Article response....Motivatgion to Read

I truly loved reading this article.  I have come across so many children who don't like to read.  These are not children I am currently teaching but a lot of older kids....usually teenagers in my church.  They have no desire to read.  This is something I don't understand because I love to read. 
This motivation to read profile assessment is great.  I have never seen anything like this before viewing this article.  I have not done it yet, but I am going to use this profile on some students and then evaluate the response I get and re-post.  I would like to use this on multi ages to see if there is any kind of pattern in the response. 

article response Vocabulary

Article #1

Vocabulary Development During Read-Alouds        Karen J. Kindle

It is important to carefully choose a book to develop vocabulary for a read aloud.  There is Tier 1 words, which are common everyday words, such as house or car.  Then, there are Tier 2 word, in which usually the teacher will be introducing these words during the read aloud.

This article provided several different strategies to teach vocabulary during a read aloud.  However, what I have found the most useful from the article for my grade level is labeling and providing examples.  In Kindergarten, it is very age appropriate to use labeling….I have a lot of children who need visual cues and who are ESOL learners and the labeling is extremely important in learning vocabulary.

**I chose this activity to go with this article. 

Activity:  Read-Aloud   Nigel  The adventures of baby elephant and his meercat friend Moe

                                          By:  Patsy Smith Roberts

Background:  This is a story written by Patsy Roberts after a trip she took to Africa.  She has a passion for wildlife and has been to Africa many times.  She took all of the photographs that are used in this book.  This is a work of fiction that the author has written using the pictures she took. This children really enjoy this book for one because of the beautiful pictures.  The story is about a baby elephant who gets lost from her Mom and meets a meercat. The elephants mom has gotten caught by a poacher and killed. As the animals travel through the African Savana, they encounter several other animals….some dangerous.   They finally come to the matriarch of the elephant herd.  The baby elephant explains what happened to his mom and the matriarch takes him in as part of her family.  He gained a new baby elephant brother also.  Then, the meercat and elephant part ways….both now getting to go back “home” to their families.     

Vocabulary:

Herd-group of elephants

Matriarach- the girl ruler of the elephants

Desert- hot dry land

Africa- a place (country) far from home

Dangerous-something bad could happen

Enemy-someone who is not my friend

The actual photographs in the book will engage students and help them to understand the vocabulary words.

I think this activity could be text to world because many of the animals listed here, kids may have seen in the zoo or in another book.                        

Response to an article

Article #2 

Picture Book Power:  Connecting Children’s Literature and Mathematics

By:  J. Shatzer

This was an excellent article on connecting math and literature.  It started out talking about the book “The Wolf’s Chicken Stew.”  The ironic thing was that last year, I was looking for books to read on the 100^th day of school and came across this.  At first, by looking at the title..I thought…what will this have to do with 100?  Well, I quickly found out and it made it’s point with my Pre-K students. 

When picking a book, choose a book that is going to motivate the students in the area of math as well as literature.  The article stated that children’s l iterature can be the vehicle for providing meaningful context for learning in the area of math.  How true this is!  I definitely see this as I teach Kindergarten.  The students are engaged in the book and learn the math concept.  

I also gained from the article to keep counting  books in my classroom library, which I do.  There are a wide variety of very engaging counting books to be found…some even may contain a kids favorite character. 

The most important point in this article to me was by Trelease and Rosenblatt who said that picture books are usually the first type of children’s literature that a young child encounters, so there needs to be purposeful selection of books for interactive read-alouds.  This develops reader, text, and context connections.

*This is a lesson I chose to represent this article.

Materials:  Anno’s Counting Book, unifix cubes(12 per student

For this lesson, I read Anno’s Counting Book to the students.  As, I read this books, we were able to look at the unifix cubes on the side page of the book and count them, and also count the objects on the page.  On each page, more object and unifix cubes are added.  This provides a great visual for the children. 

After the read aloud, I sent students to the tables to sit with their unifix cubes.  We now will re-read the book and as we read each page, we will begin to stack the unifix cubes to match the number on the page.  As we do this, we will count the unifix cubes and also look at what the number word looks like. 

To extend this activity to involve text to self, I sent a note asking the students to bring in a certain number of items from 0-15.  The students bring these in the next day, and we will do a one to one counting activity with them. 

Picture Book Lesson

Picture Book Lesson—Going on a shape hunt

Taught to my Kindergarten class

Book:  When a Line Bends….A Shape Begins

Author:  Rhonda Growler Greene

GPS  MKG1.  Students will correctly name simple two and three dimensional figures, and recognize them in the environment.

