Garman Reading Lesson 1 and 2 Overview

The target area I have chosen for my lessons is phonological awareness skills. After having a discussion with my mentor teacher, as well as having observed the students often during their reading and writing lessons, it came to my attention that all of the students would benefit from more practice in developing this area. In addition, I also was able to give the students an end of quarter assessment for report cards, which helped me in choosing who to work with for these lessons. 

For my first lesson, I plan to work with two students who are in the more beginning stages of developing phonological awareness. These two students are still learning their alphabet letters and also struggle with their letter sounds (based on discussion with mentor teacher as well as assessments given). Because of this, I thought these two students would benefit from an activity and mini-lesson that would focus on phoneme-letter matching. 

The second lesson will be planned for two students who are further along in their development, and will focus on segmenting and blending sounds together. These two students I will be working with have demonstrated that they know their entire alphabet, as well as their letter sounds (with minor confusion at times). These students are ready to begin developing strategies to decode words, which will help them with their reading and writing development. 

Cornfield Reading Lesson Overview

In order to select students for my reading lessons I asked my mentor teacher who she would like me to work with. She told me it would be best to work with two students on their fluency, and a different two students on their comprehension. I know these areas are appropriate for my target students because my mentor teacher does literacy testing on them and knows who is struggling with what. The two students who are struggling with comprehension are not able to answer questions about the text after they read it. My mentor teacher says during comprehension activities she spends more time helping them, I have also noticed the same thing when I am in the classroom. The other two students I will be working with need more work on their fluency. My mentor teacher says they can identify words but struggle to read at a faster pace.

Tompkins Ch. 7

Chapter 7 talks about expanding student's knowledge of words. The role of a teacher provides daily opportunities for students to read books independently and listen to them read aloud. Teachers use sustained silent reading, interactive read-aloud and think-aloud techniques to improve student word knowledge. Now teachers categorize unfamiliar words intro 3 categories: basic words, academic words, and  specialized words. Word walls are a great way to divide words for student understanding. When it comes to tier 2 words, teachers use explicit instruction and a variety of word-study activities. Word maps are a great visual way to teach new words. Teachers are key in supporting students' development of word-learning strategies. What word learning strategies are, is that they are learning strategies that include using context clues, analyzing word parts, or checking a dictionary for meaning. Word play is another way for teachers to encourage students to learn new words. Unfortunately I do not have a book club novel yet, so that part of the blog I will be unable to post.

New Literacy: My conceptual understanding and classroom implications

1) Your Conceptual Understanding:

When I first posted about literacy at the beginning of this semester I only had knowledge of what literacy was, not what literacy can be. Since the beginning of class I always thought literacy was just understanding print through books. I never once thought to include new literacies like visual or environmental, just to name a few. Our group had visual literacy for our project and through this projects I saw that visual literacy is very important in today's technology centered world. Learning like everything else is fast paced and using images for children's learning is both beneficial for them and for teachers.
Our group project has made me see that images, graphs, or just visuals in general or used in visual literacy and can be more of a learning experience for all, even more so that print literacy. Images are easier for students to understand and comprehend versus actual print literacy. I found through this project that visual literacy is very important for the fast pacing world of technology. By using visual literacy through technology in the classroom, the students are getting involved with technology as much as possible. Visual literacy in our project was a great way to showcase how you could do that. That is something I never would have thought doing before this class began.

2) Classroom Implications:

To provide effective literacy instruction to diverse learners we as teachers must make literacy informative as well as engaging. Through visual literacy comprehension can be increased for students. Adding visually literacy to any subject increases their engagement in the learning of any specific topic. Our project on kerpoof.com used technology to create your own story with images and text. This is a great way for any student of any thinking level to properly engage themselves in a fun project. Visual and digital literacies are very important for today's student. It lets teachers integrate technology in the classroom.

