C & R chapter 11 and Roswell, Calvert and Bates Articles

C & R chapter 11

In this chapter, the authors highlight some the challenges that teachers might experience when teaching writing. One of the number one challenges faced by teachers is having students who refuse to write because it is too hard or boring.  In order to help solve this issue, the author makes the following recommendations. Before students value writing, they have to see the importance that it plays in their own lives. The teacher can provide the students with authentic opportunities to write such as writing letters, opinions on real life issues that are important to them, or completing tasks through writing. Another way to engage writers is provide them with choices in what they write about it. For example, instead of providing students with one prompt from which to write, the teacher can allow the students to choose from multiple prompts. The authors also suggest providing choices for students when they can complete spelling or handwriting pages. Teachers can also keep a file of students writing, so that they can visually see their growth over time as a writer. A second challenge for teachers has to do with having limited writing resources. The authors answer to this question is use the resources provided in this book as well as online.  The third challenge that teachers may experience when it comes to writing is finding time to teach it. I agree with the authors in that writing instruction is very important and should not be neglected, because there is a lack of time. One way teachers can fit writing into their schedules is to integrate writing within other subjects throughout the school day. Teachers can also incorporate writing time into literacy center activities. A fourth challenge mentioned is trying to meet the needs of all the diverse writers in your classroom. The authors explain how small groups can help to differentiate writing instruction. However, I do agree with the authors when they explained that even in small group settings it is still hard to meet every student’s individual needs. Therefore, sometimes the teacher needs to make time to conference one on one with students as well. This can be done during literacy centers, or while other students are writing or illustrating their pieces. While explicit teacher instruction is needed by all students, the teacher can also teach students to help each other. Sometimes talking about writing with others can help writers to get new ideas. Classmates can also help each other with spelling words. The authors suggest spending an hour a day with writing where part of the time is spent for whole class instruction and the rest of the time is spent with small groups. However, some days teachers may want their students to work on a piece for an hour of uninterrupted time.  

In my own classroom, I vary the lengths of times that students write for. Sometimes we do quick jots, but other times we sit and write for an extended amount of time. I do think I need to be more mindful and make sure that my students are writing more everyday though.  How closely does your class schedule for writing each day reflect the schedule on page 189?

In your experiences as teachers, do you have any other strategies to help with any of the four challenges mentioned in this chapter?

Prior to reading this book, what are some ways you have overcome the lack of resources available to you in helping you effectively teach writing?

How did you think this chapter was related to the new literacies articles? In my opinion, the first idea that popped into my head was how these new literacies may help to engage some of our writers who complain that traditional writing is boring and/or too hard.

Free Play or Tight Spaces? Mapping Participatory Literacies in Apps Article

This article forces the reader to take a moment and look at the apps that students are using and how effective they are at developing literacy practices that allow children to participate in digital cultures.  One phrase mentioned in this article that I hadn’t heard before was “app gap”. Although there has been a rise in technology usage and purchases this is not true for all people. Research from a study showed that only 35% percent of lower income families downloaded apps. On the other hand, 75% of upper income families reported downloading apps. Those numbers are strikingly different, and contribute to the app gap. The author stated that some children may not even know what an app is. As teachers, we will have to work to close the app gap. I think districts will need to provide teachers with professional development opportunities to explore these apps and see how they could be used in the classroom. The author suggests using a rubric that considers six dimensions of participatory literacies to compare apps in regards to how learners actually use them. The six areas are: multiplayer, productive, multimodal, open-ended, pleasurable, and connected. I liked that the author took an ideological approach to designing the rubric. The researchers saw literacy as taking place beyond the walls of the school, so that it also factors in their backgrounds and cultures of learners while also involving communicative systems.  When selecting apps for students, the authors seemed to favor apps that also mimic what teaching looks like in the classroom. The authors suggests picking apps that allow students much creativity with production of content, are multimodal and multisensory, have open-ended possibilities, and allow children to collaborate and share across networks. All of those ideas seem to go along with current teaching styles. In that we try to provide students with opportunities to learn that are similar to what they will experience in the real world work force.  It seems as if the author is trying to say that we need to view literacy learning from apps in this same way, in that the apps isn’t just scratching the surface that it really requires the students to delve deep into whatever it is they are learning about.

After reading this article, what apps do you feel are most beneficial for your students and which of the six areas do they meet?

