Today we went to meet with our kindergarten buddies. Buddy E seemed excited to see my partner and me. As we walked towards the other room we took advantage of the walk as a time to chat. We checked in to see how he was and what was new. Buddy E said nothing was new and I had to add that nothing was really new with me either.
Once we found a place to do our work we jumped right in. There was so much to try and accomplish in the next thirty minutes with our buddy. My partner took turns doing the assessment which worked really well. While she was being the facilitator it gave me a chance write down some of the things I saw and focus more on observation. For the first couple of questions Buddy E was right on. He knew where the title was, he was able to point to a letter on the page, and he knew what a word was. When he pointed to the word "free" I decided to ask what it said (while that was not one of the questions in the script I just for some reason asked). To my surprise he looked at each letter of the word and sounded it out. I knew he was pretty good at letter sounds and stretching, but I had not seen him read a word yet. After talking about the word I asked him if he knew what it is called when you have a group of words together and showed him a sentence that I hugged with two pieces of paper. He said he did not know, but quickly took it back when I said it was called a sentence. He was not able to tell me what it was but once he heard the term he knew what it was.
I really enjoyed observing the different elements of reading the story. When Buddy E had to first go through and make predictions of what was happening I was surprised to hear what he had to say. As he made his predictions he looked at many different aspects of the picture. For example on the page that there was a boy and puppies he acknowledged both of them an did not leave out much from the illustration.
After reading the story a couple of times I think we were starting to lose Buddy E's interest. There was a lot we were going over. The last two activities were rhyming words and naming a word that had the same beginning sound as another word. I had a assumed that this would not be too challenging for him but to my surprise the rhyming words we slightly tricky. To introduce the rhyming words we asked him if he knew what rhyming words were and he gave us as close to a dictionary definition as the average kindergartner would. Actually it might have been an even more advanced definition than that. Since he knew what it meant to rhyme we did not even go over too many examples. However, just because he knew what it meant did not mean he was able to perform. We helped him out quite a bit. Luckily he knew his letter sounds and words that started with those sounds. The only one he has some trouble with was the word "children" but with a little help he realized that "chair" had the same beginning sound.
Today was a great learning experience. I learned a lot about my buddy and myself as making assumptions. I am looking forward to next week when we will get to find activities that our buddy will benefit from.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Ssssttttrrrreeeeeetttccchhh iiiitttt and put it back together!!!!
Last week we got to meet our kindergarten buddies. I was really excited since it had been a few weeks since I had been around the kindergarteners at my main placement. I have missed how loving and sweet 5 and 6 year olds are! When my partner and I walked into our class holding a card with the letter "C" on it I began looking for the student that was holding the corresponding "C" bean bag because the holder of that letter would be our buddy. I did not want to waste any time and wanted to make observations of my buddy right away. My buddy, who I will call Buddy E, was sitting 5 feet in front of me. He was sitting at his desk very content while the 37 adults from my cohort filled the room. As a matter of fact, I was surprised none of the students were overwhelmed by our presence. After spotting my buddy, my eyes were diverted to his table partner who was happily smiling at me and waving. I looked around to see if he was actually trying to get my attention or some else's. No one else seemed to be looking at him but me so I waved back. This boy continued to wave and smile which made me question whether or not he thought he knew me. However, I think he was just excited and happy to have us all there and I just happened to be the one he connected with to express his joy. If only it would have been appropriate for me to express how excited I was to be there like that boy.
After meeting Buddy E, we walked over to a room down the hall to get to know one another. This was not only our chance to connect with our buddy but also to see what his reading and writing ability was. Right before we met our buddies the teacher had them demonstrate to my cohort how they stretch words. The showed us how "mom" becomes "mmmmmoooooommmmm" (while pulling your hands apart to stretch the word) and when they put it back together its "mom" (moving your hands back together). Since I had been in a kindergarten classroom for my September Experience I was surprised I had never learned this before. I am pretty sure this is something they used in their class a lot because Buddy E kept using it while we worked on our "getting to know you" worksheet.
