Blog- 9-27

In looking at my kindergarten classroom, in light of the Book Club Plus framework, I started to see similarities and differences in the way the Book Club Plus implements literacy and the way my classroom teacher implements literacy. I think that it is important to note that, I have yet to see a full spectrum of literacy in action in my classroom, and so my observations thus far are nowhere near a clear reflection of what literacy instruction in my classroom may look like in January. Right now, we are just trying to get the children engaged with the basics of paper and pens and books in general, being the children are five years old. In the Book Club Plus framework, the idea is that literacy instruction is centralized around a specified book that is either homogenous amongst the learners, or heterogeneous, with different small groups reading different books. Using the book club books as a basis, different types of instruction are used: community share, closing community, reading, writing, student book clubs, and literacy blocks. Community share is “a whole group instruction in which the teacher teachers learners what they are going to do in their upcoming reading or writing, how to talk about a text, and how to teach skills and strategies,” (Cohen, 2010). In my specified classroom, there is a lot of community share. Before each of our lessons we teach, we provide children with a whole group instruction of what they are going to be doing in either reading or writing. Often the mini-lesson involves showing the learners how to implement a new strategy or skill, or how to engage in readers and writers workshop. It is very explicit and helps the learners to know what is expected of them and how to engage in the tasks they will be given. Often times the lesson is done using think-alouds, where my teacher, or myself, models for the children how to apply certain strategies or skills. As far as closing community, our learners do not engage in this, as it is laid out in the framework. The framework says that closing community is a time for learners to, “share ideas and issues that emerged in their book club discussions” (Cohen, 2010). Our learners do not do this. Instead, after our learners have engaged in readers or writers workshop, we pull them back together for a whole group discussion in which we talk about what we noticed that was going well, and what we, as teachers, saw that we think needs to be modified. We also allow it to be a time where learners talk about their experiences with readers and writers workshop. Reading, the next component of the framework, is similar, but a little different. In the Book Club Plus framework, reading is a time in which teachers engage learners in read alouds and/or shared reading. Our class does read-alouds daily, multiple times throughout the day. In this part, the frameworks are similar. In contrast, however, our shared readings are set up a little different than in the framework. The framework has shared reading being a time in which teachers provide each learner with a version of the book, in a small group setting. In this small group setting, the teacher reads the story and the children follow along. In my classroom, shared reading is done through a giant book, in which the learners are able to see the print and read along, but they do not have their own books and it is not done in small groups. The purpose of the shared reading, in my classroom, is to scaffold the learners in the skills they need to learn how to read, and also to teach the learners about concepts of print. Writing, the next component of the framework, is greatly different in my classroom than how it is used in the framework. In the framework, writing is supposed to be a time in which learners reflect on what they have read and have opportunities to evaluate, inquire, and critically reflect on the book they are reading during student book clubs. In my kindergarten class, we do not even have student book clubs, let alone provide children time to write about the stories we read in class. Writer’s workshop, in my class, is a time in which the learners write about things that have already happened to them. It is not connected to the various readings we do in class. With this being said, my cooperating teacher has informed me that once we start the Daily Five, one of the centers is going to be where the learners sit and listen to a book on tape. Once they are finished listening to the book on tape, they are required to draw a picture of their favorite part, and maybe add words, if they are able to. Lastly, my class does have a version of the literacy centers that the Book Club Plus framework talks about. In my class, we have what is called the Daily Five. This is a time when the children independently move through various literacy activities while my teacher and I pull guided reading groups (another component of the Book Club Plus framework). Our centers will involve a listening center, letter identification and games center, a word study center, a writing center, and a reading center.
In being in Kindergarten, our entire day, I feel, is dominated by literacy instruction. If someone were to ask me when literacy instruction takes place, I would say all day long. Looking at the flow of our day, my learners come into class where they get their book bins and read silently for the first 10 minutes of school. After that, they come to the carpet where they engage in morning meeting, a time where they go over the calendar, the poem of the day, and the morning message. At this time, they have opportunities to read the poem, calendar, and message, view all three, speak, when I ask them questions, and listen to other learners. After that, my learners have readers’ workshop where they read and view books. Following readers’ workshop, they have word study, in which they are able to use speaking, sometimes writing, reading, and listening to engage in word study activities. From word study, the learners then engage in writer’s workshop, where they are able to write, and at the end, speak about what they wrote. The Daily Five then follows, in which the learners go around to centers, as groups of learners are pulled for guided reading. Once lunch is over, the children engage in making meaning, in which they interact in all but the writing aspect of literacy. Making meaning is followed by math, where the learners engage in a lot of listening, viewing, reading of math (math literacy), and speaking. Their day ends when they engage in structured play, a time when they are able to do some more play based activities like play-doh. However, even at this time, the learners are actively engaging in discourse amongst one another, and thus are engaging in literacy, even though it is not through direct instruction. Sometimes throughout our day, we have social studies and science, but even then, the lessons are heavily focused on story reading and discourse among learners.
Focusing closely on the style of writing that takes place in my classroom, in regards to writing into a text, through a text, and out of a text, I have really not seen my learners engage in any, in the written form. Like I said before, my learners are soon to be able to engage in the writing about their favorite part of a story, a very simplistic version of writing out of a text, but that is not till much later in the year. In the mean time, whenever my class talks about a book as a whole, we do it orally. I found it interesting, however, that we touch upon and talk about all different types of points that one would have the learners write about as they write into, through, or out of a text, we just do it orally, in large group. For example, before reading a story we have the learners, predict what they think is going to happen, raise questions, highlight the premise of the story, etc. Though my learners are not writing out the information, they are still benefiting from having the talks take place orally, amongst one another.