Word Wall Resources - Inquiry Project-

The link below shows two pictures of example word walls. The first one is a color-coded word wall where each letter in the alphabet is coded with a different color paper. The second picture is an example of an environmental print word wall where the children have brought in cereal boxes and the their teacher has put them on the wall.
http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/~tillman/WORD%20WALLS.htm

This website is great in that it shows pictures of what certain areas (including the word wall) of the classroom started out looking like at the beginning of the school year and then shows the after pictures of what it looked like later in the year. It was very encouraging to know that it may look plain and simple when you begin but once you start adding to it and the year goes on to see what the word wall could look like.
http://www.bankstreet.edu/gsvideos1/classevolve

This was one of the first websites that I found that contains a variety of word wall games for a first grade classroom. It is a collaborative teacher website, however the link takes you straight to the word wall page. The games not only sound fun and interactive but they help the students to learn and could be modified for various grade levels.
http://www.teachingfirst.net/wordwallact.htm

It is amazing how much information you can find on word walls when researching. There are also several teacher websites where they share their games and ideas on how to use word walls effectively in the classroom.

Word Walls -Inquiry Project- June 30th

           Word walls can be found in almost every classroom that one walks into. So what exactly is a word wall, how is it implemented into the classroom, and is it really beneficial to students? These are just a few questions that an individual can ask about word walls. After much research on word walls, I found some very interesting and enlightening information on the topic. Much of the information included ideas of how to incorporate word walls into classrooms across many grades along with basic information on word walls including: what a word wall is, how to make a word wall, the many different types of word walls, and various games that can played with word walls.

According to the article, Instructional Strategies Online, a word wall is basically a collection of related words that are organized on a wall in the classroom in an area where every student can see it. The word wall can be used as an instruction tool that is not only educational and interactive but it can also be used for teaching spelling and reading to the students. There are a wide variety of word walls that can be used in the classroom some of which include words like: high frequency words, word families, various types of names, words that incorporate the alphabet, and other combinations of words. Teachers define their word walls in numerous ways depending upon the techniques and the ways in which the teacher wishes to use the word wall in the classroom. In the article from Teachingfirst.net, they talk about a word wall for first graders that contains sight words and they introduce five new words a week. They talked about how these words are organized in an alphabetical order fashion and the students can refer to the word wall when they are writing. One of the trends that I noticed not only in the classroom but also in the articles that I read is that many word walls in the primary grades seem to be more sight words or high frequency words whereas the word walls in upper grades are compiled of more words that they find interesting. It really just depends on the teacher and the grade.

So are word walls really that beneficial to students?  In the Instructional Strategies Online article discusses the benefits of word walls ranging from helping to teach students reading and spelling skills to serving as a reference point during writing lessons and activities. The article says that some of the main purposes of word walls are to not only, “teach students to recognize and spell high frequency words, identify patterns and relationships between a variety of words,” but to also help children to build their phonemic awareness. They go into further detail explaining that word walls can also serve as a “visual map” that helps students to recognize and recall connections between words, provide a reference for students when reading and writing, help children advance in independent reading and writing at young ages along many other benefits. The most common benefit that seems to be provided by the word wall is reading and writing abilities. I was able to witness some of the word wall benefits in a kindergarten classroom, where the students looked forward to every time they learned and practiced a new word from the word wall. A word wall is obviously beneficial to every student in a variety of ways.

There are several ways that teachers can use word walls in the classroom including games and interactive classroom lessons. After witnessing a word wall activity in a kindergarten classroom, I learned that one of the easiest ways to implement a word wall is to involve students in the word wall.  The students not only enjoy helping with the word wall but they learn from the activities associated with word walls. Some teachers develop songs and chants to go along with word walls and some teachers use fun interactive and educational games for their word walls. On the website myweb.stedwards.edu, they express the importance of not only having a word wall but actually “doing the word” and incorporating games and actually using the word wall, not just having a word wall to have. They give examples of “doing” the word wall meaning that they were very selective when choosing words, added new words each week, expected word wall words to be spelled correctly, and having students practice the words from the word wall.  I never really thought about it before, but in some classrooms I have seen words and never actually seen the teacher use them. The whole purpose is to help students not only learn to read and write but to give them the opportunity to learn many “must-have” words. I found some wonderful games to incorporate with word walls in the classroom. Many of the games came from the websites teachingfirst.net. A couple of games that I thought could be used across many grade levels included: word wall bingo and who wants to read like a millionaire and the directions to these and many more can be found at the link below. Most games and songs can be modified to word walls across grade levels.