What apps do you use that allow students to work collaboratively with one another?  

If you do not provide opportunities for students to use apps, how might you restructure your current classroom practices to support collaboration, production, connectivity, and other dimensions of participatory literacies?  

Letting Go of Stand Alone Technology Article

This article started off by explaining that teachers may feel overwhelmed with the idea of technology instruction while also having to teach all of the other curriculum, therefore we need to find ways to integrate technology into the curriculum. One way of doing this can be during literacy center time. At my school, students have to use an online differentiated reading program and we do this during our center time, because we do not have a computer lab. Integrating technology into the curriculum during this time has been very helpful. However, after reading this article I realized that I can do so much more than I currently do to effectively achieve curricular integration.  

In order to integrate the two, one can use the SAMR model which is four levels of technology integration: substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. The substitution level simply means that the task at hand isn’t changed but the tool used to complete the task is changed. The example given in the article is reading on a tablet versus print. I also think you could say that writing with pencil/paper versus typing what you would write would also be an example. Augmentation is the next level, in which technology is used as a tool, but also changes the function of the task a bit. The previous two levels are referred to as enhancements because they enhance the curriculum. Whereas the next two levels are called “transformations” in the sense that technology is integrated with the curriculum. The third level is the modification level in which the task is redesigned and extended to incorporate the student’s use of technology. The last level is redefinition, in which there is a completely new task all together using the technology to do so.  In order to reach the fourth level, teachers need to provide young students with opportunities at the lower enhancement levels to build up to the transformation levels. When thinking about integrating technology into the curriculum the author made an important point explaining that teachers need to be sure and explicitly teach students the content and how to use the technology.  I liked the sequence that the author suggested of explicitly teaching the literacy content first, and then using the apps for guided and independent practice.

There are so many great ideas listed this article that I can’t wait to try out in my own class! I especially love the QR idea of letting students type their book reviews and then printing and taping them inside the books using QR Crafter the QR Stuff web-site. The notability app is also interesting, but I have never used it. I will admit that while I love all of the ideas it is a bit overwhelming especially the audio and video components. I definitely will need to familiarize myself with these tools more, because I really do think they will allow for deeper student learning and engagement

I also really liked how the author mentioned using wiki spaces to have students publish writing, and explained how students could give tips and comment on peer’s writings. I have never done this, has anyone allowed their students to use this app?

Has anyone used any of the center activities mentioned in their own classroom that help students reach the transformation levels? If not, which activities are you most excited about trying out in your own classrooms?

E-Books and E-Book Apps: Considerations for Beginning Readers

This article was very interesting. I had never thought to consider the features of ebooks and how they might help or hinder emergent and early readers. I also was unaware that there were so many apps available from which students can read ebooks. When using these books in the classroom or for guided reading, it is important for the teacher to consider the levels at which the student is reading at and closely match the reader and text. Some E books are leveled, but if you are using the free app Unite for Literacy, the books are organized by topic versus level.  Understanding the characteristics of certain levels and of readers in the emergent and early reading phases will help a teacher to know which books are appropriate. The teacher also needs to be aware of the features in the book and explain to the students how these features work and decide whether those features are helpful or not.  As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but think of how these eBooks would help my struggling third grade readers that read at first grade levels. I especially liked the feature that allows the students to read with or without narration. This feature would help to differentiate activities at reading centers. For example, if students were struggling to reading and asked to complete a book review at a center, being able to hear the book would enable them to do this more effectively. Another helpful feature that some of the ebooks offer is a tool that allows the readers to record themselves and send this to the teacher. The author also suggested peers listening to each other and providing feedback on fluency and expression. I also really liked that Unite for Literacy offers the books to be read in various languages, as this would be very helpful for ELL students.  When the students choose this feature, they have a narration button for their native language as well as English so they can go back and forth if they’d like. When looking around on this site, I noticed that the books could be read in many languages, however not all books are available. The written language will only match the language for Spanish and English narrations. 

Does your district use any of the following eBook programs mentioned in the article (Who Can Read? Raz-Kids, (Learning A-Z), PMe Collection, Unite for Literacy)? What have your experiences with these texts been like?

How do you incorporate eBooks in your own classroom?

