Entry 11: My Last Blog- Final Thoughts

 At the beginning of this semester I thought I knew what literacy was.

I thought that reading was reading and writing was writing and there wasn't much more to it. I thought that reading was only learned in school- where as when I look at it through the lens that we have used throughout this class, literacy is everywhere- and we need it greatly in order to survive. All of the factors that contribute to a literate person, including but not limited to phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, early childhood literacy learning, reading and writing processes and other topics are all of these factors contribute to what I now understand as literacy and what it means to be literate. My literacy status is always growing I believe, because there is always room for improvement when it comes to your own literacy; there is always room for growth and learning even as an adult. 

Overall I believe that I have a better understanding of literacy as a whole. I understand now that literacy starts from a very young age in your early childhood development, and you create new skills such as reading and writing, and you build on those skills throughout your childhood and adolescence to become a literate person. One of the thing that I learned the importance of that I thought I had a good grasp on before this class was the importance of diverse learning materials. An example being, for teaching the alphabet Tompkins made a chart (figure 4-2 on page 117) to teach the alphabet to young students. These examples included everything from alphabet books to magnetic letters to letter books and posters and many other examples of how to just differentiate teaching the alphabet. Tompkins gives many tables and charts throughout the text book that are helpful to teachers in differentiating and understand what they need to be able to teach and what the students need to understand. 

I was also taught this semester that literacy knowledge has a sequence to it, and its all about building future and present knowledge off of past literacy knowledge. As discussed in the Deeper Dive of Matt and I on phonics and phonemic awareness, literacy has a base which is phonics and phonemic awareness, and we keep building off of that base to be able to spell, and that leads us to be able to read and write. I learned that phonics isn't as terrifying as it once was to me- that I learned phonics through activities and as I have experienced- without knowing that I am learning phonics. 

This blog throughout the semester has helped me keep track of my thoughts on the topics throughout the semester as I learned about the different topics that involved and created literacy. The blog throughout the semester also helped me think in an organized way where I could record how I would teach different topics of literacy to my future students and I am able to look back to those thoughts on this blog. I am thankful for this class and everything that it has taught me so that I can teach literacy to students better and I now have a better understanding of what literacy is.

Entry 10: Bless Address and/or Press

This week I will be addressing Meaghan Jackson's blog post on vocabulary development; Vocabulary Development Can be Fun?. First of all the blog post by Meaghan was great and I appreciated the way that she incorporated Zipke and her personal experiences into her blog post. Meaghan and I share common views on how education should be viewed and how we want to teach! We have the same ideology that teaching should be both educational and enjoyable for the students in order to get the best results. I enjoyed when Meaghan stated: 

"If children are engaged in what they are reading, find joy in it, and excited to learn about new vocabulary words they may come across because of that joy, I think that is success. Reading is essential in vocabulary growth, especially in the younger grades, therefore, the more time children spend reading (and enjoying what they are reading), the more successful they will be in reading comprehension and beyond" (Jackson). 

This quotation above from Meaghan also reminds me of Tompkins and Tompkins thoughts on having a child read more. "Vocabulary knowledge and reading achievement are closely related: Students with larger vocabularies are more capable readers, and they know more strategies for figuring out the meanings of unfamiliar words than less capable readers do (Graves, 2006). One reason why capable readers have larger vocabularies is that they do more reading" (Tompkins, 220). Students that are more inclined to read have a better success rate than students that don't, vocabulary knowledge is linked to reading achievement, and one way that we can create reading achievement is to help the students that we have in our classroom find reading materials that they enjoy. 

My question to you is how can we relate this to Muhammad's sense of joy in the classroom? Can we use this joy that we want to create in our classrooms to help implement to HRL framework into the classroom? How can we use Muhammad to help create vocabulary growth through all grades? 