After much thought, observations, and researching I now realize the importance of word walls. If they are done correctly every student will benefit from the word wall in some form or fashion. I believe that they are a great idea and resource and that every teacher should find some way to implement a word wall in his or her classroom. 

The links to the websites that I used are posted below. They also have additional information on word walls if anyone is interested.

http://www.teachingfirst.net/wordwallact.htm

http://myweb.stedwards.edu/mikekb/ReadStrong/wordwall.html

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/wordwall/

Article Reflections June 28th

The content of the three articles is similar in that each article discusses reading and literacy. Each article offers a great deal of information that is not only helpful to teachers and future teachers but it is also insightful to what schools are like and how they should be or ways in which we, as future teachers, can help to make it better. One of the ideas that I found most interesting from the reading was from Burton and Rog's article, Marching texts and readers: Leveling early reading materials for assessment and instruction.  Before reading this article, I wasn't t really sure how to determine what reading level a child should be on or how exactly to determine what reading level certain books should be labeled. This article as a whole gave much insight to the specific aspects that each level book should include along with what skills the students should have before moving up in reading level. The article, Looking inside classrooms: Reflecting on the "how as well as the "what" in effective reading instruction, was appealing because it talked about strategies that seemed to most effective ways to teach reading in various classrooms across every grade level. The authors talk about their findings in the classroom some of which include the observation of grouping practices, the teacher's style of interaction, the students' type of involvement, and the balance between word work and comprehension work. They then go into greater detail about the techniques and strategies that seemed to be the most effective in each grade level. This article seems like it would be helpful when deciding which types of techniques to use in a classroom depending on the grade level being taught. The last article by Allington, The school we have. The schools we need. is an in depth text on what our school used to be like, what they are like now, and what we should be striving to make them in the future. I agree with many of the concepts he addresses such as the idea that many people consider a lack experience as a lack of ability in children. This is frustrating to me because I have seen this done. Just because I child cannot read when they start kindergarten does not mean that they don't have the capacity to do so. They may come from a family that doesn't have books or has very few books; they just don't have experience with texts. There are several other concepts that Allington mentions throughout his article that I agree with. Each of these article provides a ton of information that will hopefully be helpful as a future teacher. 

Overall, the information provided in the texts was interesting and insightful. The authors not only give their views and opinions but they provide the research and evidence for their beliefs. In a way, I found it helpful that each author discussed how schools are or used to be along with their beliefs on how schools and classrooms should be. There are some aspects of each article that I agree with, however there are also some areas that I found puzzling and disagreed with. Whether I agree or disagree with what the authors opinions are, I still think that the articles provided a great deal of information that will be useful in my future classroom. 

Guided Reading June 22nd

What is the purpose of guided reading; in other words why is guided reading important? After reading several articles on guided reading, I have a better understanding of why it is important or beneficial for students, ways to implement it in the classroom, as well as other interesting facts about guided reading.  In the article Guided Reading - A Snapshot, it talks about one of the major benefits being that students are given the opportunity to work with students who are on the same reading level as they are. This not only allows them to feel comfortable within the group but they are able to work in small groups with the teacher's help. Guided reading seems to be an essential component in teaching children how to read and even just helping them more from reading level to reading level. There seems to be several ways that teachers can implement guided reading into their classrooms. The article talks about dividing the students up into small groups with children who are at or around the same reading levels, selecting the appropriate level text, sitting down with the group at a group table, introducing the new vocabulary, observe the students as they read, provide coaching as needed, review the text for comprehension, and of course having activities for the rest of the class while the teacher is helping each reading group. They also say that the main goal of guided reading is to foster a love for reading, confidence, and proficiency. All the articles that I have read on guided reading talk about ways to implement, how is helps every student, as well as giving other tips and resources to use.

Guided reading is definitely something that I can implement in my future classroom. It is not only important for every child to be able to read but they need to feel confident when reading and comprehend what they are reading. One of the things that I love about guided reading is the fact that the students are grouped with other students are reading at the same reading reading level. I think this is great because they can feel comfortable with themselves and not worry what the others will think. I just remember that I always hated reading in class because I didn't want my peers to make fun of me. I was always a very shy child and just hated reading in front of others but I feel that guided reading groups does a good job at preventing this. It seems like a great concept to use in the classroom.

