Reading Post 1

CHAPTER 3: Using Textbooks and Trade Books for Content Area Instruction by Alverman, Swafford, & Mentero (2004)

Before reading, Using Textbooks and Trade Books for Content Area Instruction, I had limited awareness of using trade books in the classroom. It seems that we always hear about how difficult it is the read textbooks, how the material is usually outdated, and the concept coverage is watered-down and meaningless. Growing up, history was one of my worst subjects and out of all the history teachers that I have had, there is only one that stood out. I can remember mostly everything that I learned in that fourth grade classroom. This teacher used books and resources other than just a textbook. We did have a textbook, but rarely used it. My teacher used multiple trade books for each unit that we explored. These books were full of amazing facts and fascinating images.

I feel that it is very important to use both textbooks and trade books in the classroom for any subject. Before reading this article I had a couple of questions come into my head. As a teacher, how would you choose which trade books to use in your classroom? By limiting the use of the assigned textbook and replacing it with other resources, could a teacher get into trouble with the school? When choosing a trade book to use in the classroom it has to be of high quality. The article said to look for trade books that have won awards such as the Caldecott Award and the Hans Christian Award. Finding out about the author may also be helpful in choosing trade books. We can find this information in the preface or the afterward of the book. As teachers, if we are going to be using sources other than the assigned textbook we should be positive that these trade books have credible authors and are of the highest quality for our students. I feel that teachers can get in trouble with the school if research to find good trade books is ignored.

I found it interesting that the article stated that the population of trade books has grown and the quality of them has increased. Why is this? Maybe statistics and studies are showing that they are improving the education of our children. Trade books offer a wide range of reading levels, majority are up-to-date, help struggling readers understand the content, expose children to different text structures, have appealing formats, and build background knowledge. As a future teacher, I want to start to collect and buy high quality trade books to use in my classroom. I want to provide my students with opportunities to learn about class material through both textbooks and trade books.

Classroom Asessment (Blog#4)

This text focuses on different types of assessment and explores a different perspective of classroom assessments. This chapter addresses teacher-based strategies, assessment as inquiry and test-based strategies, all being different forms of assessments. The chapter also highlights the themes of assessment which is what will be my focus of discussion in this blog post. There are three themes of classroom assessments: notion of assessment as inquiry, development, and progress monitoring.
Notion of assessment as inquiry refers to the idea of a teacher becoming a researcher and making adjustments according to her students. The chapter says something along the lines of, "it is easy to come up with a test that all the students will fail; it is more difficult to find ways to discover what students are capable of." This means that the teacher has to get to know his/her students and make adjustments according to their needs and what level they are currently placed at. I believe that this approach may be if not THE, one of the, most important ideologies that an educator should follow. If a teacher never gets to know her students and their individual needs, he/she will never know if they are understanding or learning anything at all. If a teacher is unaware of a child's needs and learning level, it is literally like trying to teach a dog how to meow. You are teaching the wrong thing to the wrong person. This concept is crucial to a teacher's career; it can honestly make or break a teacher and IF it is followed and practiced it can change students' lives forever.
The next theme of assessment is undoubtedly interlocked with the first; development varies and not only only by age or grade, but by each and every individual. The average class varies in student development; they are likely to span two or more years. This means that as a fourth grade teacher, you may have a student in your classroom that is at a second grade level and another student that is at a fifth or sixth grade level. Regardless, you have to make adjustments to meet both their needs. That is what being a teacher is all about; you are not catering to a fourth grade class; you are catering to a class filled with all types of fourth graders, whether it be different races, ages, cultures, developmental levels, special needs, ELL. YOU still need to fit each and every one of their needs. This thought alone is overwhelming and quite intimidating, but very well doable and, therefore, exciting.
The third theme is progress monitoring; this too is intertwined with knowing your students individually. A teacher should keep records for each student in class, whether it is written-down grades, mental notes/observations, anecdotal notes, portfolios, etc. A teacher should have some type of record for each one of his/her students demonstrating their progress throughout the year. Every teacher approaches this in a different way, but no matter what is done this monitoring of progress HAS to be done. If a teacher is not keeping track of his/her students' progress he/she is not doing his/her job. That is the whole point of teaching, so that these children move forward in their academic life and grow as individuals of our society.
All of these themes of assessment are points that teachers, should not only consider, but live by basically. These points are crucial to be a successful educator and they need to be done in order to be and stay effective. Overall, I found this chapter to be extremely informative and helpful.

