Stages of reading and writing

I found this chapter in Tompkins to be extremely beneficial for several different reasons. I really liked how we finally got to read something dedicated to the lower elementary grades. I feel as though many of our readings and activities this semester have been focused towards upper elementary and being in a kindergarten class this year has made that a little frustrating.

The portion of Tompkins that I found to be one of the most beneficial was the chart entitled, "Instructional Recommendations for the Three Stages of reading and writing" (p. 97). I see many of these approaches being used in my classroom and the benefits from using them.
Reading Recommendations:
In kindergarten I have seen a lot of the reading strategies used for the emergent stage. My CT uses most of those listed on Tompkins chart but a few that I have seen her use more frequently are encouraging students to make predictions, having students respond to literature through talk and drawing, and teaching high frequency words.

My CT uses prediction a lot during literacy lessons. Usually the class will be seated at the carpet reading a class story and my CT will ask a few different students for their predictions on what the story might be about or how it might end. Because this is used so frequently in my classroom I decided to use it during my lesson as well. I was reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and I asked students to predict whether they thought the main character would end up trying the green eggs and ham. I paused briefly during the story to ask for the predictions.

Recently, my CT talked with the class about past, present, and future and read a story about what it used to be like in schools 150 years ago. The students were then asked to draw a picture and write a couple sentences about what they think schools will be like 150 years from now. I found that the students really enjoyed doing this and were excited to share out their ideas with myself and my CT.

Another thing that we have been focusing on is star words (high frequency words). These words are posted throughout the classroom and several weeks ago I was able to administer assessments to some of class to see how many star words they were able to identify.

Writing Recommendations:
In my kindergarten class morning message is part of their everyday routine. I have been fortunate enough to lead morning message a few different times and the students have seemed to gain a lot from it. The students read the message while I point to the words and there are sometimes questions they have to answer or missing letters that I ask them to fill in. I think that they benefit from this in a variety of ways. First, it requires the students to read something everyday. It also allows the students to be a part of a routine.