Group Work and Cooperative Learning!

 For teachers group work is both difficult and not. The the hard part of group work  is getting it planned and set up. The roles have to be set up everyone has to have a role and teachers have to make sure students are clear about their roles.  Students need to know that it is expected by the teacher and the rest of the class that each person maintains their role. Once all that is done the learning more or less takes care of itself. Students share their ideas and learn from each other. Sharing ones thoughts and ideas with peers and having the opportunity to discuss new ideas and complicated concepts is one of the best ways to get new concepts worked out and clarify understanding. I know sometimes if I have been given the opportunity to discuss a problem and think it through even if I am only talking the problem out to myself I can make sense of the problem.

 

Moving from assesement to instruction!

I have learned that my buddy really enjoys reading nonfiction books she said she likes to read about real events. This student reads regularly at home and claims to enjoy reading because she like to paint the picture in her head.

My buddy scored a 91 on reading fluency and I was undecided as to whether or not she was in the partial retelling stage. It was a close call and I feel like I would like to do a little more exploring in this area before I make a decision about what stage she is in.

Last week we read the passage Amelia Earhart and I thought this student did an excellent job retelling the story and when I listened to her read I did not feel like she was struggling much. She self corrected a few times and made minor mistakes I feel like this level was in her instructional stage so I would like to read the railroad passage to get a better idea about the abilities of this student as a reader.

IPOD TOUCH do I give you justice?

Unfortuanltely I have not had a lot of time to really get to know my ipod. I have used it in the class room to record interviews and I really love that. However, I have not been successful at transfering these over into the dragon app. The biggest problem I have with using the touch in the classroom is the fact that I only have 1 touch and 24 students.

The student that has been using the math game has improved in her ability to recall her math facts and therefore, she is paricipating in class with a lot more self confidence and does not seem to be as intimidated by the math.

The student that is struggling with word fluency is gaining new words on a weekly basis as she usually stays in with me during recess (her choice) to play various games on the touch. She is a big fan of chictionary and is getting really good at it. I have noticed that she also really enjoys listening to books as she reads along.

I have not had an opportunity to engage my class as a whole with the touch even though I think the story making app would be great fun for the students to use.

I guess my biggest problem with the touch is the fact that I do not have the time to explore all the capabilities this tech tool has to offer. I believe the touch would be a great learning tool to have access to in the class room but if the teacher only has one I am sure it is not going to be enough and I wonder if an ipad might be more beneficial.

Thinking about Math

In my math methods class today we went to a local elementary school and interviewed first and fifth grade students. I found this experience to be very rich and rewarding. My role as an interviewer was not to teach the students math but to find out what they know and think about math and why they know it.

 First I interviewed a first grader. This student had a good concept on math and she had great strategies for solving problems ( I wonder if we should be calling them problems?) She seemed to have most of her addition and subtraction math facts memorized and when I asked her how she knew that she would usually say, "I just know it!" or she would say "I guessed it!" I began to make the problems a little harder and I was a little nervous about doing this on the spot because I felt it was very important for the student to feel successful, yet I still wanted to challenge her, and I did not want to look foolish by making up a problem that was outrageous then saying wait no lets do this one and make up another one. (you know what I mean) so I asked her what 7+6 was she thought about it a moment then she told me it was 13. I knew she had counted up to get this answer.

When I question her about how she knew the answer was 13 I found myself leading her to give me the answer I wanted. I found this to be the most challenging part of the interview process. Learning to wait and giving the student time to answer my questions with out leading them to the answer or figuring it our for them was my weakness. As soon as I did it  said to myself darn you are leading the interview then I would be careful not to do it again and it was not long before, you guessed it, I would feed my student the answer I was looking for again.

I thought this was a valuable part of my learning experience. I did not realize how hard it is to talk to kids about what they know and how they know it. I know that this is something I will  have to be really aware of in the future because I will need to be able to take my time and listen to my students when I am learning form them what they know about something. I cannot be very effective if I say to students so how do you know 6+4=10 pause then say oh did you count up from 6 or did you picture a number line or etc.

I feel like this is a skill i will need for all subjects as well as just getting to know my students. If I ask a question I need to be prepared to wait for the answer or be ok with the idea that I may not get one.

Hooked on Phonics

So we can all probably remember the commercials with the kids saying "Hooked on Phonics worked for me" and maybe the bumper stickers "Hukd on Fonix Wurked Fur Me!" I do and I remember thinking what is phonics? It must be some new secret way for kids to learn to read. Well once I read Fox I realize phonics is not knew and it has been around for many years and it is only part of a reading plan teachers incorporate when they are assisting early readers. I also realize that many people use phonics in their everyday life and parents as well as teachers use phonics on a daily basis with small children to aid in literacy development without even realizing it.

What is phonics? The definition given by Fox is that it is the phonological  and phonemic awareness of sound or voice. It pertains to the study of sound and when applied in a classroom it covers all the different units of speech. Fox claims this is an awareness that covers the process of applying phonics like an umbrella. They include syllable, rhythm, and  word, awareness.

When I visited my Kindergarten buddies classroom last week I saw evidence that the teacher uses phonics in her classroom to help her students learn to read. I saw and alphabet chart on the wall in the room and on each child's desk. Letter-Sound is an important step for early readers. This is a strategy readers use to associate sounds with letters. When I was working with my kindergarten buddy we were filling out a chart and she was having trouble spelling some of the words she wanted to use. However, when she was directed to associate the letter sounds in the words she was able to spell many of the words she was trying to use one letter at a time. According to Fox this is one of the five stages of early reading and it is the partial alphabetic stage. I am not sure how many of the letters my kindergarten buddy knows but she was able to use this strategy to spell cat, draw, and pink.

My kindergarten buddy was also very happy to draw pictures to represent words, thoughts, or ideas. This directly relates to the early word identification strategies Fox addresses in chapter three. Fox claims early readers use this strategy to begin the development of a rich, fluent reading vocabulary. They draw on their environment associating signs, package labels, and logos in their everyday surroundings as one of the first steps towards literacy.

This reminds me of when my children were young and they would see the M represented by the golden arches and they would say look it says french fries. My son would always say to me as we were driving down the road," look mom FORD spells truck". Fox claims this is an "important step toward developing the concept that writing makes sense by using the strategy associating meaning with the environment context in which text appears"(pg. 69).