Chapter 6 - Reading To Learn

This chapter was very intrigueing and raised some excellent points about reading. The main point that this chapter, Reading to Learn, is addressing is the false idea that story books are more interesting than informational texts are. This chapter mentions that story books are only more intriguing to children because they are exposed to this type of text way before they are every exposed to informational text (newspaper, textbooks, magazines, etc.) They are familiar with story books because maybe mom or dad read them bedtime stories, or their nanny/babysitter or child care or preschool caregiver read them story books. BUT what if, this chapter questions, what if children were exposed to more magazines and other informational texts at an early age, would they be more attracted to them throughout their academic years growing up?A study of first grade classrooms revealed that we only spend around 3.6 minutes on informational text a day. How many hours are in a school day? 6...and we are spending less than four minutes of those six hours exposing our students to informational text. Not only does this limit their interests in text, but this also causes them to be unfamiliar and uncomfortable with this type of text.
Many people see informational or nonfiction texts only as being textbooks, newspapers, encyclopedias, atlas', dictionaries, etc. However, that is coming to a change; publishing companies are working together to make informational texts more child-friendly. They are beginning to create informational texts that are big books with larger text, more captions and more pictures. In addition, more schools are getting document cameras to project news/magazine articles and other documents to share with the class.
As mentioned in chapter six, today's nonfiction texts are filled with text features such as charts, pictures, captions, maps, tables, diagrams, and glossaries. These text features are extremely helpful to students in order for them to understand the text that is being read. These charts, diagrams, maps and photographs really help visual learners to understand that content that is being taught; rather than just roaming their eyes off to somewhere else in the classroom they can focus their eyes on the pictures and other features in the text. In addition to features such as sidebars, headlines, diagrams and captions there are also structures in order for readers to better understand concepts. Structures such as cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast, concept and definition, etc. help students obtain content in a different perspective. These text structures help students locate key points by often beginning with key phrases and signal words such as: for example, in conclusion, in summary, etc. Text structure serve almost as a guide or outline for students in information texts.
This chapter pinpoints great points in reading with elementary grade level students, or any students for that matter. The text even mentions that some of the methods mentioned above are lifetimes skills that students will take onto their college years and use them for reading. These concepts are skills that help students tremendously with their reading and comprehension improvement.

Reading Assignment 6: Independent Writing and Whole-Class Sharing

Chapter 4 from A Classroom Teacher’s Guide to Struggling Writers is about independent writing and whole-class sharing. It provides suggestions on what students do and what teachers do. Independent writing requires significant blocks of time in order to assure writing development. This is especially true for struggling writers because they tend to spend extra time on things like spelling and grammar and less time on the actual writing. One of the suggestions that the book states, that I greatly believe in, is that “students are far more likely to work with a piece of writing if they have some personal investment in the topics of their writing” (pg 50). During my time in school, I recall more often than not, being forced to write about a particular topic or about a book that I didn’t even want to read in the first place. This makes the writing process so much more difficult and uninteresting. The only book reports that I remember writing were the ones where I got to choose the book, because I picked something that I related with. When I am student teaching, I see so much of this personal writing going on. In my first grade classroom, the children have journals that they choose what to write about. The students love it and are constantly writing about what they did over the summer or over the weekend, their legos, their favorite movie, their friends and so forth. They also are making “How to” books, in which they are writing how to do things of their choice such as how to make a paper airplane, how to make your bed, how to draw a pirate ship, etc. They choose each topic and by the end of the year they will have a book of all the ones they wrote over the months.

