Having focused on the concept of fluency to a fairly great extent in TE301 I thought that I knew quite a bit about what fluency was and how to promote it within the classroom setting, however, after reading this chapter I realized that we really only scratched the surface. I found this chapter to be very helpful in regards to providing examples of how to promote reading fluency in the classroom and additionally will attempt to modify some of the ideas/minilessons mentioned in the text in order to promote some of the students' fluency during my time in my corresponding classroom.
Reading chapter five of Tompkins really helped me to realize how many little things my CT does in her classroom with the intention of promoting reading fluency. Nearly each one of the sections within the chapter I have seen within my corresponding classroom in one way or another. I was very impressed by how many tasks my CT includes each day that truly are promoting fluency and surprised that I did not catch this fluency promotion on my own prior to reading this chapter.
One thing that caught my attention in this chapter was the heavy focus on the use of word walls within the classroom. This is something that I have seen present in my corresponding classroom since the beginning of the school year; however, I do not think that I have ever seen my CT work with the word wall in the classroom. I am sure that she does engage the students in minilessons throughout the year that focus on the word wall and its importance as well as usefulness, but I am somewhat surprised that I have not first handedly observed any such lesson. I have however seen the students refer to the word wall when writing on their own and have noticed the growth of the word wall over the course of the year. The chart on page 159 is very, very similar to the word wall that is present within my corresponding classroom (perhaps my CT has this exact text!). When I return to the classroom I am definitely going to pay attention in hopes of seeing the Cunningham-suggested procedure for practicing the words on the word wall being exemplified in the classroom.
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I definitely agree with Nick on the fact that this chapter really delved into the concept of fluency compared to all of our conversations/projects in TE301. I think that word walls are extremely important in the classroom and although my CT does have the "star words" posted, I think that she could use them and point them out more to the students. I know when a student asks me how to spell something, I immediately glance to the word wall to see if it or some form of it is up there. One thing that my CT does do a lot is remind students what else is around the classroom when they are doing their writing. For instance, my CT had a prompt posted on the overhead. When students asked her how to spell something that was related to the prompt, she would remind them that those words were up on the overhead.
ReplyDeleteI also came across this during my literacy lesson. I had my example up on the overhead of something I would never eat (after reading Green Eggs and Ham). One student asked me how to spell onions. I glanced up at the overhead and told him that I would never eat Liver and Onions...then he realized that he would be able to spell it from my own spelling of it on the overhead.