Here are the links to a couple of the articles that I read for this blog.
http://www.k12reader.com/guided-reading-a-snapshot/
http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/guided_reading.html

Reading Comprehension June 21st

What is the point in reading a book if you cannot comprehend what the text is saying? Comprehension is not only an important aspect of reading but is essential to understanding what is being read. Comprehension is a complex idea and is not always easy even for some of the best readers. I can honestly say that I still struggle comprehending some of the text that I have to read. Sometimes I find myself reading an article or book for a class and once I have finished "reading" the assigned section, I look back and ask myself, " what in the world did I just read" or "I don't understand anything I just read". Personally I find it not only frustrating but disappointing when you spend so much time reading something and then don't understand it once you've finished it. After reading the three articles along with the chapter from the book, I have a better understanding of why individuals may have trouble with reading comprehension.

The articles also give teachers techniques and strategies for teaching students reading comprehension. The article that stood out to me was Cahill and Gregory's article, Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers. They give examples of how Mrs. Hope taught her kindergarten class various comprehension strategies and since I'm going to be in a kindergarten classroom this coming fall, I thought that it would be wonderful to see those kinds of techniques in my mentor teacher's classroom. I love that during their read alouds, her students hold up their hands either showing the letter C (meaning they have made a connection to the story), a V (which shows that they have a visualization or a mind movie), or wiggling their index finger (signaling that they have a question). This proves that they are most likely comprehending the story that Mrs. Hope is reading and they want to contribute their thoughts and ideas. I found it amazing that such young children were able to really comprehend the story because true comprehension is such a complex concept. According to Gill in  her article, The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction, comprehension is affected by a variety of factors  which can be identified as the reader, the text (book or article), and the purpose or activity for reading. There are also several aspects within each of these that affect comprehension. Since comprehension seems to be such an important part of reading and understanding but is so complex, it seems that it would be very difficult for teachers for teachers to exclusively teach comprehension.

The articles and book give several examples of how to teach students reading comprehension and allow them to focus on being able to comprehend/understand what they are reading. In Pardo's article, What every teacher needs to know about comprehension, she talks about ways in which teachers can help to support their students which in turn helps them to better comprehend readings. She talks about how teachers should teach decoding skills, build fluency and teach vocabulary word, help them to build and/or activate their prior knowledge, engage the students in personal responses to the text, and mostly to motivate students. Each of these is an important part of not only helping students to perform better in class but they will also help them to learn reading comprehension. The book strongly correlates with the articles on the idea of comprehension. Allington and Cunningham mention specific comprehension strategies that would help with reading comprehension such as: connecting reading to prior knowledge, visualizing the experiences in the text, drawing conclusions, evaluating what one thinks, predicting and questioning what will happen in the text, and many others.

I think that each of the readings on comprehension gives great techniques or strategies that would allow teachers to better teach reading comprehension to students of all ages. Although it is a complex idea, it is essential to reading. Again, what is the point of reading it if you can't understand it? I think that teaching comprehension in the classroom is important and hopefully I will be able to use some of these techniques in my own teachings.

Vocab Vocab Vacab June 16th

Vocabulary is not only a crucial part of children being able to read but it is also an extremely important contribution to understanding what is being read.  Each of the readings stress the importance of vocabulary throughout every child's life in various ways. According to each of the readings there is a strong connection/correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Vocabulary can be used, taught, and seen in a variety of ways. The article, The Vocabulary-Rich Classroom: Modeling Sophisticated Word Use to Promote Word Consciousness and Vocabulary Growth by Lane and Allen talks about the four different types of vocabulary including: oral, print, receptive, and productive vocabulary. When I first read this section, I thought they were crazy. I thought that vocabulary was just plain vocabulary and there couldn't possibly four types. They go on to describe each type describing oral vocabulary as the many words that one understands when communicating orally or even when an individual reads aloud to others. According to the article print vocabulary are the words that an individual knows when he or she reads and writes whereas receptive vocabulary are the words that one understands when they are reading or listening. Lastly, they explain that productive vocabulary consists of all the words that a person uses when they are talking and writing (Allen p. 364). I would have never thought that there were so many different dimensions of vocabulary. If vocabulary is such an important component is a young child's life, then can we as future teachers prevent what Hart and Risley call "the 30 million word gap" in the their article, The Early Catastrophe, the 30 Million word gap by age 3"? I feel that there must be some way to either prevent or decrease this so called word gap between children of different socioeconomic statuses. In my opinion it is sad to just sit back and know that child in low SES families will not only have a less sophisticated vocabulary knowledge but this in turn will effect many other aspects throughout their lives. 

