final project

For my final project I made a collage of the reading process on vuvox.com.

http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/0690bf2921

Blog Review

http://www.threadsofreading.com/blog/

For this long blog post I read the blog “Weaving the Threads of Reading in K-12 Classrooms” written by Karen Tankersley. Tankersley is an expert in teaching reading and has written four books on the subject of reading and literacy. The purpose of this blog is to explore teaching materials and books to use in the classroom. 

I noticed in this blog that there is a big focus on the aspects of the common core standards. The common core standards in relation to reading cover knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other foundational skills. In reference to the standards she states, “For years, teachers have complained that American Standards are a “mile wide and an inch deep.”  For the first time, American students will be expected to learn less (as in standard numbers) but to deeper and more profound levels. Teaching to deep levels of understanding and performance will be required for all students – not just the “gifted” or “Honors” level students.” (Tankersley, 2013.) Of course each grade level has different standards, and the author discusses these and how to adapt to them as a teacher. She explains that under the common core standards we will be asked to have children read very difficult texts, starting around the fourth grade level we will have students stretch their abilities as far as possible. While the standards have been raised and the bar is now higher, we must still maintain effective reading practices. They core standards have raised the bar but the method of teaching is still left up to the teacher. The common core relies on teachers to implement effective practices to create a solid reading foundation, and then get students to increasingly higher levels of performance. Though the standards are changing, we must continue using evidence based practices in the classroom. Tankersley states, “We have never known more about good reading instruction so we must not “miss the boat” when it comes to using what we know works to build strong readers. Beginning readers still need strong phonemic awareness and systematic phonics instruction to become effective decoders during their beginning years. Intermediate readers will still need to practice and practice their reading skills until they are fluent readers. Middle and high school readers must learn to have not only basic comprehension when they read a text but they must also learn to process at the higher levels of comprehension including questioning the content and comparing to multiple perspectives. None of this has changed.” (Tankersley, 2013.) 

It is hard to understand how standards are changing, but our method of teaching is staying the same. It is like the saying, if you keep doing the same thing you must expect to keep getting the same results. Tankersley suggests ways in which to be effective in meeting the common core standards. One of her blogs expresses how we must teach common core standards as a team. She explains that the common core standards are not simply a new set of standards, but a whole new way of thinking. Those teachers that are used to simply teaching straight from the textbook may be in for a rude awakening when they see there students not performing well on the common core tests. She suggests that teachers of all subjects must work collaboratively in order for their students to succeed. Each teacher must gain a deeper understanding of how reading and writing are used in their field and take responsibility for teaching their students how to do so. 

This content relates to what we have learned in class thus far because her entire blog is dedicated to the skills needed to teach reading. He blog honestly reminds me a lot of the Graves textbook because each of her posts is either describing a standard of reading, or explaining an activity to use in order to teach said standard. We have learned in class that reading is not just necessary in reading and language arts classes, but it is a skill that determines our success in every subject. She discusses in the blog how with the new standards, teachers of all subjects must collaborate in their focus on reading. 

I would suggest this blog because she is very detailed in her information and her advice on how to combat reading difficulties. I would use this blog as an educator to reference when I needed ideas on how to expand my teaching methods in order to meet standards. One thing I find very helpful on her blog is that she not only writes, but also posts videos about topics she is covering. She has devoted sections of her blog solely to materials that she suggests to use in the classroom, which would be extremely beneficial for new teachers who are feeling somewhat lost. 

Blog Review

http://www.threadsofreading.com/blog/

For this long blog post I read the blog “Weaving the Threads of Reading in K-12 Classrooms” written by Karen Tankersley. Tankersley is an expert in teaching reading and has written four books on the subject of reading and literacy. The purpose of this blog is to explore teaching materials and books to use in the classroom. 