C & R Chapter 7

Teaching Students to Write Book Reviews

This chapter focused on teaching students to write book reviews, including the phases students go through- from learning about book reviews are to actually learning to write book reviews themselves. This type of writing can be challenging for young children. During Phase 1 (as mentioned above), the students start learning about what book reviews actually are. This includes providing them examples of book reviews, going over the structure of what a book review should look like, and listening to and reading book reviews. Students are asked to share their opinions on the book reviews they've listened to or read. Phase 1 also includes an assessment designed to provide teachers with information about what the students already know about book reviews before the lesson started.  It will serve as a benchmark for later progress. Immediately following Phase 1, a second assessment is given to see if students can identify a book review out of two different texts.  Phase 2 involves learning to evaluate book reviews. Using a checklist, the teacher models to the students how to go through a book review and identify the necessary parts they learned about in Phase 1. Phase 3 is where students begin to write their own book reviews. They plan their book review, using the knowledge they gained during the first two phases of instruction along with graphic organizers. Then, with support from their teacher, the student begins to write his/her own book review. Post instruction assessments are given after the students write their book reviews. This post assessment is very similar to the first assessment so that teachers can track students progression throughout the instruction process. It is likely that students will require more than one cycle of instructions for book reviews, just as with most types of writing instruction.

C&R 5&6 and Writing in Pre-K Article

C&R 5 - Teaching Sentence Construction
At the beginning of the chapter, the author emphasizes the importance of teaching young learners, specifically kindergarten-aged students, how to organize, plan, and revise their writing. It states that instruction is too focused on spelling, handwriting, and grammar. However, our other textbooks support the practice of handwriting skills and encourages explicit and ample amount of time blocked during the school day to practice spelling and word work. What are your thoughts on the writing process in the early years of learning? Do you lean towards the writing process as a priority to teach in the classroom? Or would you tend to focus your instruction on word work and handwriting? If you imagine a balanced curriculum, what would you envision it to be concerning spelling, grammar, and the writing process?

Understanding the different types of sentences, declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory, can be a difficult concept to grasp. What are some strategies you have tried in your classroom to teach these types of sentences? Were there any lessons in the text that you would like to implement in your classroom? There were also various strategies, listed on p. 89, to differentiate instruction for sentence development. Editing checklists and peer editing is always very engaging for my students. What are some ways you differentiate writing?


C&R 6 - Genre-Specific Writing Instruction
Teaching students how to write specifically within a genre can be a challenge. Before attempting to write, the children must understand the types of genres they will be writing about. On page 94, Figure 6.2 shows a table of the phases of instruction and goes into detail about the writing instruction. What are your thoughts concerning this sequence? Does you instruction reflect similar attributes? What have you found most effective during instruction when teaching how to write genre-specific texts? Also, rubrics set expectations for the students. They provide the students an idea of what the instructor is looking for in the text. How do you develop your rubrics? After using your rubrics to grade, what do you do with the results?


Writing in Pre-K
As these students are in the emergent stage of writing, they are still beginning to understand how written letters and words work. This article provides classroom activities that can engage preschool-aged children in writing. Allowing students many opportunities to write during the school day will help develop the connection between words and letters with writing. What are some strategies that you found helpful? Although the activities are preschool-leveled, are there ways to modify the activities to fit your grade level?

C & R Ch 9

Teaching Students to Write Descriptions
Teaching students to write descriptions is identified as an important skill. Children should have a strong foundation in writing descriptions "because those skills will enhance nearly everything that they write"(page 141)--and across subject areas. In order to teach descriptive writing, the authors have outlined a lesson sequence for teaching informative writing through the use of descriptions. My students struggle with descriptive writing. Language is so important in this area--we use a thesaurus to help us when writing. Good and cool are words I won't allow--even when we are talking about something in class--we have to find a different way to say the same thing.

There are 3 Phases, with a pre-assessment  before Phase 1 and an assessment at the end of each Phase. This chapter has many examples of student work and examples of teacher modeling the steps.
On page 143, there is an outline of Phase 1--Learning about descriptions and is broken into 4 different teaching steps. Overall, the goal in Phase 1 is to"expose students to many description examples" (page 145). In Phase 2, the students learn how to evaluate descriptions and on page 151, there is an outline of the steps. Phase 3 involves students learning to write lessons, composed of steps 7-11 and assessment 4. I found it interesting in Phase 3-the learning to write phase--each step  incorporated a graphic organizer.  I think graphic organizers are an important aspect of writing. On page 161 there is a list of topics to encourage descriptive writing.