Having somewhat voiced my opinion about the idea that less fortunate children will not have as great of vocabulary  as a child who happen to be from a family of high SES status, I am still wondering what are some of the ways in which teachers can make a difference when it comes to teaching vocabulary? The book along with the article Vocabulary Lessons  By: Blachowics and Fisher and the article about creating a vocabulary rich classroom, all give great examples and ideas of teaching vocabulary in the classroom.  In Vocabulary Lessons, the authors state that some vocabulary practices include: "Developing word awareness and a love of words through word play, teaches can deliver explicit, rich instruction to develop important vocabularies, build strategies for students' independence, and lastly engage students actively with a wide range of books" (Blachowics p. 67-69). These are just a few ways in which teachers can help students to develop better vocabulary within the classroom. Chapter six in the book also gives wonderful games that teachers can use in their classrooms. Some fun and interactive ones that I could see myself using in my future classroom include: teaching a couple of new words in your read aloud, reading and creating alphabet books in order to learn new words, and using a picture to help build children's vocabulary. 

I found the vocabulary articles interesting because not only did they explain the importance of vocabulary in every child's life but they also gave examples of how to make teaching and learning vocabulary fun and interactive. I can remember having those repetitive spelling lessons every single week. Each week we would right all fifteen or so words, the definition of the words, then write then in alphabetical order and so on. I can tell you right now that I remember doing the activities but I can't remember any of the words that had. I think that if we had used some of the techniques described throughout the readings I would probably have enjoyed vocabulary more and remembered it better. I learned a lot from these readings and I will most likely use some of these techniques in my own classroom one day. 

Word Study June 14th

What is a phoneme? Do individuals really know what phonemic awareness is? How does one teach a child how to read using such things as phonemic awareness and word patterns? I can honestly say that to this day I still get confused when trying to answer my first two questions. I do not remember learning these things in school but I'm sure that I did. I recall using programs such as "Hooked on Phonics" which basically focused on teaching children how to use such things as phonics, phonemes, and phonemic awareness in order to learn how to read. I think that the concepts of phonemes and phonemic awareness can be difficult to understand especially for people that have never heard the terms before. The readings discuss several ideas of what phonemic awareness is, along with how to help students develop phonemic awareness and how to use techniques that they have already learned. The book goes into great detail explaining various games that teachers can use to help their students establish this concept of phonemic awareness in order to figure out unknown words and increase their reading ability. According to the article Supporting phonemic awareness development in the classroom by Hallie Yopp and Ruth Yopp, "Phonemic awareness is the awareness that the speech stream consists of a sequence of sounds- specifically phonemes, the smallest unit of sound that makes a difference in communication" (Yopp p. 130). Even this definition may sound complicated to some. In chapter three the book describes phonemic awareness as, "the ability to recognize that words are made up of a discrete set of sounds and to manipulate those sounds is phonemic awareness" (Allington p. 33).  These two definitions basically explain that phonemic awareness is knowing that ever word is made up of certain sounds and the ability to manipulate these sounds in order to make other words. Being able to teach phonics, spelling patterns, and phonemic awareness to children is obviously a key part to helping a child learn how to read.