The book also stresses the importance of teachers working with struggling writers individually and in small groups while the students are working independently. This is a great time to do so because it allows them to address the specific needs of specific children without making it overly obvious. The teacher can float around the room, checking in with children and seeing how their writing is coming along, or hold writing conferences. One sentence from the book really stood out to me. It states, “It takes time to learn to conduct effective writing conferences” (pg 58). This is good advice because it reminds teachers not to get discourage if things don’t always work out as planned. The most important thing is that you assess what you did and try to fix it for the next time. I think it is also crucial to remember that each student differs from the next and a strategy you used with one might not work for the next.

The last thing I took away from this chapter was the idea for an author’s chair. I have never heard of this before and I think it is an amazing idea. I think that oral presentations are crucial in every grade level and I feel that by having them come up to the “author’s chair” it makes each student feel more special. The book also talks about the importance of teaching children how to respond supportively to students in the Author’s Chair. This is essential because the “author” needs to feel safe while presenting their work or else they will be discouraged and not want to present the next time. Constructive criticism does help improve writing but it can be hard to hear at times. Therefore it is up to the teacher to model this and teach the students how to provide comments and feedback correctly and in a beneficial way.

Reading Assignment 4: Reading-Writing Connections

The article, Reading-Writing Connections, is generally based on the relationship between reading and writing. I have always thought that it was strange the way reading and writing were taught separately from each other. In my school that I am student teaching at, the class has reading in the morning and writing at the very end of the day. Whenever they write, they are writing about something totally irrelevant to what they are reading and when they read, they are reading about something they will never write about. I agree completely with the article that states that children should be invited to write about what they are reading and read about what they are writing.

The article detailed ways in which we can create environments for reading and writing. It suggested that teachers should encourage students to write about things that are relevant to their interests and needs. Even though the article states that children rarely are at a loss for what to write, I have to disagree. My brother has always struggled with writing and coming up with a topic to write about. I feel strongly that not everyone in your class is going to be able to say “Oh! I know what I want to write!” Some of the children are going to have to sit there a long time and think about what exactly they would like to write about. Thinking now about a possible solution to a problem like this I’ve come up with an idea. Perhaps the teacher could create an “idea bucket” in the classroom. Encourage students to write on a small piece of paper and dump any extra ideas they have into the idea bucket. Whenever a child can’t think of an idea for writing, tell them that they could go up to the idea bucket and pick out one of their classmate’s ideas. I would reward students that frequently contribute ideas to the bucket.

Out of all the things I did during my time in elementary school, the thing I remember most has to be my pen pal. I recall being thrilled every time the letters came. I would rip mine open and read it faster than anything else and then immediately pick up my pen and start writing back. I feel that having a pen pal is one of the best occasions to connect both reading and writing. I believe that the use of a pen pal can and should be used significantly more than it is now. Theoretically, why couldn’t students have a pen pal for every single grade in elementary school? I personally feel that it would be nothing but beneficial to students overall reading and writing skills.

Buddy journals and dialogue journals are excellent ways to have students connect reading and writing skills. If your class is doing dialogue journals, it is important to keep in mind that you are purely trying to scaffold reading-writing interactions through informal conversation. The article encourages students to write in their journals everyday. As a teacher, I’m somewhat skeptical to whether or not something like this is plausible. I feel like there wouldn’t be enough time for the teacher to have an ongoing written conversation every night with 25 students. Did anyone else feel the same way? Perhaps students could write for a whole week and then the teacher could respond at the end of the week?

I always struggled with the idea of editing when I was in elementary school. I would always be racing through a writing assignment just so I could be like, “Yes! Finally done!” The article teaches us to steer away from this and consider that drafting, revising, and editing are all part of the writing process and should be taught together. I feel that schools are getting better in the ways that they incorporate the different stages of writing. In my classroom where I’m student teaching, I observed students spending a whole period just on editing and revising their papers.

Reading Assignment 3: Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of the text, Strategies that Work, hit home for me. I can recall numerous times throughout my primary educational career where I was force to read something in particular. I was hardly ever given a choice on what I had to read, whether it was for summer reading, book reports, or even free time. I remember specifically that in 3^rd grade I was forced to read the current class book and wasn’t allow to go grab one of the books about baseball, even if I had already finished the class book! In chapter 5 the authors explain the power literacy holds when it related to the lives and concerns of those who read it. I couldn’t agree more.

