Literacy Update: Moving from Assessment to Instruction

Jill is a motivated learner and is engaged through mystery, adventure and fantasy.  She enjoys writing and learning about new things; I have had a great time working with her.  Jill has taught me a lot about how to facilitate the literacy growth of young budding writers and readers.

As I have mentioned before, Jill has expressed to me that she considers herself to be a “slow reader and writer,” she has also mentioned to me that sometimes while reading she “gets lost” in the words.  I am not sure what it means when she says that she gets lost in the words, but I can summarize that because she sometimes gets lost, she reads slower to make sure that she catches all the words. 

Interestingly enough, after I gave Jill the grade four reading fluency test, according to the Hasbrouck and Tindal Oral Reading Fluency Data,  her performance in fluency (and speed) was right where it should be for the fourth grade winter months; she had a score of 114 WCPM.  The reading that I had Jill recite was a narrative about Amelia Earhart.  My goal from her reading this narrative was to see what her reading fluency was and also to see where her level of comprehension was.  Though her fluency was age appropriate, her comprehension according to the retelling questions I asked of her that were either implicit or explicit, told me that she was in the frustration level of comprehension.   Because fluency can be a predictor of comprehension, and her fluency rate was fine, I would like to see Jill read another four grade story, so I can retest her fluency in contrast to her comprehension.    

Since I have begun working with Jill, I have collected a few pieces of information into her reading and writing abilities.  I know that in relation spelling, Jill would benefit from working on digraphs and blends, long vowel patterns, and other vowel patterns.  As a result Jill would fall into the writing stage of Transitional and the spelling stage of Within Word Patterns.  As a result, being in the transitional stage of writing, and based on these predictors, I believe Jill is approaching fluency in reading and writing and she would benefit from work on her spelling, specifically long vowels with the aim that through knowing the correct spelling of words, the correct pronunciation of these words will also occur. 

Therefore, I would like to encourage Jill to read books a little lower than her tested ability, to help increase her fluency as well as her comprehension. 

Writing Analysis Update

First I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful as well as helpful comments.   I have spent a lot of time thinking about the questions that were brought about regarding my choice of lesson plan, and based on the rough draft that I had of Jill’s work, I felt that paragraphs and run-on sentences were a real issue in her writing.

The interesting thing about this student was that her final draft was actually edited and typed by her teacher, which I found surprising.  I had my buddy read out loud her final draft to me, while I followed along on her first draft and I had a hard time following because the final draft was so different.  Initially, I was not aware that her teacher had typed her final draft, but when Jill was reading the last paragraph she fumbled with the words because the teacher had used the wrong name in the story.   At this point I realized that my buddy had not even read her final draft, in addition to not having the opportunity to create a final draft.  Jill told me it was because she was a slow writer and that it would have taken her too long to publish. 

Therefore when analyzing my buddies work, I felt that her writing could use some help regarding editing, and focusing ideas.   This made me think about paragraphs, but I feel that I could even go further and begin with sentence structure like Tess mentioned.   But my goal is that through working on creating a strong paragraph my student will also practice sentence structure.  Jill is very sharp and can comprehend really well, even though her reading and writing skills are fairly low, therefore I am thinking that working on paragraphing, sentence structure will also be gained through this activity. 

As for spelling, I really struggled with whether or not I should focus my lesson plan there, but I decided that both spelling and paragraphing were places that she needs help with, and I was more inclined to work with paragraphs than spelling.  I based this decision on what my buddy told me about the words she misspells or misreads, she is not familiar with those words, and they are not in her vocabulary. 

I have decided to maintain my original lesson plan, but I hope emphasize the concept of sentence structure into the lesson as well. 

Analysis of Student Writing and Lesson Plan

Analysis of Student Writing and Lesson Plan

Part 1: Analysis

This analysis is based on one piece of writing from my 4^th grade buddy (which I will give the pseudo name Jill) , one 25 word spelling inventory, and an informal reading conference. 

Meaning:

                The piece of writing that my 4^th grade buddy shared with me is a short story called “Blabbing Max.”  The story is fictional, but based off of real events in her life.  The idea for this story was prompted by the teacher whom introduced several optional ideas to write about; Jill chose the writing prompt, “When Pets Can Talk.”  Within Jill’s story, Max is the main character and also her pet; Max loves to eat.  One morning Max wakes up talking, but only to Jill.  Max tells Jill he is hungry and excited to eat breakfast.  The plot thickens when Max decides to take a nap to waste time until Jill’s mom gets home, but ends up sleeping through the night.  When Max wakes up, it is morning and he is hungry and no longer can talk.  This story is a fun and lovable interpretation of what Jill’s dog experiences throughout the day. 

