Sound it out

I thought this article was very informative. I saw myself in it for sure, I always tell my son to sound it out. He gets so frustrated and hates trying to sound words out so he just gives up. I never really considered whether this is a valuable process for him, I just assumed this it how it was. I am thankful I read this because not only does it point out that sounding it out is not usually a valid strategy, it also gives me ideas I can use with Hayden that hopefully won't give him anxiety. Next time we read together I will try some different things like prompting him to use visual clues.

Reading Aloud

Looking back on my younger years in school, I always enjoyed being read to. My teachers would always designate a time for reading aloud and I got a good amount of it at home as well. I loved it, as many children do. To this day, I still enjoy it when someone reads to me. I never really knew, however, the significance it held to children's ability to motivate reading independently and writing skills and proficiency. I especially liked our lessons this week on children's writing. I enjoyed analyzing the work of Nate, as I never have looked into the creation of stories by children before. I had no idea there were different stages of writing and that their scribble means something. I can't wait to go home this weekend and read aloud to my 3 year old cousin and look at all the possible things he is trying to express by simply giving him a pen and paper!

"Sound it out!"

I can vividly remember reading with my parents when I was younger and stumbling across the words on a page. "Just sound it out like we've practiced before..." My parents always prompted me with this phrase, and up until reading this article I thought that it was a wonderful approach. However, the author doesn't seem to necessarily agree. The examples provided in the article show that many times when we ask children to "sound it out" we provide different means for them to overcome the battle of figuring out the word. For example, when the article talked about the child reading about the dragonfly-- she never actually sounded each syllable out, instead she came to the conclusion by looking at the picture. After reading this article I came to the conclusion that while sounding it out may be a good method at times, we, as future educators, must also implement other strategies to help our students become better readers.

Observation at Cedar Ridge!

I had such a great experience observing at Cedar Ridge today! Ashley and I thought we were going to be late but we were actually early so we got to observe in 2 different classrooms-a 2nd grade class and a bilingual 3rd grade class. Right off the bat I was really impressed by the new school! I have never seen a layout at an Elementary school like this one. I liked how it had a common room for every grade with additional classrooms attached. During the first class, the students were doing group reading, where the teacher would take a group of 4 or 5 students aside and have them read aloud together to work on their reading fluency. At the same time, the rest of the class was to read quietly at their desks. One girl was coloring a picture depicting a book she had just got done reading emphasizing the importance of friendship. I was amazed at all of the opportunity the students had in the classroom from large desks to generous cubby space to a wide range of books in their classroom library. The second class we observed in was a bilingual classroom where all of the students as well as the teacher were Spanish speaking. I haven't had much prior knowledge about the various bilingual programs but Ashley filled me in on what they were and what they entailed, which I was grateful for. It was really interesting to see teaching and learning from a different cultural perspective. It made me really wish that I knew Spanish so I could understand and engage with the students learning. Overall, I had a great time today, I wish we had more time but I am looking forward to the next year observing and tutoring in the classrooms.

Really Reading

I found this article very interesting to read since I was raised reading AR books. When I was younger I don't think that I ever hated AR, but it was definitely a thorn in my side. The main difference I saw between myself and the kids in the article was that I still enjoyed reading. I can remember taking the AR test on Alice and Wonderland and scoring poorly. I was devastated. It lowered my points and suggested reading level. Since having the highest reading level in the class was something that we all strived for, I was very frustrated. However, I knew the reason that I didn't pass. I had read the book very quickly, skimming most of the material so that I could take the test and move on. For me, AR got to the point where it wasn't about reading books anymore, it was about beating my peers. I believe that as future educators we need to find a more engaging way to promote reading among students.

Really Reading

Reading this article brought up some bad memories about my own Accelerated Reader program experience throughout middle school. I think that a lot of what was talked about was similar to the experiences that I have had. I think that we as teachers, owe it to our students to help make reading fun. I think with programs like AR, the fun is sucked out of reading one test at a time. Students should be able to read what they enjoy without being told they can't because "that book isn't an AR book!" With little motivation to read books with new techology all around us as it is, I think that teachers should try everything they can to help engage students and to increase their motivation to pick up a book and read!

Bishop article and multiculturalism

I especially enjoyed reading the Bishop article this week focusing on incorporating multicultural literature in the classroom. I have learned about various multicultural texts in my past children's literature courses, but out of all my resources, the Bishop article touched on every aspect and controversy. Yes, it is important to incorporate multiculturalism in the classroom, but it can be a tricky task. For example, Bishop explained that there are risks to evaluating and selecting texts for a classroom. One must be aware of the book and what it has to offer. Is it reliable? Is the information valid and relevant? Where are the sources coming from? If a white teacher wrote a book on mexican culture, some of the information can be misguided considering they have never experienced that culture first hand. Yes, research may be done, but who is to say that research is legitimate? While I agree that it is important to educate students on the diversity of our world, especially our own country, we have to be careful in doing so so we do not offend anyone or give out the wrong ideas and facts.

Ray

I thought Ray's chapter on the craft of writing was particularly enlightening. I have never studied how writers write or what makes a writer stand out. I know when I am reading what I like and how it makes me feel but beyond that initial reaction there is no further analysis. To have someone break it down into chunks of information and examples of writing certainly brings a new depth of knowledge that I can apply when reading. Of course, this is not only beneficial to me personally but it is professionally important to have that knowledge base when helping students write. I also like how she suggests that teachers have a few authors that that know by heart in order to always have an example at hand.