New Literacies Final Blog

1) Conceptual Understandings

My understanding of literacy has really broadened up since this project. At the beginning of this class I thought of literacy as simply being whether a person was able to read and write. To be considered literate, I thought it meant you could read and write fluently. While I know this is still one kind of literacy, after doing this project and exploring many types of literacy, I now know literacy can mean many different things because there are many types of literacy. The new literacy I focused on was emotional literacy but by exploring my classmates projects I saw the wide variety of literacies that there are. Before completing this project I would not have known what emotional literacy is and why it is important to be emotionally literate, or emotionally intelligent. Now I know that emotional literacy involves being able to identify your own emotions and how to handle them as well as being able to tell how other people are feeling. I also found that exploring a new digital literacy that I have never heard of before helped me to broaden my definition of literacy as well. Technology is extremely popular today, so therefore it should definitely be included in literacy.  Being able to use technology is basically expected of people nowadays so therefore, I found it very helpful to learn and explore a new digital technology I had never heard of to expand my digital literacy knowledge.

2) Classroom Implications

After learning that there are many different types of literacy, I would try to teach as many as possible in my classroom. I think it would be possible to include many literacies into lesson plans. For example, emotional literacy could be discussed during language arts time. One way I might do this in my classroom is discuss how characters are feeling, and why. Ask the students how they could make them feel better, or how they would handle the situation that is making the character feel what they are feeling. Visual literacy could also be used in many lessons, by making many things visual. Even though many visual items would be used in the lesson, I would keep in mind that all students are diverse learners, which means I would still use words for those who learn better with audio. Using Edmodo.com for my digital literacy I really saw how useful and helpful technology can be in the classroom. In order for students to become more digitally literate I think it is important to include technology in the classroom all of the time. For example, I could see myself using Edmodo.com in my own classroom for a space that we can all communicate together as a class outside of the actual classroom in a safe environment. In order for students to be able to use Edmodo.com they would need to have internet access. I would also give them explicit lessons during class time on how to use the website correctly, and they would be given time to practice in class so I could help as needed.

New Literacy- Conceptual Understanding and Classroom Implications

Conceptual Understanding
My original definition of literacy that I posted was several people's individual conceptions about what literacy was. Only one of them talked about technology, but overall everyone of those people agreed that literacy's main goal is communication. Through researching visual literacy and using a digital literacy to go along with it, my understanding of literacy has grown. Before this project, I thought of literacy as one big idea that encompassed everything- visual, communication, culture, technology, etc. I thought of it as something very general, which I think is reflected in my original definition. But now, I know that there are many different literacies, each one having very specific definitions and are all inter-related in trying to communicate a message. By researching visual literacy, I came to understand that pictures, graphs, videos, models, etc., are all different ways in which people communicate. The main sense used to comprehend the message is sight, but the other senses can also be used to supplement this- thus, the overlapping of literacies. The digital literacy used in  my group's project also demonstrated how important it is for students to be taught how to use technology- that technology alone is it's own kind of literacy. Digital literacies are extremely useful for supplementing development of other literacies as well while allowing students to be even more creative with their message.


Classroom Implications
Based on my new understanding of literacy, I believe effective literacy instruction focuses on integrating all the literacies into daily lessons and assessments. Diverse learners come from all different backgrounds and all have varied ways of learning and preferred ways of communication, so it would be wrong to focus on one type of literacy over another. Making sure students are competent in each literacy will help them to grow up to be global citizens.

Notes on New Literacy

1. What am I learning about the new literacy I am researching?

The new literacy I am researching is emotional literacy. I have learned that emotional literacy has a lot to do with whether or not someone is able to describe how they feel and if they understand how others are feeling. When relating this to my future students, I think it is important to be emotionally literate because understanding how other people are feeling and being able to empathize with them is important. I have also learned that emotional literacy involves being able to manage emotions. I also think that this is an important quality to learn to have because as humans we all experience many emotions and it is important to know how to handle and manage them. 

2. What am I learning about how my digital literacy is developing as I use a new technology to create my product?

My digital literacy is Edmodo.com. I have learned that this is a great way for all students/parents/teacher to interact with each other. By exploring Edmodo.com I have learned that this digital literacy can go along with emotional literacy. This website can provide students a place to share how they are feeling in a comfortable way. As the teacher, I can control who can see what posts, which makes it a private comfortable space. In addition, Edmodo.com is very organized and includes a planner so the students can see exactly where they are supposed to be in their learning.