                Within Jill’s writing is it obvious that Max is a well loved family member.  There is a deep connection between Max and the author; the interactions that take place in her story reinforce what Jill told me about her relationship with her dog, that Max is her best friend. 

The 6 Traits of Writing:

Ideas: 

When looking at Jill’s ideas within her writing, everything seems as important as everything else; I had a hard time sifting out what was important.  In addition support was attempted, but Jill didn’t go far enough in describing the key issues.  Here is an example of this:

Ex: Instead of chasing for the blue jay he stared rolling in the flowers and finally he went to the bathroom.  He went in the flufy flower and the bushy bushes when was done he pranced on the window and put his mudy paws on the window because he steped in a mud pudel.   

Organization:

In terms of organization, Jill had a hard time making connections between ideas.  Therefore the sequencing of her story shows some logic, but not under control enough that it consistently supports the development of ideas.  Here is an example that supports this:

Ex: When Max whent to bed he woke up to eat agin. I stared to star at him. I was hoping he would not see me. But just then he turned around and he cout me looking at him quckly.  Max went to his bed and dragged it to me . 

Voice:

Jill has written a story with a sense of purpose, but needs to work on selecting content and structures that reflect it. Here is an example of her voice:

Ex: I feel on the flor.  Max pranced and yelled in my ear, saying “Get up lazy head.” I said ok Scardly. I thought this was a dream. So I pinched my self and I said that hurt really bad.

Word Choice:

Within Jill’s story, she typically used familiar words and phrases to write her story. At times word choice appears to have developed from the first thing that popped into her head.  Here is an example of word choice used in Jill’s story.

Ex: He was done before you’d know it he ran out of breth he was thirsty and he was really really tyerd so he got a drink of water.

Sentence Fluency:

Jill’s phrasing of sentences does not sound natural; she needs to work on run-on sentences and the word choice in which she begins her sentences; many of the sentences in Jill’s story beings the same way, with an “I” or an “after.”

Conventions:

Jill’s story contains spelling that is usually correct or reasonably phonetic on common words, but more difficult words are problematic.  Her story also contains missing paragraphing as a result it becomes difficult to follow the structure of the text. Here is an example of commonly misspelled words:

Ex:  screming, racoona, agin, quckly, flor, feelt, and feel (instead of fell).

Ownership of writing:

After speaking to Jill about her writing, I know that she enjoyed writing about her dog Max. When I asked her about how she felt about her writing she responded that she “is a slow writer.”  I told her that speed does not matter and I pointed out to her the amount of pages she had written in her short story; she had written 6 whole pages!  She started to smile and told me that when she took her story home to finish, she worked on it for a long time, she only stopped when her wrist began to hurt from holding the pencil.  I have yet to get a good understanding of how Jill feels about herself as a writer, but I fear that because she thinks that she is slow at writing her confidence as a writer might be affected negatively.

Spelling:

During my first meeting with Jill, I administered a spelling inventory.  The inventory contained 25 words beginning with sight words and moved up to more challenging words; the score that Jill received was 11/24.   Jill seemed nervous when I told her we were going to take a spelling test, but I explained to her the purpose and she seemed to relax a little.  After analyzing the words misspelled, Jill would benefit from working on digraphs and blends, long vowel patterns, and other vowel patterns.  As a result Jill would fall into the writing stage of Transitional and the spelling stage of Within Word Patterns.  Being in the transitional stage of writing, Jill is approaching fluency in reading and writing and she would benefit from work on her spelling, specifically long vowels with the aim that through knowing the correct spelling of words, the correct pronunciation of these words will also occur. 

Lesson Plan: Writing a Paragraph

Objective:

Student will be able to define a paragraph including the proper parts and structure.

Student will be able to write a paragraph that includes a main idea and topic. 

Standards:

EALR: 3. The student writes clearly and effectively.

Component 3.1 Develops ideas and organizes writing.

3.1.2 Organizes writing using a logical organizational structure.

Materials:

Pencil

Paper

Paper with paragraph definition and paragraph rules.

Instructional strategies:

-Begin by talking about what a paragraph is; asking what is a paragraph? and what pieces of information need to be in a paragraph?

-Introduce the definition of a paragraph: A paragraph is a group of sentences that tell one idea. Then I will introduce a sheet that contains the rules of the paragraph, we will talk about each rule and what it means.

-Paragraph rules are as follows:

·         Indent the first word in a paragraph (start the first word of the paragraph a little to the right of the left-hand margin.

·         Start a paragraph with a topic sentence, which states the main idea of that paragraph.

·         Any time you begin writing about a new idea, begin a new paragraph.