Bishop

On page 35 Bishop writes, “Identifying multicultural literature as literature of or about “The Other”-- people other than white middle-class citizens of the United State-- helps reinforce and maintain old social patterns by setting up the American white middle class as the norm......” Through out the article, this quote kept popping up in my mind. I whole-heartedly agree with the statement and belief that when you create this separation between whites & everyone else, you are continuing to reinforce the idea that whites are on a higher standard.. but in reality, here in the 21st century, that notion isn't necessarily true anymore.

Another thought that really popped out to me was the idea that "teachers should be colorblind." After reading that on the anticipation guide, I really had to think about it. On one hand, you've got the idea that by acknowledging that there are minorities you continue to feed into the idea that white Americans have the upper hand in life. On the flip side, all cultures are different. What kind of message does it send to the student if you completely disregard their culture? As of right now, I am still a little confused on where to draw the line. Hopefully it will become more clear through out my courses here at ISU.

Bishop Article

Although this article contained a lot of things that I have already somewhat heard about, it was very insightful. I think that it is so true that sometimes, even though an author may be trying to do a good thing by making a children's book "multicultural," they are actually making a worse impact on a child of the minority group being portrayed. The article brought up some interesting points as to how one can judge whether a book is really authentic in the way that it portrays different cultural groups. I found it interesting that there are so many subtle things that children from this group being portrayed can pick up on (which others may not even see) and that these cues can affect how a child feels about him/herself and the cultural background from which they come.
I think that authors need to be very aware of the groups they will portray before they try to make a children's book multicultural. I have read several books in which I felt the idea of multiculturalism was way too stressed. Each page contained pictures of all different types of students and their classic stereotyped ways of dressing. Reading this made me laugh a little because it looked so fake, like the author thought that by just putting a diverse group of kids portrayed by common misconceptions of how people from their culture dress/act, they would make a good multicultural book. Instead they just spread stereotypes, leaving students misinformed.

Transnational and Community Literacies for Teachers

As an Elementary Education major with no prior knowledge on English-language learners (ELLs), I was intrigued by this article and everything it has to offer. While I am aware of the diversity of students among schools in our country, I was in the dark about how teachers go about teaching children who are so foreign to not only our language, but our customs and ways of life as well. I liked how the article started out with the basics, describing in stages everything there is to know about this issue for people like me who are just  beginning to learn its importance. As a teacher, it gave me ideas for when I have a student of different ethnicity or culture in my classroom: How to get them to open up, how I can learn from them, how I can get them interested in our culture while still learning about theirs, and how I can encourage them to learn about our ideas while at the same time incorporating theirs. At the same time, I was discouraged that some teachers are too scared or reserved to go out into their neighborhoods or communities to research their way of life. As I learned in the Student Teaching Options meeting today, administrators look for diversity in teachers, determination to go above and beyond to look at education from many points of view. For example, a principal is more likely to pull an application of a student who traveled to England to student teach as opposed to someone who student taught here in Illinois. The important thing about teaching is that you explore the different ways to teach and learn because there are so many changing ideologies!

At Home With the Johars

I really thought this was an eye opening article for me. I think that I have that middle class mentality when it comes to home literacy practices. There is such a big push for parents to read to their children, from the media, the education system, and for me past experience. The big message is that parents who care should read bedtime stories. This article clearly shows a family structure that does not include that and the parents in it still value literacy. What's more is the children place a high value on literacy also. It is important to realize what biases you have before you start to teach. If you can't figure out how you feel about different issues then you won't have a clear picture on why and how you react to different situations. Knowing that I have this underlying preference for reading at home by parents helps me to make a conscious effort to find out about home literacy practices of all my students. Placing value on things that might seem unfamiliar to me will help my students feel that they are valued also.

Transnational & Community Literacies for Teachers

I found this article to be interesting; however since I am a bilingual education major, a lot of the ideas that it focused on were exactly what I have been learning since I started my studies. In a way I thought that it's all common sense and that ever teacher implements these types of classroom communities. It made me realize that not a lot of teachers know how important this is for their students. I think that it is so important to bring a child's culture into the classroom, and to encourage literacy at home as well. The article gave several examples of how this can be done, such as analyzing different written texts in the child's home, which definitely brings a child's experiences to the class. By doing this, a child embraces his or her culture as opposed to feeling isolated or different. I hope that everyone can see the importance of the ideas in this article and make them common and standard in their classrooms!

Transnational & Community Literacies for Teachers

I found this article on transnational and community literacies very interesting. Prior to reading the article, I did not have a lot of knowledge on how to implement transnational and community literacies into the everyday literacy instruction. I particularly enjoyed how the article gave examples of how you could relate these practices to the state standards. I believe that it is very important to be able to link our teaching instruction to the state standards because our educational system focuses greatly on these.

One part of the article that kind of upset me was when the authors were talking about reasons that teachers may not want to implement transnational and community was due to the fact that they may not feel comfortable going into the community to gather materials. That statement really struck a cord with me because I feel like in a situation like that, the teacher is completely disregarding how the student feels when they enter an ELL classroom for the first time.

Overall, I really enjoyed this article.