So where does a teacher even begin to teach these concepts to his or her students in the classroom? In chapter five of Classrooms That Work, Allington and Cunningham give tons of ideas on teaching phonics along with spelling patterns. Clark also gives some examples of how to teach word recognition in her article, What can I say besides "sound it out"? Coaching word recognition in beginning reading. Each give great ideas and techniques for teaching young or new readers how to recognize words and spelling patterns along with learning phonics that will help young children learn to become better readers. Learning how to read can be very difficult for many young children and having various techniques and games to encourage them will not only increase their reading abilities but it will also keep them interested in reading. Clark says that "coaching" young readers is a great way to help children learn word recognition. She explains that teachers should use "cues" if a student doesn't know a word when reading. These include: general cues that provoke thought (using questions like, how can you figure that word out?), and cues that would promote a specific action (these would provide detailed information about the task). This is just one way that Clark suggests for helping children learn word recognition. Allington discusses several ideas but a few that I thought would be great to use in my future classroom include the technique of Using Words You Know, the Nifty-Thrifty-Fifty, and the Wheel. I love the fact the techniques Using the Words You Know really does show students how to take the words they already know and change or add one or two letters to make a lot more words. I think that that would be a great way for them to realize that they can take one word and make ten new words and it would be fun for them to make the chart and see who can make the most words. The Wheel also seems like a fun interactive way to teach students spelling patterns. I think that they would actually enjoy these types of activities and they would learn while having fun.
So when we talk about phonemic awareness it always takes me a minute to remember exactly what it is but after reading these articles and learning techniques on how to help children use phonics and phonemic awareness to read better, I have a better understanding of what phonemic awareness is and how to teach it in my future classroom.  Overall, the articles and the book gave some great ideas that I will hopefully have the opportunity to try in my own classroom one day. I probably never would have thought about using some of the games and activities listed in order to teach phonemic awareness, word recognition, and spelling patterns.

Reader's Theater Ideas

Here is a link to a cool website about reader's theater!
http://www.mandygregory.com/readers_theater.htm

Fluency among Readers June 9th

     How do we define fluency and what aspects contribute to fluency? What is the best way to teach reading fluency in a classroom? The two articles, Creating Fluent Readers and One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction, along with Chapter four in the book Classrooms that Work give various definitions of what fluency is and what aspects contribute or coincide with fluency. According to Rasinski, "Reading fluency refers to the reader's ability to develop control over surface-level text processing so that he or she can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text" (p. 46). In her article, Deeney uses The Literacy Dictionary for her definition of what a fluent reader is saying that it is, " any person who reads smoothly, without hesitation, and with comprehension." (p. 85). Cunningham gives us a more understandable definition in her book, " Fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression" (p. 49). We can see through these definitions that their views are somewhat alike, however the articles do vary in the information discussed and provided.
     Each reading selection also discussed the major components within fluency including accuracy, speed, and prosody (also thought of as expression). According to the reading, fluency is not always easy to learn, teach, or assess. Many students may actually struggle with reading fluency when first learning to read and write. Fluency should become easier and more accurate with practice according to the readings. The passages talk about how repeated reading methods help children develop fluency in their own reading. Some of the best ways to develop fluency is to practice and to read literature that is meant to be read aloud such as jokes, riddles, poetry, speeches, scripts, and many others. Reading these types of literature aloud help students to develop fluency. According to Creating Fluent Readers, repeated reading has not only been proven to improve reading but it has also proven to help in decoding, comprehension, reading rate, and even prosodic reading (reading with expression). Another way that to help students learn fluency is to model reading with fluency during read alouds. This concept was discussed throughout the articles because in order to children to successfully learn how to read fluently they need to here another individual reading fluently. The book and the articles give several examples of ways to teach fluency to young readers as well as how to assess readers on their fluency.  Assessing reading fluency is discussed throughout Deeney's article; she explains that even though the one-minute fluency measures are reliable in identifying the students at risk for reading difficulty, they may not follow along with the more current definitions of fluency and its aspects (p. 440). Throughout her article she gives examples of various ways to assess for reading fluency deficiencies along with many ways or techniques in which teachers can instruct fluency and endurance in reading. One of the easiest and more effective ways in helping students to increase fluency is described in the book...the word wall. Creating a word wall using high frequency words would help students not only learn these words but it would also help them to become faster readers which would in turn increase their fluency. The articles along with the book chapters share some very important and interesting information on fluency and how to help students develop fluency.
     Overall, the information provided was very interesting. Before reading this material on fluency and every component that contributes to fluency, I was not sure what exactly fluency consisted of and how a teacher would help students become more fluent readers. One of the ideas that I will definitely implement in my classroom is the world wall. I have seen them throughout many classrooms and I was never really sure what the purpose of the word wall was until recently. I think that it is a wonderful idea that will not only help students learn high frequency words but will also help them in reading. I also realize how important allowing students to reread books is and the importance of modeling fluency during read alouds. I now know what fluency is, what it consists of, and some ways that I can encourage and teach my future students how to become better and more fluent readers.