·         Paragraphs answer questions about a certain topic

-I will introduce an example paragraph and talk about how it follows the four rules of a paragraph.

Example Paragraph:

 (indent) → Skiing is a sport enjoyed by many people. One kind of skiing is called downhill skiing. Skiers ride up a ski mountain on a chairlift or gondola. Then they ski down the mountain on ski runs and start over again on a chairlift.

(new idea) → Another type of skiing is called cross-country skiing. Skiers begin skiing on flat ground and continue gliding their skis through the backcountry. They don't need a chairlift to take them up a mountain. They stay on a trail or make their own trail in the snow.

I will work with the student to write a paragraph describing their favorite animal. She will use 3-5 sentences in her paragraph. I will emphasize the importance of making sure the sentences stay on the subject of their topic sentence.

Assessment: 

Teacher will assess whether the student was able to define a paragraph including the proper parts and structure by checking her 3-5 sentence paragraph looking for a paragraph that includes a main idea and topic and follows the four paragraph rules. 

Fostering great literacy in the classroom

I have been very fortunate this quarter to get the opportunity to observe and work in an amazing English classroom.  Unlike any other classroom I have experienced, the walls are lined with student art work and popular bumper stickers such as Kill Your Television, and a particularly large banner stating Skateboarding is Not a Crime.  The classroom embraces all who enter it and turns no one away.  Here I have been able to experience some phenomenal teaching as well as learning.  These students become facilitators of their own learning, with the teacher simply guiding them.

I have obtained many helpful tips when it comes to teaching literacy at the higher grade levels, here are some of the more helpful:

1. It is incredibly important for students to learn how to interpret and understand meaning within their text.  A method for teaching students how to successfully interpret their text is by encouraging them to make notations in their books (or on sticky notes) while they are reading; students read and mark for evidence, meaning their notations should back up their understandings.

2.  Creating a Writing Comments to Remember paper.  This paper consists of three categories, punctuation, spelling, and writing techniques.  Here students are required to record notes made by the teacher regarding their writing in hopes that the same mistakes won’t be made twice. For example, if the student has made an error through the use of comas, the student would record that error under writing techniques.  Here the student would reference this paper every time a new writing piece was due, to ensure that their errors were not repeated.  I love this idea; students are held accountable for their own work and learn to edit their own writing. 

3.  Another idea that I love is the idea of “Hawk Eyes.”  This is what I would call small writing groups or peer editing.  Here are the expectations:

Purpose:

Have fun sharing

Proofread

Constructive feedback

Process:

Positive comments

            Velcro words

            Specific plot and description

Questions or suggestions

Share comments orally

            Positive first

            Then questions (clarification)

Afterwards:

Staple peer comments to paper

            Put in notebook

Exit ticket:

Tell teacher one thing that worked

Tell teacher one thing that needs to be changed or worked on

These are just a few of the many amazing ideas that I have had the opportunity to experience.   

What about Phonics

          According to Barbra Fox, author of the 4^th edition, Word Identification Strategies: Building Phonics into a Classroom Reading Program, people whom read and learn to read must know phonics in order to understand that letters represent individual sounds.  Fox believes that words are a combination of patterns and interpretations in addition to the idea that letters and sounds form a relationship, along with onsets and rimes.  In chapter four, Fox discusses the importance of children learning how to identify onsets and rimes in words which can help children to “sidestep the need to learn exceptions to the conventional way letters represent sounds in the English words” (Fox, pp. 94).  In other words when children learn how to say a family of onsets and rimes they can apply that knowledge to other words that they do not know to help give them clues about how to read the new word. 

          I mentioned in an earlier post, that I did not grow up learning phonics, but as an emergent teacher and mother of a developing reader, phonics helps support readers of all levels.  As a beginner to the many aspects of teaching, I am finding a lot of comfort in books like Fox’s.  I look forward to the many experiences that I will encounter as a new teacher and all the things that I expect my students will teach me, yet getting the opportunity to read books that explain in detail how to best serve a specific child’s need is incredibly helpful. 

         

Learning to write

As children we were taught the proper formation of letters of the alphabet, lower and upper case, and in most instances we were taught cursive.  We were taught proper syntactic and semantics of writing along with the various formats of essay writing, but what for?  As I have grown older and experienced the required practice of assignment writing, it was not until I began to write without a purpose, or for an assignment, that I understood the individual satisfaction of writing.  It is not to say that I do not appreciate the rigor of practicing format and structure, but was content, creativity and descriptive writing forgotten?  Maybe not, but for me as a child, those things definitely took back seat to being grammatically correct. As I have begun the process to teach others about writing, I have begun to think about writing differently.  Does being a writer mean being a booklover?  Does reading correlate to being a better writer?  I am not sure of the answer to these questions, but from what I am learning, it definitely does not hurt to be a person who reads, when it comes to writing. 