My students struggle with descriptive writing--I find language delays can hinder their ability to write. How do you address descriptive writing? Do you incorporate graphic organizers in your writing instruction? What topics do you use for descriptive writing activities?

C & R Chapter 8 Teaching Students to Write Narratives

The first step in writing narratives is for students to write a personal narrative. This type of narrative works well for beginning writers, because it levels out the playing field in terms of background knowledge. The author suggests teaching narrative structure in a culturally responsive way because not all cultures use the same narrative form. In this chapter, the author presents the sequence for teaching narratives by giving a pre and post assessment as well as four phases of writing. The phases start out with explicit modeling and scaffolding which lead to a gradual release of independence as writers learn more about the genre and are able to write independently. For assessment one, the teacher provides the students with a prompt asking them to write about something that happened to them. The teacher scores the writing with a rubric and gauges what knowledge the student has or doesn’t have for personal narratives. Some activities that can be used in phase one include: providing students with model narratives and highlighting important narrative elements, creating a class anchor chart of narrative parts, piecing together a narrative that has been scrambled into sentence strips (together and later independently), and comparing and contrasting books that are and aren’t narratives while providing explanations as to why it fits a narrative genre. Assessment two asks the students to compare two texts and determine which is a narrative and explain why with details. Phase two includes step 5, 6, and assessment 3.  Steps five and six involve using a narrative checklist to evaluate a text to determine if it contains all narrative elements. In step five the teacher introduces the checklist and shows students how it can be used while reading through a narrative to determine its effectiveness. For assessment three, students are given two checklists and two narratives. The student is to read and score each narrative, so that they can decide which one is better because it includes more narrative parts. Phase three involves learning how to write narratives independently and includes steps seven through 11, and assessment four. In step seven, the teacher models how to use the narrative graphic organizer on pg. 136 using an event everyone experienced. As a small group, students then use the organizer to plan a new narrative. The teacher provides students with a list of topics that the class experienced together. In step eight the teachers and students complete an interactive write in which the teacher models for students how to use the completed graphic organizer to write a narrative. The students also use the checklist to evaluate the class narrative. In step nine, students can work in small groups or pairs where they take more ownership in planning and writing. Students pick a topic and plan as a group. After planning, groups swap plans and evaluate one another using the checklist. In step ten, students plan, write and evaluate their narratives and peers. If students are struggling to write independently the author suggests using a narrative frame, audio recorder, or using pictures for ideas. Students then have a peer look over their work and use their suggestions to revise their writing. Lastly, the students are assessed using assessment four which asks the students to write a narrative independently. The student’s work is scored using the same rubric from assessment one to gauge how they’ve grown as a writer. The goal of this process is for students to first become familiar with the genre and later learn to use that knowledge to plan and write. The author suggests using this process as well with other narratives. 

I really enjoyed reading this chapter, and I am excited to try out this process with my students! 

H & F Ch 8

I really enjoyed reading about the different word knowledge tool kit activities for transitional readers. Children in this stage are moving from the beginning stages of robotic word by word reading to smooth phrasal reading that has expression and intonation.

I wish I would have read this book years ago. There are so many great ideas that I can’t wait to try out in my classroom. The book lists various activities for reading words, writing words, manipulating words, and transferring words. The teacher’s goal for students is to be able to learn more words, understand how words work, and instill a love for learning new words that lasts a lifetime.

The first category discussed in the book is reading words which deals with skills that improve decoding. There were various sort activities in this section. The Guess My Category Word Sort involves the teacher sorting the words, and the students looking at the columns to compare and contrast the words. Students are asked how to focus on how the words look and sound the same in each column, and then verbalize what they see. This type of sort can also include multisyllabic words that also use the same patterns. However, students should not be tested on these words. Another activity discussed was the Concentration matching game. Students take turns turning over cards, while also trying to remember where the matching patterns are. I really like the speed sort activity, and can see my students enjoying this a lot. Students take turns racing to sort the words and record their times on a data sheet. The Hot Seat game is another activity where students race against the clock. One student points to the words, while another student reads the words. A student stops reading and records their score once the words are all read or a miscue is made. Readers are also taught rules to help them decode multisyllabic words by syllables. Time is also spent with strategies that involve using affixes and base words. My favorite one is called, Building Words in which students are given a base word bank and a prefix and/or suffix bank. The students can then create their own words that may not necessarily be words, but force them to show you whether or not they really know the meaning of the affixes because they provide a definition of their made up words.

