It's funny that, in Rachel's post (below), she received this chapter's focus on early elementary grades enthusiastically. I'm genuinely happy for her, since she should get to dig into some material that readily applies to what she cares about most. For me, however, to be quite honest, this reading had the opposite effect. I want to teach at the middle school level; the education of brand-new readers and writers, then, is less concerning for me.
Nevertheless, I found two big ideas that apply to my placement and my development as a future teacher. Here they are:
1. Rereading is encouraged. The first few pages of this chapter repeatedly tell of Ms. McCloskey reading a book to her children multiple times. The obvious assumption here is that rereading is more than okay - it's a good idea! In the time I've spent with three different CTs at various grade levels, I have only seen one of them reread a story to her class - yet it seemed as though weeks had elapsed between these readings. Rather than something to be avoided or used only to refamiliarize, the teacher described in the text seems to use rereading intentionally to help students understand the story better. After reading a story to her students, she let them retell it, using what they remember and the illustrations as aides, so that ELLs can experience the story orally and in the students' own words (pp. 78-9). She then rereads it a third and fourth time, digging deeper into plot and thematic elements, and working on word recognition (p. 79).
This is vastly different than what I see in my current CT's classroom. We have yet to revisit a text after she has read it the first time. Although she uses some of the same strategies as Ms. McCloskey, my CT simply cannot do as much in only one read-through - there isn't enough time, let alone student focus, to do more! The upside is that my CT can get through more books this way; the (more significant) downside is that students barely have time to experience and understand the books that she reads. There is little retelling, and even less word recognition. I think my CT could benefit from using more time and more strategies to read and teach each book.
Kids learn to write best when they are interested in the literacy activity. The part (later in the chapter) about alphabetic concepts interested me, since many of my first- and second-graders are still building their knowledge of basic sound-letter relationships. They have the best opportunity to do so when they are doing their own writing, since they are faced with the challenge of putting into letters and words the sounds of the words they say out loud or think in their heads. The presumption in the text is that this happens best when children really like what they are doing. When the students are intrinsically motivated to write, development of alphabetic knowledge happens quite naturally, since they feel the need and the desire to communicate their thoughts through the written word. When they are not interested, then writing becomes a chore, and it's easier for children to miss the important connection between spoken and written words.
In my CT's classroom, children often have the opportunity to write something at the beginning of the day. However, this is so structured that it does not tend to engage the students' interests. Last week, for instance, the children had to write a letter to another student in the classroom. So far, so good. Yet they were told to write the first sentence about the person they were writing to, the second about themselves, and the third having a question for the person they were writing to. Even though the lesson had the potential for engaging the students, its structure made the assignment much like any other writing assignment they have: not about the speech act itself, but about the form of that act. Students end up focusing so much on the form, since this is what the CT looks at as a basis to praise and scold. Thus, they think of writing firstly as following some set of rules and secondly about communicating meaningful thought. Anyone who loves to write, however, knows that good, fun writing is the opposite. This is how non-interesting writing hinders the students' writing development in my class.
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I like how this week, Dave decided to place one of his focuses on how students are more apt to write their best when they are interested in the subject. From reading his example in his classroom (about the three sentence structure) I can see how that would not be engaging for many students.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about my own classroom this year, I feel as though there are definitely times where writing prompts don't allow for full engagement. In fact, when thinking about my own literacy lesson this semester I wonder how engaging the worksheet was. I think overall, they thoroughly enjoyed the lesson but when they had to think of something they would never want to eat (We read Green Eggs and Ham), I feel as though some of the kids simply did it to get it done. On the other hand, last week my CT talked about past, present, and future and had the students draw a picture/ write some sentences about what they thought school would be like 150 years from now. The students really seemed engaged with this writing assignment for a couple of different reasons. First, they were writing/drawing about something they could relate to. They have been in class for almost an entire school year now so they know what routines and procedures occur at their school. Also, the students were able to use their own ideas. One student drew his picture of a school that was underwater with flying fish and flowers. The students all wore scuba gear and there were zoo animals under water as well.
Overall, I agree with Dave and Tompkins, that the more engaging a writing assignment it, the better the students are do with that assignment.
I completely agree with Dave's commentary on keeping students interested in literacy activities that they are engaging in. In our class discussion we additionally touched on this aspect of teaching literacy. Dave mentions, "when they are not interested then writing becomes a chore," which I have observed in my corresponding first grade classroom, as well as through my own experiences. Making writing, and reading, interesting makes such a tremendous difference in the students' development as literate individuals. One example for why students' interests play such a large role in regards to their literacy development, which I have observed in my corresponding classroom, is when students are asked to respond to given prompts. Often, these prompts are very repetitive or provide little opportunity for the students to relate their writing to their own lives and experiences, and as a result the students are uninterested and unmotivated to put their thoughts in writing. Some different ineffective prompts that I have seen in my CT's classroom deal with recycling or how to be good citizens. While these are not necessarily "bad" prompts, they do little to let the students actually express their ideas/feelings/thoughts. In my opinion, and I think Dave would agree, students should be given the opportunity to write about things that interest them, topics that allow them to use their imagination, and topics from which the responses can appear in a variety of different forms.
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