I noticed in this blog that there is a big focus on the aspects of the common core standards. The common core standards in relation to reading cover knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other foundational skills. In reference to the standards she states, “For years, teachers have complained that American Standards are a “mile wide and an inch deep.”  For the first time, American students will be expected to learn less (as in standard numbers) but to deeper and more profound levels. Teaching to deep levels of understanding and performance will be required for all students – not just the “gifted” or “Honors” level students.” (Tankersley, 2013.) Of course each grade level has different standards, and the author discusses these and how to adapt to them as a teacher. She explains that under the common core standards we will be asked to have children read very difficult texts, starting around the fourth grade level we will have students stretch their abilities as far as possible. While the standards have been raised and the bar is now higher, we must still maintain effective reading practices. They core standards have raised the bar but the method of teaching is still left up to the teacher. The common core relies on teachers to implement effective practices to create a solid reading foundation, and then get students to increasingly higher levels of performance. Though the standards are changing, we must continue using evidence based practices in the classroom. Tankersley states, “We have never known more about good reading instruction so we must not “miss the boat” when it comes to using what we know works to build strong readers. Beginning readers still need strong phonemic awareness and systematic phonics instruction to become effective decoders during their beginning years. Intermediate readers will still need to practice and practice their reading skills until they are fluent readers. Middle and high school readers must learn to have not only basic comprehension when they read a text but they must also learn to process at the higher levels of comprehension including questioning the content and comparing to multiple perspectives. None of this has changed.” (Tankersley, 2013.) 

It is hard to understand how standards are changing, but our method of teaching is staying the same. It is like the saying, if you keep doing the same thing you must expect to keep getting the same results. Tankersley suggests ways in which to be effective in meeting the common core standards. One of her blogs expresses how we must teach common core standards as a team. She explains that the common core standards are not simply a new set of standards, but a whole new way of thinking. Those teachers that are used to simply teaching straight from the textbook may be in for a rude awakening when they see there students not performing well on the common core tests. She suggests that teachers of all subjects must work collaboratively in order for their students to succeed. Each teacher must gain a deeper understanding of how reading and writing are used in their field and take responsibility for teaching their students how to do so. 

This content relates to what we have learned in class thus far because her entire blog is dedicated to the skills needed to teach reading. He blog honestly reminds me a lot of the Graves textbook because each of her posts is either describing a standard of reading, or explaining an activity to use in order to teach said standard. We have learned in class that reading is not just necessary in reading and language arts classes, but it is a skill that determines our success in every subject. She discusses in the blog how with the new standards, teachers of all subjects must collaborate in their focus on reading. 

I would suggest this blog because she is very detailed in her information and her advice on how to combat reading difficulties. I would use this blog as an educator to reference when I needed ideas on how to expand my teaching methods in order to meet standards. One thing I find very helpful on her blog is that she not only writes, but also posts videos about topics she is covering. She has devoted sections of her blog solely to materials that she suggests to use in the classroom, which would be extremely beneficial for new teachers who are feeling somewhat lost. 

Reading Autobiography

In this long blog post I am going to reflect on my history as a reader, my current reading attitudes, and my future reading goals. In doing so, I hope to gain some insight into the question, how does one become a reader? 

As a child, reading was a huge part of my every day life. My mom was always what our book would define as an “avid reader”, someone who reads often and for pleasure. This being the case, she read to me constantly growing up. For as far back as I can remember my mom would read my older sister and I a story before we went to bed. This was my absolute favorite part of every day. We read stories like The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Little House on the Prairie, and countless others. Each night we were transported to whimsical lands like Narnia and the Shire and we couldn’t get enough of it, begging our mom for just one more chapter. This experience helped me to associate positive feelings with reading before I had even begun learning. Like we discussed in class, the more (and earlier) children are exposed to vocabulary the easier reading will be for them because they already have extensive word knowledge. These reading experiences not only helped me become more familiar with words, but also motivated me to learn because I wanted to be able to read, not just be read to.  

We discussed in class that most students don’t really remember the actual process of learning to read, they just read. I remember being in Kindergarten going over the letters of the alphabet, learning short words, and practicing skills like writing our names. At this point I could read with relative ease, so going into first grade I was ahead of the game. I do not remember when I realized I could read, however, I do remember when I pretended I couldn’t read. In first grade all the students who were really struggling with reading would be pulled out into the “reading van” which was essentially a trailer set up outside in which they would get individualized attention and more frequent intervention with a reading specialist. I imagine this was probably an embarrassing and very negative experience for these students, but I was not a fan of our teacher so I decided I would act as though I couldn’t read. This lasted for about a week before the specialist realized I was able to read well above our grade level. I did not have any negative reading experiences in school, thankfully. During red robin reading exercises I would often volunteer and read aloud. I was very comfortable with my reading abilities and was able to read fluently very young. 