The second category was writing which focuses on the spelling aspect of words. The first activity mentioned was blind writing sorts. I plan on using this first activity to replace how I currently assess my students in spelling. Like a regular spelling test, the teacher or a student reads the word, uses the word in a sentence, and then reads the word again. However, the students are given header words for each pattern prior to the test. The students then have to not only spell the words correctly, but also sort and write the words under the correct column. The next activity uses the same process as mentioned above except the student or teacher calling out the word reads the definition, and the students then write and sort the words. When spelling unknown words, the teacher can also have students practice writing words by analogy through use of the SOP strategy (sound, other similar words that have the same pattern, and then thinking about pattern rules).

The third category deals with manipulating words to better analyze how the words work. Students engage in word ladder like activities where they are given a word and asked to change parts to make new words. The teacher can also show the words and then show the word again with the missing pattern for students to fill in. The third strategy involves showing students the spelled word while pointing out and discussing the pattern within the words, then mixing up the letters or letter tiles, and asking the student to spell the word again while thinking about the pattern.

The fourth category involves the students transferring their word knowledge into the contexts of reading and writing. The first strategy involves having the students write their own piece and completing a word hunt during the edit phase of the writing process. Students are given an editing chart with patterns that they’ve learned throughout the year. If a student finds a misspelled word, they can use the pattern chart to rewrite the word in the correct way. The students can also look for words they spelled correctly and add those to their charts as well. This section also mentioned the effectiveness of having your students create their own “big picture” graphic organizer for the different sounds and patterns. These can be kept in journals as well as around the room for students to reference when writing.

The end of this chapter also provided the teacher with ways to help a student that doesn’t understand a word. Overall the big theme of this section was time. The teacher shouldn’t always rush to tell students what a word is. Instead they should allow them time to tackle the word independently. If a student has a miscue that changes the meaning of the text, the teacher can allow the student time to read on, and see if they go back and self correct after reading more of the text. If the student does not go back, the teacher can repeat what the student read and ask him/her if it sounds right.

These strategies and activities will later help students to tackle increasingly more difficult texts in later grades as they learn to think more critically about words when reading and writing independently.

H&F Ch. 6

The Beginning Reader's Toolkit - Activities and Strategies

The activities is this chapter are designed to target a specific skill and meet the needs of yours students after assessments. These activities will help your students understand how words work and how to use them correctly in writing and reading. The chapter divided the activities into four main categories: reading words, writing words, manipulating words, and transferring words.

Reading Words
These activities will give students the opportunity to practice reading words which will lead to automaticity and fluency. Many activities under this category includes word sorts. These sorts allow students to focus on the sounds they hear and manipulate the beginning or end sounds to create new, but similar sound words. Sentence building, timed reading, word bingo, concentration, and other word board games are other activities to practice reading words. Think-aloud strategies, guided practice, and independent practice is encouraged during these activities. Modifications for the activities are also provided, like practicing during center time independently, providing scaffolding questions, and prompting decoding strategies.

Writing Words
The activities provided in this category allows students to practice spelling words and writing them during instruction time. Writing words and sorting them, creating an interactive word wall to use in the classroom, and word booklets are a few resources that students can access to help with spelling. Sentence bingo and other game boards that have students write and spell are some activities that can be provided during center time.

Manipulating Words
These next activities require the students to blend, segment, and change the sounds of words. As they focus on changing phonemes of beginnings and ends of words, the students better understand how words work. Oral activities where the teacher provides phonemes for students to blend are suggested for classroom use. A hand puppet with a movable mouth can also engage students while listening to the sounds. Letter tiles and other manipulatives with letters displayed can also help students visualize and associate phonemes with letters.

Transferring Word Knowledge to Context
These activities will help students transfer their knowledge of words into reading and writing. Dictation sentences and word hunts are activities that will help student connect the idea of words and writing and reading together. Word hunts can focus on a specific spelling word or even spelling pattern, like long e. Graphic organizers of specific spelling patterns can be displayed in the classroom to use as resources. I use these in my classroom and I find that the students refer to the anchor charts often to help with spelling out words.