In the beginning part of the chapter we are told as future teachers to thinking about how short texts can move us. We should be reading newspapers, magazines, poems, travel books and any thing else that has words on it. If a piece moves us, we should save it, think about why it moved us, and try and find a way to incorporate it into a lesson in the future. When collecting a short text though it is importance to consider the purpose, audience, genre, topic, and writing quality. Not all short text pieces that you think are wonderful are going to be good for 3^rd graders.

The text goes on to say that when choosing short text for comprehension instruction it is important to pick something that your students will be able to activate and connect background knowledge to. When you read about topics you already have prior knowledge to, it is more likely that you will connect new information to what you already know in order to come to a fuller understanding. I believe that this is especially true. When I was in elementary school I always wanted to read about things that I was currently involved in. Going back to my 3rd grade example, I wanted to read the book about baseball because I played baseball and it was interesting to me. As a teacher, it’s important for us to help children find books that are interesting, not too challenging, and not too easy. We are looking to introduce children to their “just right” books.

Picture books are an interesting topic that is also discussed within this chapter. Personally, I have little experience with using picture books, both during my elementary school years and as a college student. However, I believe that they have great potential for getting through to children that may be reluctant readers or linguistically diverse learners.

I think that picture books are viewed to be solely for younger children. Reading over this chapter, I feel that I would be able to incorporate them into an upper elementary classroom setting. I believe that older kids would have a blast trying to come up with an explanation for what is going on. I can picture a 5^th grade class where picture books have the students intrigued and excited.

Reading Assignment 2: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of the text, Strategies That Work, discussed various comprehension instruction strategies that we as teachers can use. The chapter started off by detailing ways in which we can deliver effective comprehension instruction. Some of the most important aspects of successfully implementing comprehension instruction are to teach with the end in mind, gradually release responsibility, and diligently observed and assess.

The gradual release of responsibility is a framework that shows students how to do a particular task, and then gives them time to practice it. There are five steps of this framework are: teacher modeling, guided practice, collaborative practice, independent practice, and the application in authentic reading situations. Personally, I liked the comparison the book gave on how learning to ride bicycle is the perfect example for the gradual release of responsibility. First, the adult assesses how the child approaches the bike, similar to how teachers would assess the prior knowledge of their students. Second, the adult models how to ride the bike, just like the teacher would model how to properly form a sentence or complete a math problem. Next, the child rides the bike with training wheels; similar to the way a teacher would guide students through problems collectively. Finally, the child is able to ditch the training wheels and cruise down the street, identical to a child being able to solve every math problem flawlessly.

Also discussed in the chapter is the importance of switching strategies. As a teacher, you don’t necessarily want to be teaching inferring for seven straight weeks. Instead, integrate additional strategies so that your students can begin to build a repertoire of strategies that they can use. These strategies should be thought of as a tool for understanding. We have to realize that sometimes different jobs call for different tools, and the more tools you have available to you, the more likely it is that you will be able to finish the job.

The text goes on to list several key components to building a literate community. Fostering passion and curiosity is essential in any classroom. Curiosity cannot be squelched. The learning environment that you create as a teacher much be one that values collaborative learning and thinking. Large blocks of time must be allotted for writing and reading. The room must be arranged well, have accessibility to additional resources, and have texts from all types of genres.

I believe that this chapter gave many good ideas on how teachers can deliver effective and efficient comprehension instruction. When I was coming through grade school, I did not experience any type of instruction like this. I honestly do not remember being taught ANY clear strategy. I just remember reading and then skipping over a word or a phrase if I had a problem. As a prospective teacher, I'm excited to be able to implement strategies like these. I look forward to being able to observe and assess my students while at the same time comparing them to my younger self. It's exciting to see just how fast the quality of education is rising.