As we look to what we should use in the classroom and what how we should teach, this quote is closely related to Muhammad's HRL framework and connecting joy to educational growth. Using texts that can have an interpersonal relation to the student can create the growth that needs to be seen in the classroom. Muhammad references a text by Geneva Gay in her text, "Gay (2010) suggests that students' interest and engagement in learning increase when educators use pedagogies connected to their experiences. Additionally, teachers using this approach see curriculum as a tool of power and a disruption of marginalization" (Muhammad, 45). This in turn shows that students that receive this type of education create better growth through care for the students and the material that they are being taught. 

Muhammad's HRL framework can also help build vocabulary and comprehension through differentiated texts that the students can identify with and her thoughts of criticality and intellect through the framework. Reading layered texts that are in the students interest area, have the students develop opinions about the texts that they are reading and having the students analyze texts are just a few examples that I can think of that would help incorporate the HRL framework into the classroom. 

Vocabulary Building is FUN!

     Throughout this semester I have learned various reasons about the importance of reading and writing for children as they make their way through childhood. This week we were set to uncover why vocabulary building is important for children. I found that learning vocabulary didn't have to be dull or boring, that we can use different activities and methods to help students unlock the meaning of words and the multiple meanings in situational text. My question I pose in this blog post then is- with all of this information given in these two texts, how can I as a teacher create ways to make learning vocabulary engaging to all of my students?

    In Tompkins text there were multiple examples of instructional differentiated learning techniques such as creating word walls, having mini-lessons on the new vocabulary words that will be introduced in a text, word posters, word maps, having the students write possible sentences that the new vocabulary word will be found in and many more activities! Having these differentiated learning styles creates a way that I can create a lesson or activity that all students can enjoy as a class. For example, the students could create word posters for the vocabulary unit that we are covering, they would write the word down and then draw what the word means. This would create meaning for the child, creating a way to view what the word means in both the English vocabulary and a picture could help them better understand the word. 

    In the article Teaching Metalinguistic Awareness and Reading Comprehension With Riddles by Marcy Zipke explains that riddles are an excellent way to teach children vocabulary. "Riddles offer especially engaging instructional content for teaching language manipulation for many reasons: Most children are familiar and comfortable with riddles. They have heard riddles before, whether r not they understood the ambiguity in them. In addition, riddles are especially suited for young readers because they are whole texts" (Zipke 2008). This quote furthers my thought process on how I can teach children reading and writing comprehension in text without making it a boring task. Creating a way that students can learn with riddles I also believe can create joy in the classroom. 

This can relate to Muhammads text and the standard of joy in the classroom. We can use the differentiated learning from both Tompkins and Zipke to create a foundation of learning that includes all students. We can use texts and rhymes from different cultures and backgrounds to help students establish their identity, become complex thinkers, create skills, and their overall intellectual development. "...a great deal of research has found that students have the potential for success when they see themselves in the curriculum and when their cultural, gender, and racial identities are affirmed" (Muhammad, pg. 69).  Creating a classroom bookshelf that holds books and rhymes/riddles from different backgrounds and cultures can expose children to a whole new world of information, helping them understand not only themselves, but also help them understand the people that surround them. 

Entry 8: Bless, Address and Press

 This weeks blog post I will be referring to Thalia Cruz's excellent entry, Disengaged or Disinterested? based on the knowledge and understanding of written and oral language of early learners and how Thalia has connected this learning to a sixth grade classroom that she has been observing. 

Bless

First of all, I want to commend Thalia for her excellent understanding and work that she put into the blog post as well and the personal experiences that she extended to us to show the understanding and implementation of Language Experience Approach and the problems that teachers, and us as future teachers, might come across. I want to also state that I admire Thalia's kindness towards her students and how she helped the student even though the host teacher did not and said that she shouldn't help them with their work because they were "lazy"; Thalia wanting to help her students is something that I also strive for in my future classroom! 