I have begun reading the book titled Bird by Bird, written by Anne Lamott, a realistic and funny guide to the challenges that writing can bring; the title comes from the idea that writing comes in steps, processes and ideas.  Lamott describes her struggle with choosing writing as her career path, but she finds value in teaching others about the truth of writing.  As Lamott describes, “good writing is about telling the truth….(yet) telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat” (pp.3).  From reading parts of her book, I understand that teaching others to love writing can be challenging, because writing is challenging.  Most people want to be good at new things immediately, but most of us are not; we need practice, and more practice and most importantly we need connection to what we are writing. 

I am currently working with a young reader and writer, whom is just at the beginning stages of the writing process.  According to Barbara Fox, and her book ,“Word Identification Strategies, he is in the stage of partial alphabetic, meaning he is just beginning to understand the alphabetic principle  (Fox p.18).  As I have begun to work with him, I quickly learned that his favorite thing in the world is SpongeBob.    I have decided to use this knowledge to help gain his attention, by incorporating SpongeBob literature and books into our interactions.  Through his own personal interest in SpongeBob I hope to gain his curiosity in learning more about reading and writing.  My goal as a teacher is to help motivate and facilitate honest, creative ideas while maintaining the principle that we all make mistakes and we just need to use those mistakes to help us learn.   

Week 2

As a child, I learned to read typically, meaning that I do not remember struggling with reading or having any negative memories associated with learning to read.   I also do not remember the method or methods that I was taught to read, phonics maybe, but I cannot be sure.  After reading “Word Identification Strategies,” by Barbra Fox, I was surprised by the amount of phonemic strategies used to help all types of learners at any level to read. 

What I have learned is that to teach someone to read requires very specific intentions, what I mean by this is that the strategies teachers use to facilitate a reader will be specific to their reading needs; there are a lot of ways to read and there are a lot of ways to teach kids to read.  According to Fox, it is important to use phonics and teach phonic awareness to young readers.  Phonics is helpful to young readers because it connects what the students already know, spoken language, and connects it to identifying written words that they do not recognize. 

As a teacher, it is so important to understand the stages associated with learning to read, with this knowledge comes the ability to apply different strategies to best help the stage the specific learner is at.  The quicker a reader can learn word identification strategies, the quicker they can develop their comprehension skills. 

Week One, Post One

What does being literate in our country mean?


When I heard this question, the first thing that popped into my head was power; being literate in our country means to be at an advantage. To better understand why I feel this way, I cannot help but think about the feelings I have had in foreign countries where I was unable to make sense of texts that surrounded me; I felt nervous, insecure, and vulnerable, I was dependent on those around me to make sense of what I could not. These feelings were unknown to me and scary, being able to read is vital. I cannot help but wonder if those people in our country who are unable to read English feel this same way; whether they are young children learning or people who are learning English as a second language.

As a member of a culture that values literacy, I learned how to read pretty young. I developed typically for my age, learning in a series of steps; although I do not remember frustration, I am sure I felt it. As a soon to be educator, I am beginning to experience the challenges that exist for those learning to read. I am confident that this quarter I will learn a lot about the process of reading and strategies to help best accommodate all types of learners.

Part 2

Read-aloud books have always been an important part of my life. I have many fond memories of being read to, both at home and in the classroom. As I continue my journey into teaching, I value my many life experiences with read-alouds and believe that I will continue this form of education in my own classroom some day; but being new in the world of education, I have grappled with the challenges of wanting to teach a really awesome lesson, or book, but lacking academic substance that integrates into the curriculum. As I become savvier with my teaching, I understand that really great ideas can be modified to include standards and read-aloud storybooks can contain curriculum.

I just finished reading the article titled “Brining the Ice Maiden to life: Engaging adolescents in learning through picture book read-alouds in content areas,” this article states that it is possible to stimulate a higher level of thinking through the use of read-aloud books, while covering curriculum. As I aim to teach middle level humanities, I am fascinated by the option of using picture books as a means of supplementing content areas and stimulating a higher level of learning. Stated in the article, the author suggests approaching read-alouds with a three step process: step 1 planning, step 2 preparing, and step 3 producing. Through the combination of these three steps students engage, discuss, and become acquainted with a story’s place and time. Through choosing an appropriate book, teachers are able to facilitate learning through a story book, instead of through a regular style of instruction.

As I learn more throughout our program, I become more and more excited upon learning about the different ways to engage my students.