When I began reading books on my own I was a huge fan of The Boxcar Children Series, The Babysitters Club, and anything mysterious. Each Christmas my mom, who I stated before was an avid reader, would get me, my sister, and my younger brother each a bag full of nothing but books. I think this really helped me in becoming a skilled reader because she would select books that were new, reading level appropriate, and relevant to each of our interests. Since I was reading by myself at this point (and at that age were getting read to was no longer “cool”), I read to myself every night before bed. This was also at the time before every child had a TV set in their bedrooms, so I read to relax and get to sleep. 

In high school my work load increased drastically. I got a job and school work was very demanding. I found that I read less for pleasure and almost entirely for school work. At this point I saw reading as a chore and avoided it at all costs. The only thing that really kept me reading through high school were the books I was assigned in class. Through this I discovered my favorite book, The Great Gatsby, sophomore year of high school. 

These days most of my reading is still school related. I read a lot of articles, textbooks, and studies. I still find this reading enjoyable for the most part because it revolves around things I am actually passionate about like education and cultural issues. I read for pleasure whenever I can. Lately what I have been doing is trying to read books before they become movies. I read the Hunger Game series, Nicholas Sparks’ novel The Lucky One, and reread The Hobbit and The Great Gatsby. Im currently reading Looking For Alaska by John Green and I love it, I am certainly going to read his other books. 

My future goals for reading are to continue reading scholarly articles, to better familiarize myself with my field. I also need to set aside more time to read for pleasure, it is something that often gets pushed to the back-burner in my life. Above all I would like to set an example for my students and eventually my own kids. Had my mom not been such a fervent reader I may not have been so motivated, I would like to instill the importance of reading in my students. 

Purcell & Creating a Classroom where Readers Flourish

The Purcell-Gates discusses reading and how literacy is experiential. 
The reading starts off by introducing us to a student, Donny, in Appalachia. Donny comes from an extremely low SES family. His parents are both products of this poverty stricken area, as illiterate seventh grade drop outs. They were passed along from grade to grade without ever learning to read or write and the cycle is being repeated with Donny. His mother contacted the school and expressed her concern with Donny because he seemed to be struggling quite a bit and did not seem to be learning to read or write. These educators saw Donny's mother as ignorant and dismissed her concerns, passing Donny through the grades without ever truly teaching him anything. 
Donny did not get the attention he needed until a professional interceded on his behalf and the teachers put him in an appropriate grade level, upon his request. With extra help and instruction Donny is now on his way to being a fully literate member of society. 
One of Donny's teachers expressed in regards to Donny's mother, "I could tell she was ignorant as soon as she opened her mouth." This in reference to her Appalachian accent, which is often referred to as "white trash" or "hillbilly" slang. The author explains that just because this is the way she was taught to speak does not mean she is ignorant. He compares this to driving a stick shift car. If you have never been taught to, you would not know how to drive stick shift, this does not make you stupid, it just means you lack experience. This chapter discusses the idea of "linguicism" which is defined as the prejudice blaming speakers oral dialects for their academic failure. Our job as teachers is to adapt to the area we are in and the dialect they speak to differentiate our lessons. 
The reading states, “first and most obvious, teachers and schools must accept, believe, and act upon the belief that children of poverty are learners, have been learning since birth, are ready to learn at any time, and will learn.” (Purcell-Gates,) 

Creating a Classroom Where Readers Flourish
This reading discussed the importance of providing students with time allotted for reading, availability of an array of book genres and authors, and providing positive feedback for any reading done by students. By doing these things, we can encourage and motivate students to become avid readers. 
They discussed the fact that celebrating students book choices is extremely important because it will increase their confidence and enjoyment of reading. The author stated that even if a girl only read the Twilight series, that would be over 1,000 pages of reading experience, which is extremely beneficial to other more intellectual reading endeavors. 

