Week 1 Post 3

Oral Language and Reading

                 Interaction with language is one of the best ways for students to develop their language acquisition.(Gibbons, 2002, p. 15). Oral language can help students with reading before, during, and after reading. If students have the chance to make predictions, take picture walks, and discuss the book before hand it gives them a language Velcro to attach the reading context. During reading students can use oral language to access new vocabulary and make meaning from the text, and a discussion with their peers or in guided groups after reading helps a student process the meaning of what was just read. Oral language can really set the stage for successful comprehension in reading.

Week One - Post 2

My own Writing Experience

 

               I will be honest. I don't remember that much about learning how to write as a child. I do remember in third grade we kept a journal, and that was what most of our writing consisted of. The teacher would respond back to us, and we could write about anything we wanted. I loved it.  In 6th grade I remember creative writing class and publishing a poetry book with my class. I loved this as well. Through out school I always managed to get decent grades in writing, because the content was strong, and I was okay with the hits that I took for grammar and mechanics, because they weren't large dings on my grade. Also, the marks were a vague. I didn't know what I did that was incorrect and I wasn't taught how to fix it. It wasn't until college that someone finally explained to me that there is more to a run on sentence than it just being really long. This would most likely align with process writing (Freeman and Freeman, 2004, p. 29). The thinking was there, but there was not explicit instruction on the conventions. Although I wish I had been taught more about the conventions to avoid the shock in college, I loved writing, because I wasn't boxed in by the rules.

             In my own teaching I try for a happy medium. I do focus more on the structure of writing to build a foundation, but I balance that with workshop/process time. Our students aren't always exposed to language through books and writing at home, so they aren't going to just naturally move into correct conventions. However, they can tell some great stories, and they love to research non-fiction.

        I have heard that common core will be heavy in grammar and mechanics. That will throw us back to a traditional writing again very quickly. We are all ready looking at ways to help our ELL kids do better on the state tests in this area. Anyone else hear the same? Differently?



Week one - post 1

           I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our Title One teachers about teaching reading. She said that her philosophy is blended. For the most part, she believes that students should be exposed to authentic literature experiences to learn how to read. The school overall stays away from basal texts and has a rich resource room full of sets of real books at a wide variety of levels because of this view. However, she also teaches phonics and phonemic awareness jointly. If she is going to teach a "secret story" about the super hero vowels, then it will be followed by an authentic learning opportunity to find the vowels in the context of what the students are reading. She also supports the idea of teaching a guided reading group on a particular skill and then having the students immediately practice that skill through independent reading time. She believes that students need time to practice reading and that many of the problems our struggling children have around reading could be solved if there were someone in their lives who had time to curl up and read with them daily either in English or thier first language.

Hello Everyone,

My name is Pamela Markgraf. I am working towards a masters in curriculum, assessment, and instruction with a reading certificate. 

I have taught at the elementary level for 10 years in Westminster. The last three I have spent as an instructional coach/title one reading interventionist. Before that I taught 3rd, 4th and 5th grade (One year all at the same time.) The school I work at is 90% poverty and over 70% ELL, so I am hoping to gain some new insight from this course. 

I have two very busy little boys age 2 (almost three) and 6. They keep my husband and I hopping and keep things in perspective for me.  I also enjoy reading, gardening and baking.