I taught a lesson on shapes.  In days previous to this lesson, we had talked about shapes, played with shape pattern blocks, played shape games on the interactive board, and completed some worksheets together.  The vocabulary words in this book that I pre-taught are listed below.  I drew each shape on the board, then we as a class came up with easy ways to describe that shape that would help us understand the shape.

To begin the lesson, I introduced the book and read it aloud.  After I read the book, we briefly talked about each of the vocabulary words again.  I had students raise their hand and define one of the shapes to the class.  After this, I told students we were going on a shape hunt.  They were very eager to see what this was about.  (Beforehand, I had placed pattern blocks all around the room in different places. )

I dismissed them a few at a time to quietly leave the carpet and go look for a shape….reminding them that they need to be able to identify the shape they choose.  After choosing their shape, they brought it back to the carpet and each child got a turn to hold up the shape and tell us the name. 

Next, I had the students turn the pattern blocks in to me.  This time, I told them they would be hunting for an object  around our classroom that was one of the shapes we talked about.  I again dismissed them from the carpet to quietly go find a shape.  They came back to the carpet once again with the classroom items and we discussed these.  Then, the students put up their items and once again came back to the carpet.  This led us into a discussion about how shapes can be found all around our world.  We also looked back in the book at each shape’s page and pointed out some items in the book.

Vocabulary- line, circle, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, oval,star, heart,crescent, ocatagon

My Reflections:

Pre-teaching the vocabulary was essential to my students being able to complete this lesson.  To be able to find and name the shapes, they had to understand the vocabulary.

This book was an excellent choice for the content topic.  This book was very engaging because it presenting  a math concept in a very fun way.  The pictures in this book were bright and colorful.  After I read a page, then showed students the picture, they would point out items that were the shape we were talking about all over the page.  This book helped build their excitement for the shape hunt activity.

Looking back on this lesson, I may change how I did the actual shape hunt.  First, if I’m going to stay in my classroom, I will only let maybe 4-5 students go find a shape and keep the others engaged on the carpet until their turn instead of letting the whole class go at once.

Another idea that I would like to try is to take our shape hunt outside of the classroom…..maybe go on a shape hunt outside, or around the school building.  It would be neat to see what items the students came up with. 

In my Kindergarten classroom, I do have some diverse learning needs.  I helped address their needs in this activity by providin  the vocabulary word and a picture when I pre-taught the vocabulary.  I have several students that need visual cues. 

Phoenemic Awareness Activity

Phoenemic Awareness Activity

This is an activity I used at the beginning of this year.  I wanted to first teach students about word segmentation.  I wanted to teach them that sentences are made up of words.  I would start with some short sentences like the follow.

We ran.

I hopped.

I walked.

I would tell children that we are going to clap for each word we say.  We would do a few examples together, then the children would try some together as a class.

Next, I would move on to some three word sentences, then eventually four and five. 

To extend this activity, one day I could provide the “say it and move it” card to each child.  I could give each child some unifix cubes.  I would instruct the children to put the unifix cubes under the “say it and move it” line.  Then, as we say a word, we move the cube up onto the line.  Then, we can also count how many words are in each sentence.  This provides a visual, hands-on approach that I feel many children need. 

It is important to help children understand that sentences are made up of words, so the children can identify individual words instead of thinking the sentence is one continuous stream of sound. 

**I have several ESOL students in my classroom.  The clapping helped them to understand separating the words because I was giving them this visual and something specific to do with their hands.  I also had my parapro sit near some of these students who seemed to be struggling with this activity and help them say the words and clap their hands.

Honesty

Well, here's the real deal....I haven't done the best with blogging during this first course.  I started teaching a new grade this year, I have a new baby, and I am taking this course among many other activities....as I know everyone in our class has a full plate I'm sure. 
I am thoroughly enjoying this reading endorsement, and I am learning a wealth of information that is helping me as I begin teaching Kindergarten. 
My goal is to become better at prioritizing my time and to work harder at blogging. 

Reading websites I like

Here are a few websites that I have found that I like:

http://www.unitedthroughreading.org/documents/whyreadaloud.pdf
(I like this because it's a quick reference that could be provided to parents showing the importance of reading aloud with your child.  There are just some one sentence reasons and the site puts the reasons in bold print...drawing your attention there.)

http://www.reading.org/
(This seems to be a great site for teachers as well as parents....lots of resources. This site may be a little harder for some parents to navigate if they are not willing to put in a little time.)

http://journal.naeyc.org/btj/200303/readingaloud.pdf
(The first sentence in this article stresses that the single most important activity for building knowledge for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children....I strongly agree. 
What I really liked on this site was that it is broken down into sections:  "reading aloud to babies", "reading aloud to toddlers", and so on and it gives lots of ideas and suggestions for reading aloud to each different age group.