Address

One of the questions I have for Thalia is since some teachers find that the Language Experience Approach is ineffective how can we go around that "laziness" ideology and instead use the LEA to be able to further students ability not only in the classroom setting with reading and writing but also connecting it to Muhammad and her HRL framework? It states on page 135 of Tompkins that part of the Language Experience Approach is the ability to create individual booklets, "... children create individual booklets. They draw pictures on each page or cut pictures from magazines to glue to each page, and then they dictate the text that the teacher writes besides each illustration. Children can also make collaborative books, where each child creates one page to be added to the class book" (Tompkins, p.135). These collaborative books could be used as a way to continue to integrate Muhammad's HRL framework into the classroom. An example could be that you could you the collaborative book and each child could use a page to draw their family- where they came from and have them express their culture. This could help the children create/ continue creating a sense of identity through a book. Then you would be able to share the book with the class and share each child's background and history, creating shared knowledge of different cultures, backgrounds and families. 

Press

I want to press Thalia's thoughts on what other activities we can do as educators to be able to engage those students that are disengaged or uninterested in the topic that we have to teach- especially if it is a state mandated lesson. How can we as educators engage our students to make sure that they are using reading and writing skills without them feeling forced to do so. Also how would Thalia use the method of the Language Experience Approach in her future classroom? What activities can she provide to ensure that all of her students eventually read and write for themselves without the extra hand? How can we pair the Language Experience Approach with Muhammad's HRL framework with identity, skill, intellect and criticality? 

References

Tompkins, G.E. (2017). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th Edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Entry 7: Phonics

Phonemic awareness is extremely important in the education of every person. I agree with the fact that phonemic awareness should be integrated throughout our education and teaching. I also believe that we should use our instruction and group activities to do these activities instead of worksheets to ensure that students are successful in their education. In the article Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask), the authors state that, "What seems to work in phonics instruction is direct teacher instruction, not practice on worksheets" (Stahl et. al., 342). Continuing on to say, "This may be because completing worksheets takes students time away from reading stories or content material, and because instructional aspects of worksheets are often poorly designed" (Stahl, et. al., 342). I believe that worksheets are not important in the way they have been in the past when looking at phonics and spelling. Instead we can use other activities that are stated by both Stahl et. al., and Tompkins such as Elkonin boxes, sound segmentation activities, sound blending activities, sound addition activities, sound subtraction activities, and sound matching activities as well as other activities that instead of giving a child a worksheet where they are mindlessly writing words out, I want the children to be engaged in the learning so that they can get the most from the lesson being taught. 

Making sure that as a teacher I incorporate activities and educational fun ways to learn is important to my teaching, especially teaching youth who are all different in their ways of learning. I will make sure to incorporate all activities and include graphic organizers to make sure children get all forms of teaching for the best result! I would also include different books from different cultures in the classroom library to make sure the children are exposed to multiple different words that have different meanings. Some of these books include; Same But Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw, Esquivel! Space age sound artist by Susan Wood, and Magic Trash: A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art by J.H. Shapiro, along with other books! These books would help the children create a larger vocabulary, and have them experience life through others lives and bring awareness to others backgrounds. 

These activities that are listed above are several activities that I am going to incorporate into my future classroom! My goal is to have a 3rd grade classroom when I get my own classroom and using these exercises and having a fluent knowledge of the English language will help all students in their schoolwork and readings. If there is a student that is below the average for third grade as well I would also use these exercises to help the child create an understanding for early phonics and literacy so they can understand better instead of them just getting worksheets. Using these different activities for the students that are in need of extra help can help the students go from sound blending to reading words to reading texts that are provided in class.

Entry 6: Literacy Development

 In both the text by Tompkins' Literacy for the 21st Century and the article Building Preschool Children's Language and Literacy One Storybook at a Time by Beauchat, Blamey and Walpole you can see that there is a shared sense of importance to shared read aloud story time readings for young children. Both of these literary works explained how children are able to read and write in the beginning of their life and how they continue, but I think that shared story time read aloud's are not always focused on. Using shared storybook time can create skills and help basic motor skills develop by simply handling a book and learning to change the page/hold the book. "The storybook reading format complements instruction in concepts of print, providing a natural platform for modeling behaviors such as how to hold a book, turning pages from left to right, identifying a title, and differentiating between words and pictures" (Beauchat et. al., p. 34). Creating and using this read aloud time can also create a time for teachers to help students become informed about different cultures and ideas. I will use this time when I create my own classroom for childhood education in a way that students can identify with the text that is being talked about. The texts that I pick for read aloud will have a meaning to them, and each new reading will be unique from the others; new characters, new scene, and different cultures/ ethnicities/ backgrounds! 