The readings both discussed the importance of reading experience. The first reading explained how experience is crucial in learning, while the second one discussed how practice in any form even if it is only an hours worth of reading is crucial to the reading process. I think these readings were assigned at the end of the quarter to culminate everything we have learned about teaching reading. Motivating kids to practice is one of the most crucial aspects in creating avid readers of our students. 

ch 13: Writing and Reading

In this chapter, Graves discusses the process and purpose of reading and writing. 

One statement that stood out to me was that, writing and reading "are two sides of the same coin." (Cullinan, 1993.) I think this is a great sentiment because writing and reading are completely intertwined. Much like two sides of a coin- you can't have one without the other. Traditionally, writing and reading have been taught as two independent subjects in school. Today, most agree that the subjects should be taught in conjunction with the other. They compare the process of writing and reading to that of speaking and listening, it is practical for them to be taught together. 

One of the little subsections in this chapter was titled “Using Photographs as Prompts for Writing.” To be honest, I typically don’t read these figures and activities but this one sounded interesting. This discussed how often times students who have difficulty reading also struggle with writing. It is important for activities to incorporate both skills in order to maximize benefit. The activity suggested that students are to take pictures of things they find important in their lives such as their family, friends, pets, favorite things, etc. After doing this the picture should be printed off and each one used as a writing prompt. The student then compiles all their pictures and stories and makes it into an “About Me” book and shares with their classmates. 

I love this idea because students who struggle with reading and writing would have a prompt of their choosing, making it more meaningful to them and motivating them to do well. I think this would be great practice for students writing their books but also for the classmates reading each other’s. I would probably implement this activity at the beginning of the year so the students can have practice reading and writing, as well as getting to know each other’s interests. 

Some other activities suggested for combining reading and writing skills were semantic mapping and creating venn diagrams, journals, reading logs, learning logs, letters, bio and autobiographies, reports, and poetry. These different activities cover many genres of writing from writing to learn, to communicate, and imaginative writing. One thing I really began to value this quarter was journaling. Typically we read children’s books at the beginning of class and though this is fun and entertaining, it is clearly not challenging for college students. To take it a step further, we are then asked to write in our journals from a prompt stemming from the book. I sometimes find this to be very difficult, but it challenges me to apply the reading to a writing activity which gives me a deeper understanding of the material. 

Encouraging Independent Reading and Reader Response

"How can we as educators make sure that all of our students very strongly value reading and responding to what they read?" (Graves, 351.)

In chapter twelve, Graves offers some solutions to the question stated above.

Independent reading is defined as students reading by choice for their own reasons whether that be for pleasure, entertainment, or knowledge. Some benefits this chapter states are associated with independent reading include instilling a positive attitude toward reading, giving students the opportunity to expand their knowledge, providing practice to improve decoding and comprehension skills, helping to develop automaticity, and expansion of the students vocabulary.
Methods suggested to encourage independent reading include providing time to read, providing a vast array of reading material as well as a place to read, helping students select appropriate material, creating an independent reading program, and encouraging out of school reading.
I find that in school it is often hard to find time to do independent reading. Being bogged down with all the assigned readings from textbooks, articles, etc. reading can feel like a chore and is often so time consuming doing any leisure reading is almost unheard of. In grade school we had a half hour set aside each day for SSR (sustained silent reading). We were permitted to read a book of our choosing and were not allowed to use the time as a study hall. I thought this was important because had we been allowed to work on assignments during this period, everyone would have done so and not read at all. When leisure reading is so scarce, that half hour a day is very valuable time in order to maintain all the skills and benefits that independent reading give us.
One thing I would like to implement in my classroom would be giving the students a place to read. One of the most memorable things for me from kindergarten and first grade were our respective "reading nooks." In kindergarten it was a bath tub filled with bean bags. In first grade, it was a little club house in the corner of the room filled with pillows. Each week a different student was selected and they could choose one other student to read in the reading nook with them. This made reading special and exciting for each of us and really something to look forward to. By implementing some of these practices, we can encourage students to read independently both in and outside the classroom.

