children to learn phonemic awareness. The article, "Supporting Phonemic Awareness Development in the Classroom by Yopp & Yopp states that, "...songs, chants, and word-song games are ideally suited toward developing young children's sensitivity to the sound structure of language"(3).

   


     Dr. Seuss rhymes are also highly recommend to teach kids phonemic awareness for his use of rhyming words, as well as his use of made up words! Dr. Seuss as well as other rhymes also help develop children's linguistic awareness.

   




     Learning the alphabet, and understanding the relationship between letters and sounds is very important to learning how to read as well. This "feed the alphabet monster" is a great activity for kids to practice recognizing letters and producing their sounds.

     Using something like this in the classroom is great for children! Kids love to recognize their names and use it as an example. This is a great way for students to see letters of the alphabet in their name, and their classmate's names. Such a great idea when learning the alphabet and learning how to read!

Something to Consider:

• Why is it so important for children to be read to in order to be successful in reading?

Background in Reading

     How cool is it that each student in a classroom comes from a different background? They all grew up differently with different parents, homes, siblings, rules, etc. This diversity brings fun to the classroom, but it also poses a challenge to the teacher. 

"Young children want to do everything that grown-ups can do...and if they grow up in homes where the grown-ups reading and write, they pretend they can read and write. As they engage in these early literacy behaviors, they learn important concepts" (Cunningham P.M., & Allington, R.L. (2010).)

     Kids come into the classroom with a big range background knowledge in literacy. Parents dictate the beginning of their child's knowledge in literacy. If the parents are consistently reading with their kids, and displaying their own feelings of importance of reading and writing (such as reading or writing themselves) then the probability of their child achieving in these early stages is high. If the parents are not involved in the child's literacy and don't seem to display importance for reading or writing, then the probability of their child achieving in the early stages is low.

Something to consider:

• How can teachers begin to teach students how to read if they are all on different levels? 

• How was the foundation for your own literacy affected by your background?

   

     Reading through chapter three I found many great ways to build the on foundation of reading. I came across "teaching letter names and sounds." Letter names and sounds are incredibly important to the foundation of reading! Without learning these, you would not be able to read! I found this activity on Pinterest and I think it is great for students learning letter sounds. This activity allows students to think and use prior knowledge by recalling the picture. It also is interactive- allowing students to cut and glue the pictures! I think that this activity incorporates several important factors to learning and that it is a fun way to learn letters and their sounds!

Read, Read, Read

     The main idea across chapter 1 and 2 in "Classrooms that Work" and the article, "What I've Learned About Effecting Reading Instruction" by Richard L. Allington has persuaded to be confident in the fact that children need to read as much as possible in order to improve their reading. Allington's article gave "six T's" of effective elementary literacy instruction that stuck out to me:

1. Time

2. Texts

3. Teaching

4. Talk

5. Tasks

6. Testing

     While describing each "T" Allington provided much information about the difference between an exemplary teacher and just a teacher for each "T". I put together a list to summarize his points that I have found extremely helpful.

Exemplary Teachers

-Maintained a "reading and writing versus stuff" ratio that was adequately balanced
-Supplying a rich supply of books that students can actually read (appropriate complexity)
- Showed explicit models of the cognitive strategies that good readers use to read ("watch me" "let me show you")
-Encouraged and modeled much talk through the school day (purposeful talk in a conversational tone)
-Use of longer assignments over the course of a few days, rather than multiple short tasks to fill the day
-Evaluation of student work based more on effort and improvement than just achievement.


     Another main idea I have come across that has really interested me is the fact that teachers may have a lesson plan, but just going by that plan is not sufficient enough. Making students fill out a worksheet, or asking interrogative questions looking for a right answer are not good ways to assess or further student's knowledge. Teachers cannot just give multiple assignments and grade them based off of those assignments. Teachers are consistently working hard, re-planning, facilitating discussion, evaluating student's skill levels to help them learn in a way that will resonate with them individually, and so much more. Student choice, or managed choice is a huge part of engaging students. There are so many helpful and interesting things and ideas that these sources provide when describing what these exemplary teachers are doing in their classrooms.

     I came across this "Daily 5 Station Ideas" while I was on Pinterest. This seems to me like such an awesome idea when integrating reading into basically everything that students are doing. Each box gives great ideas on how to incorporate that type of reading into the classroom, or even at home. It is crazy to know how much reading effects your education- and with these ideas you can incorporate reading into your lesson planning all day long, all week long, etc.!