After reading this article we talked about how our school is using a "balanced" approach to literacy. BES is using what is described by Cunningham as the four blocks reading program. This past school year, we implemented guided reading and read to self through the Daily Five. In the upcoming school year we will be adding Writer's Workshop and Words Their Way. We discussed how we implement homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping of our students in K-2 with our scheduling. This can be very difficult to do in classrooms with 22 children. Tracy complemented the teachers in our school by saying that he feels that the teachers in our building have a good "tool box" to meet the needs of all learners. Everyone is different, therefore it takes different methods to reach all the students. We also talked about how when working with small children especially that one day a method may work and the next day it will not. It is important to pay attention to the children and it is okay to have teachable moments. Sometimes you must stop a lesson and give them some background knowledge especially when you are teaching children from poverty areas. When comparing Method A and Method B, Tracy posed the questions "Why not do both?" One of the last things that we talked about was this statement, "teacher education is ongoing, not short term". This is so true. I believe that I can say that every teacher in our building has definitely learned something new this year!
While I was reading these two articles, I started thinking about how much things have changed in what I teach and how I teach it since I started teaching just six years ago. In the article "In pursuit of an illusion: The flawed search for a perfect method," I couldn't help but think of a wonderful reading teacher who gave me some great advice. She said, "Keep what worked from your old reading series, and use it in the place of what doesn't work from the new reading series." She lived by this rule. She used materials that she had in the early 80's.
Articles On Word Recognition: In Pursuit of an illusion: The Flawed Search for a Perfect Method by Gerald G. Duffy and James V. Hoffman
As I was reading this article, I couldn't help but think of a wonderful reading teacher who gave me some great advice. She said, "Keep what worked from your old reading series, and use it in the place of what doesn't work from the new reading series." She lived by this rule. She used materials that she had in the early 80's, and her students were some of the best readers in the building!
Articles on Vocabulary: What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction by Richard L. Allington
In our theoretical discussion group, we spent a lot of time discussing Dr. Allington's article. As Heather and Tracy both put it, it was an eye opening reading. We all agreed that expertise matters. Teachers who are not experts rely on products to get their students ready for tests trying to make up for what was not effective in their teaching through the year. We also got in to the discussion about how it takes 35 to 50 years of research for things to change in education. Allington states that effective teachers give their students longer assignments involving choice. The students are working on similar, but different tasks. I know several students that this has worked on, but I didn't allow it for all students. I only did this with students who stubbed up on assignments. Most of the time their attitude changed when I offered them something else to do that was basically the same assignment! The section on testing said that effective teachers gave grades based on effort and improvement. This is wonderful, because the students who don't have to try hard don't and the ones who try so hard often get frustrated when they don't receive high grade.
Articles on Vocabulary:
Behind Test Scores: What Struggling Readers Really Need by Shelia W. Valencia and Marsha Riddle Buly
This article talks about how students who struggle in reading are not all the same. Some students need decoding instruction, while others need exposure to vocabulary, some students need to read books on their level to enhance their fluency. This article gave examples of children from the six groups that the fourth graders were categorized.
Articles On Comprehension:
Proof, Practice, and Promise: Comprehension Strategy Instruction in the Primary Grades
by Katherine A.Stahl
Comprehension Instruction in Content Area Classes by Paul Neufeld
What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Comprehension by Laura S. Pardo
We talked about the reading strategies that were presented in the articles and how theses strategies are helpful to mold students into expert readers. We talked about how these needs are being better addressed in our school since we began using guided reading. The question was posed on how do we do a quick check for comprehension if the students can not get their summary to paper? We could sit down with each individual child, but that would be very time consuming in a very cramped day already. This just proves how reading and writing go hand in hand. We should not teach these as two different subjects, because really you can't do one without the other. We liked how Stahl presented the research based strategies and how some is used by teachers and some is not. The KWL chart that so many teachers use in their daily classrooms doesn't have any research to prove its effectiveness.
These articles were insightful and helpful. I am particularly fond of Neufeld's article and the last helpful hints that he gives to help carry out comprehension instruction.
- Teaching a few comprehension strategies well is more effective that teaching many strategies poorly. (Brown,2002)
- Teach students to use strategies flexible, adapting them to their needs, their individual preferences, and the text at hand (Pressley, 2002)
- Remember that reading comprehension strategies are a means to an end and not the end. The end is helping students become expert comprehenders of challenging texts.
- Students need many opportunities to practice the strategies they are learning. (Brown, 2002)
After reading these articles, I know that I need to give explicit instruction and model how to use the strategies to become expert readers. This is a very difficult task for some beginning readers especially those who are lacking background knowledge.
What Can I Say Besides "Sound It out"? Coaching Word Recognition in Beginning Reading
by Kathleen F. Clark
Creating Fluent Readers
by Timothy Rasinski
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