word recognition

Chapter seven discusses word recognition and its importance in learning to read. It begins by explaining how even though a student can be a very skilled English speaker and understand spoken word they can not read because it is more difficult to translate the written language than oral. The chapter explains how skilled readers automatically recognize words in a text and can apply meaning to these words without making a conscious effort to do so. This made me think of in past chapters in the Graves text in which they explained how fluency makes reading more enjoyable for kids, hence they read more and become even more fluent (Matthew Effect). Of course skilled readers are not beginning readers so they must rely on things such as context, illustrations, and other cues to determine a word and its meaning. 

I remember when my younger sister was learning to read she came to me and told me she could read the entire "Brown Bear" book. As she read through the pages flawlessly I realized that she was reciting the book from memory. Though this wasn't exactly her being able to "read" the entire book, the repetition of having our Dad read it to her aloud time after time had allowed her to internalize the words she saw on the pages. This actually helped her to learn to read quite a bit because she was so familiar with the words, she could recognize them in other contexts and form meaning of other texts (that she hadn't read 500 times.) 

In this chapter Graves discusses the four developmental phases that children go through in learning to read words.  These phases are the pre-alphabetic phase, partial alphabetic phase, full alphabetical phase, and the consolidated alphabetical phase. Judging by the information given by Graves I would surmise that my sister was in the partial alphabetic phase. This phase is characterized by the child learning letter-sound correspondences and building on prior knowledge of to form connections and between letters, words, and meanings. He explains that in this phase the child often uses the first and last letter in a word to recognize and read the words. I would guess she was in this stage because she was using visual cues to recall words she had heard many times before. 

Some methods Graves suggests to get started building a students vocabulary are word banks and word walls. By using these children can visually see words every day and memorize them. By switching up the words on the teachers word bank each week and dedicating some time to going over the selected words each day we could vastly expand our students word recognition. 

Fluency

Chapter 8 discusses fluency, its components, and how to create fluent readers. It begins by telling a story of a student, Jimmy, who had a lot of trouble reading. In class I know many of us did the activity the book discusses “round robin reading” in which each student in the class takes a turn reading a passage from the book. For many students this is a non-issue, but for those students (like Jimmy) who have difficulty reading this can be a very daunting task. There were always students in class who had not mastered automaticity in reading and struggled through each word of the text. This made it uncomfortable for not only them, but for the other students as well. My question would be, is it appropriate to force struggling readers to read aloud during class? 

This chapter defines fluency as, “the ability to read rapidly, smoothly, without many errors, and with appropriate expression.” (Graves, 224.) Fluency is often thought of in terms of reading aloud, but there are two aspects to fluency- oral and silent. For a student to be considered fluent they must master both oral and silent reading. In addressing my question above, it comes to my attention that without doing read aloud activities in class it would be difficult for a teacher to determine which students are struggling with oral fluency. However, it is common that these embarrassing experiences with reading often turn children off of it altogether because they associate reading with negative experiences. 

This chapter explains that fluency is divided into three main stages; emergent literacy stage, decoding stage, and the automaticity stage. In the first stage the student learns basic aspects of reading. For example the physical aspects of the words like we read from left to right and top to bottom. In the second stage students are learning to decode words and their meanings individually. In the third stage children do not focus on individual words but on reading the whole passage smoothly and with few errors. If the student does not start in the process early, they need extra help later on in becoming fluent readers. Fluency is an essential part in our learning process because it is used in every single subject in school and it is necessary to our students’ success. Graves explains that our brains ability to process information is limited, so automaticity in processing words is important to the process of comprehension. 

The book discusses a number of different methods to increasing fluency including repeated reading, echo reading, tape assisted repeated reading, partner reading, choral reading, readers theater, and radio reading. As a teacher I would definitely implement some of these activities. Im a big fan of repeated reading because students will become more comfortable with a reading, and practice is truly one of the most effective ways in which to master reading. I also love the idea of readers theater, this allows children to have fun in a reading setting rather than feeling pressured and embarrassed in a round robin reading type atmosphere.