Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Oct 4th Blog
The chapters we read in Book Club Plus was very helpful in my understanding of what Book Club Plus is all about and how we can (and already do) incorporate aspects of book clubs in my class. Much of my classroom’s daily schedule consists of some form of literacy. We start the day with a shared reading lesson, move onto writer’s workshop mini lesson and then writer’s workshop independent writing. We usually try and offer time for the children to share their writing afterward. Next we move onto reader’s workshop and phonetics lesson. We always have at least one read-aloud and two days a week we utilize the Making Meaning literacy program. We also do Daily 5 centers four days a week. In these centers, we have guided reading, independent reading, oral language (usually partner reading or retelling), handwriting/writing, and word study. During our read-alouds and Making Meaning lessons, we utilize literacy discussion to point out the key concepts and big ideas we want the class to understand. Lately, we have been stressing the concepts of a book such as author, illustrator, who is telling us the story. We also ask questions that relate to making connections to personal experiences or books that we have previously read. We also have been showing the children that stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. We point this out when we read to the children. We also model how to stretch their stories in writer’s workshop to show a beginning, middle, and end. We show them how to sketch all three pictures first and then write about their pictures after. What I read in the chapters that we do not use in my own classroom is the concepts of themes. I think that later in the year, my teacher may incorporate themes into the classroom but I’m not really sure. I am used to teaching based upon themes and would really like to see this happen. I have used it in my last student teaching classroom but I’m not really sure. I am used to teaching based upon themes and would really like to see this happen. I have used it in my last student teaching experience and thought it was a wonderful way to expose the children to curriculum materials while tying in other information that may not be required to teach. I would also like to see more classroom discussions. Our discussions are minimal and restrictive but I hope as the year progresses and the children learn their classroom expectations and rules, more discussions will be possible. I would like to see the students’ converse with each other about literature. I think this would be beneficial for them as well as for myself and my CT. It would be a great way for the children to share their opinions and thoughts on the books they read and hear other children’s reflections and ideas. It would also be a great informal assessment for me to be able to observe the types of conversations between the children and get an understanding of what the children are understanding and where more explanation by be required.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I really liked the idea about themes when I read this too. Recently my CT has been using themes more in order to address issues that have come up in the class. We haven't really discussed the themes by saying "we are reading another book about fairness" to the students, but we have made ties to books we have already read when reading new books. The example I have seen so far in the class is the theme of bullying and fairness. We have been incorporating this theme in our social studies lessons when talking about teamwork. We talked about how everyone on a team might have different jobs, but it's still fair because everyone works together. We also used this idea of teamwork to talk about putting your team down. We discussed that it hurts the whole team if one person on the team is feeling bad. We have also read a few books for language arts that addressed this theme (Bully, and Oliver Button is a Sissy). Because one little girl in our class is clearly who the book theme is addressed to, I did not know how I felt about this theme when we started reading books like this. My teacher has addressed this girl in front of the whole class and tried to come up with solutions for the bullying problem. I do not like singling students out, but this seems to be helping the other students in the class feel better or be able to ignore the bully a little better.
ReplyDeleteKristen-
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I think it would be really beneficial to tie in themes with the literacy curriculum. As we discussed in class, it is a great way to tie in the different components of literacy. I think it enriches the depth of all the different literacy aspects of the day. When what learners read is meaningful, and is connected to word study and writer’s workshop, a lot more can come from the learners work. For example, if a learner is learning about families through stories, gets to write about families in writers’ workshop, and gets to discover new vocabulary related to families, during word study, I think learners start to see the relatedness of all the aspects of literacy. I am curious, in first grade, what is the focus of your shared reading? In kindergarten, the focus is on concepts about print, and it is completely separate from our other literacy components of the day. For example, shared reading is not connected to readers’ workshop or writers’ workshop. It seems as though your class is really effective in incorporating what the learners are learning from readers’ workshop and writers’ workshop together with the making meaning and read alouds. I am also curious, if your class doesn’t really engage in discussions, what is making meaning like in your classroom? From my experience, making meaning’s purpose is to encourage deep discussion amongst the learners. I have had some of my deepest discussions with my learners over things we have talked about during making meaning. I agree with you, the discussions are a great way to informally assess one’s learners and see what they understand. Does this mean that your learners never utilize turning and talking to their partner? If not, that really interests me because that is all of what we teach learners in kindergarten.