    These read aloud's that children experience should incorporate some kind of identity information that the children are able to relate to. Helping children be able to identify and relate to in literature that we read during class is crucial in the children's self identify and it helps the teacher with student engagement. According to Gholdy Muhammads HRL Framework we must incorporate cultures and backgrounds of our students in our curriculum to be able to create an inclusive classroom.  Tompkins stated "Literacy development has been broadened to incorporate the cultural and social aspects of language learning, and children's experiences with and understanding about written language-- both reading and writing -- are included as part of emergent literacy" (Tompkins p. 211) Multiple sources such as Tompkins and Muhammad have said that in order to create a classroom that is successful we should incorporate culture. I think that this is something to fight for, as a teacher I should create a classroom that helps express all student backgrounds that are in my classroom to help them evolve into better learners. Bringing culture into writing can also be beneficial such as researching a new culture or country and writing a report on it. The students could even write notes about what they researched just to be able to retain the information that they learned about the different culture. 

Creating a classroom where I can celebrate all cultures instead of dulling them down i believe will create learners that will want to read and write, and ultimately celebrate their peers as part of the class. 

Entry 5: Midpoint Reflection

Dear Dr. Jones,

    This semester has been eye and mind opening as the first semester of my graduate school experience. This class has been not what I expected, but I have fully enjoyed your way of teaching. Coming into the class I thought that this class would just mainly be about reading dense materials and writing reflections about the article/book that we read. Instead, I feel as though we have created a classroom community and I am fully engaged with the assigned readings and conversations/ discussions that are held during and after class. There are several pieces of information that stood out to me this semester so far that I feel I will be carrying through the rest of my life. One of these pieces of information is Kucer's definition of literacy. To be able to view literacy as multidimensional creates a new outlook on literacy pieces, what literacy is, and what it means to be literate. To be able to see that literacy has different aspects such as the different dimensions (developmental, sociocultural, linguistic and cognitive) creates a better understanding of what creates literary events. 

    Another piece of information that I found interesting that I learned in class this semester was the SQR4 method for active reading. This method I believe has heavily influenced my way of reading and taking notes on the literature that is presented in class. I have been using the SQR4 method, analyzing what I am reading and creating notes has made me become a more critical thinker instead of just reading for knowledge. The SQR4 strategy has created a way for me to become a better active reader and be able to comprehend class material better, for example, before learning the method I used to only highlight the areas of the text that I deemed important. Now I question the text, create notes for myself, answer the questions that I create from the headings, and try to connect texts to other texts, text to self, or texts to the world to be able to comprehend the article/text material better! 

    Class hasn't been the only thing that has created an impact on my knowledge of literacy and teaching. Liz Kleinrock's presentation on anti-bias was also extremely informational. Liz Kleinrock's presentation supported the idea that we need to include literature that gives the viewpoints of happiness in all cultures. We as teachers need to include books for all ages in all grade levels books that respect and involve happiness for all races, genders, and heritages to create an inclusive classroom. I also learned that even though they are creating new standards for learning that will not let us teach certain subject matters, we can use primary sources so the students can still be educated on certain matters. As a future educator I believe both the presentation by Liz Kleinrock and the articles that we have been reading in class such as Muhammad's Cultivating Genius, articles that we have read for class, and Tompkins text I should find texts that help create and form identity while embracing different backgrounds. 

    Overall this class has been very informational so far. The only thing that I am struggling with slightly is time management which I have been improving with as I now use a planner and write down all assignments that are due! This helps me schedule my time out and visually see how much is due each week!