The articles made it apparent how teachers need to learn about each child and where they are in terms of literacy development. Because children start learning literacy when they are born, their first literacy lessons come from thir parents. This means that each child enters school with a different level of literacy. It is necessary for teacher to understand this and adapt their classrooms to meet the needs of all children from varying backgrounds and varying levels.
I was both intregued and excited to see how teachers structure their classrooms to support literacy development. After reading how exposing children to the same text several times can increase their understanding of the text and their confidence reading, I was suprised. I never thought about this point. I thought that reading the same text several times would be boring and pointless, but as the article continued to discuss how beneficial it is for children, espically those learning english as a second language. I was most impressed with the different learning groups. By putting children in specific groups, the teacher was able to give a level of insturction most approptiate for the children. All the children would be working with the same text, but discussing it and working with it in different ways. It instantly became evident to me how beneficial this is. I also liked that all the children were working with the same text. This could prevent stigatism of different leveled groups.
The article that discussed learning centers was also very intresting to me. I loved how the children could choose what activity to do. By setting up the classroom this way, the children were able to do what they felt comfortable doing and what they enjoyed. This puts them incharge of their own learning. They will be more engaged and take more from the activity when it is meaningful for them. Also, the centers gave children the chance to explore something new. The children could move at their own pace and try and fail alone, without being compared to the rest of the class (if they were all doing the same activity at the same time.) If it took a child longer to complete the activity at the center than other, it could appear that the child is simply very engaged or doing more work with a single activity. I feel that this learning environment would be very comfortable for all learners, espically those with learning disibilities or those learning language as a second language.
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Katie-
ReplyDeleteI was also very intrigued by the different teaching techniques that we were exposed to through the articles. In addition to these, the video this morning really helped to create a visual of how teachers reach all their students with emergent literacy. For example, Mrs. H in the video did a really good job of reaching all her students through the same type of instruction. It really was interesting how she stressed that the students "write", even though writing could take the form of drawing pictures. She praised each of them for their work and really built their confidence so that they kept trying to progress. By the end of the year, each of her students had made quite a bit of improvement. This is something that happens in my placement each week. My CT encourages the students to write and to try to spell things out on their own, and she accepts things that are incorrect even though they may be spelled incorrectly. I think that with a good balance of letting the students make mistakes and correcting them that the students will advancec well as we saw in class.
I had never really thought to use the same book but with different assignments in the groups as a teaching technique either. I think you made a good point, because it does take away from the stigma of being in different "levels". Students really would have no idea that other groups are discussing a different question, or if they did, they would not catch on that it was because another group was at a higher reading level or what not. I also thought that reading the same text over and over would get boring, but thinking about it I see that in my kindergarten classroom a lot. My CT will read a book to the students a few times in one day then the next day she will read it to them again. The students really enjoy it though because then during their "centers" they are able to "read" the book themselves. This makes reading enjoyable and definitely builds up their confidence as they feel as though they are able to read an entire book by themselves because they have heard the book numerous times.
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