Reading Assignment 5: Reading-Writing Connections

This chapter (handout) was filled with great strategies and examples to be used in the classroom. It showed the relationship between reading and writing, which is so important and it talked about the role classroom environment plays in reading and writing. The article states that "there is compelling evidence to suggest that writing and reading abilities develop concurrently and should be nurtured together." I completely agree with this statement. These both go hand-in-hand and I feel that the success of one partially depends on the success of the other. One cannot respond to questions correctly after reading a story they did not comprehend. It is also important that the relationship between reading and writing does not just come through during Language Arts. It is something that goes across every curriculum, including science and mathematics. Another important point to remember is that "children develop fluency and power in their reading and writing when they have time and choice on their side." If children are not interested in what they are reading or have too much other homework they will begin to dread reading. This will make the reading unimportant and they will not gain anything from reading. I still have trouble reading because more often than not I am forced to read things that do not interest me and I have trouble finding the time to do so.
The article gives many suggestions for encouraging classroom writing. One of my favorites from the list is to "write stories and poetry of your own and share them with your students." When I was observing a forth grade class the teacher did this and it was perfect. Her students were complaining that they were having trouble coming up with ideas to write about in their journals. She told them that when she gets stuck writing she uses a few topics to help her. On the board she wrote a list. 1.) I have learned to never.... 2.) I dislike it when... 3.) When I go to.... Under each one she wrote things that pertained to her. She wrote I have learned to.... never buy Uggs off the internet... never wash my kids' red soccer socks with other clothes... and a few others. The class then voted on which one they wanted her to choose. They wanted to hear about the Ugg story so she began to write it as if it was in her journal. The students were so attentive and couldn't get enough details about her story. Then they asked her questions and went back to their seats to write. Not one of the students in the class complained about not knowing what to write. They were so busy writing their lists, they couldn't decide which amazing story they wanted to write about first. This showed me how powerful it is when a teacher shares their own experiences.
I also loved the idea from the article about dialogue journals. A dialogue journal encourages dialogue between teacher and student. The teacher's response can include comments, questions, and invitations for the child to express themselves. When I was in school, I never had the chance to partake in a dialogue journal, but this is something I would have loved. These journals allow students to communicate about things such as friendships, home life, fears, and so forth, allowing the teacher to better connect with the child. This is great for children who have trouble expressing themselves orally because it allows them to write down exactly what they feel. I love that the teacher responds to the students because it makes them feel special and connected with their teacher. This is something I would definitely consider using in my future classroom.
It is important for teachers to encourage reading and writing and to demonstrate to their students how fun it can be. If teachers are excited about the lessons they teach, then students are more likely to be excited as well. It is crucial for teachers to set up a routine so children know what is expected of them and so they get into the habit of writing on a daily basis. There are so many important ways to foster literacy in children and this article gives insight into how to make it more enjoyable. This was a great article to read and was extremely beneficial. I will definitely use these ideas in my classroom.

Reading Assignment 4: Great Readers Read to Learn

This article is about how reading to learn involves a different purpose and a different type of text. It says that when we read to learn we often are reading informational text or nonfiction text. Students find reading stories easier than reading informational text, which I can agree with. If I had to pick, I would almost always choose a story over an informational text because I would assume the story would be easier to understand and more entertaining. The article, however, says that “students find reading stories easier simply because stories are more familiar to them.” I thought this was a great point because there weren’t as many nonfiction, informational texts readily available in the classroom or in our homes.

The article also talks about the importance of understanding the difference between nonfiction and fiction. One of the suggestions is to start with books that address the same subject, which I think is a great idea. The example is Tacky the Penguin and The Emperor’s Egg. Students that were read these two books were able to pick up that one was real and the other wasn’t and use details to support their reasoning.

The article also brings up another point as to why informational texts are harder to comprehend than stories. This is because often nonfiction books contain so much information that it can be challenging and overwhelming. This makes it “hard for our young readers to determine what is important because informational texts are packed with so many facts” (pg 79). I still find this to be a challenge. For example, if I am taking notes on a chapter in a history book, I end up taking way too many notes because everything always seems so important.

I also liked the example about Adam and his process of looking through the magazine for the article he wanted to read. It exemplifies how important text features can be in helping reader gain background knowledge. By looking at the images, the headings, the graphs, and other text features, he was able to make predictions about what the article was about without reading a sentence.