I was impressed as I observed Buddy E's different techniques and skills when he worked on the worksheet. We showed him what the different categories of favorites there were on the worksheet and how there were also pictures that helped us to figure out what the words said. So for example, on the line where is said favorite animal there was a picture of a frog. One interesting observation I made was when Buddy E began to write his favorite color, blue. On the line he spelled "ba" after stretching the word. After he worked on it for a minute my partner asked him if there might be some place on his place mat that had the word blue. Sure enough he spotted where it was. He was able to read it and spell it properly "b-l-u-e". However, when we pointed to how he spelled it on his paper he did not just jump right in and fix it. I pointed out that there is an "l" and said we should add it so he picked up his pencil to make the new word "bal". This was a reminder to me of what might seem so simple and obvious to me, or even another student the same age, might not be for others. I look forward to working with Buddy E more to his his literacy ability develop.
To end the blog, I want to add one of my writings from when I was beginning to learn to read and write.
After meeting Buddy E, we walked over to a room down the hall to get to know one another. This was not only our chance to connect with our buddy but also to see what his reading and writing ability was. Right before we met our buddies the teacher had them demonstrate to my cohort how they stretch words. The showed us how "mom" becomes "mmmmmoooooommmmm" (while pulling your hands apart to stretch the word) and when they put it back together its "mom" (moving your hands back together). Since I had been in a kindergarten classroom for my September Experience I was surprised I had never learned this before. I am pretty sure this is something they used in their class a lot because Buddy E kept using it while we worked on our "getting to know you" worksheet.
I was impressed as I observed Buddy E's different techniques and skills when he worked on the worksheet. We showed him what the different categories of favorites there were on the worksheet and how there were also pictures that helped us to figure out what the words said. So for example, on the line where is said favorite animal there was a picture of a frog. One interesting observation I made was when Buddy E began to write his favorite color, blue. On the line he spelled "ba" after stretching the word. After he worked on it for a minute my partner asked him if there might be some place on his place mat that had the word blue. Sure enough he spotted where it was. He was able to read it and spell it properly "b-l-u-e". However, when we pointed to how he spelled it on his paper he did not just jump right in and fix it. I pointed out that there is an "l" and said we should add it so he picked up his pencil to make the new word "bal". This was a reminder to me of what might seem so simple and obvious to me, or even another student the same age, might not be for others. I look forward to working with Buddy E more to his his literacy ability develop.
To end the blog, I want to add one of my writings from when I was beginning to learn to read and write.
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| This was a message I left for my parents on our chalkboard when I was 6 yrs old. It reads "Stephanie is going to Amy's after school tomorrow"(Luckily my mom wrote what it said on the back of the picture because I was having trouble reading it). At that age I had a decent understanding of isolating sounds and phonemes. |
Monday, October 11, 2010
READ....All of the cool kids are doing it.
As I sit and think about literacy in my future classroom my big question I am pondering is if it is appropriate to experiment with different ways to bring literacy in to the class. The article Emergent Literacy: New Perspectives, not only mentioned things that I would like to use in my classroom but also started to get my creative gears working and thinking about how I can "bring it" to my classroom. However, I am stuck wondering how much of what I do in my classroom should be things I have seen used before or am I allowed to sit at my drawing board and sketch up new ideas about making my students excited about reading and writing. Another question to add, is there such a thing as too much? To further explain my thinking I will try to develop a mental walk though of my future class.
One thing that my master teacher has been working on with the kindergarteners is creating their own Brown Bear books. Each day they work on one page at a time coloring the illustrations and then read through the book using their "reading glasses pointer" they made. While reading they are encouraged to find the words "I", "see", and "at". (Below is the pointer that the students made)
While the students realize they are supposed to find these words within this book, I wonder if they have made the connection that they can look for those words in other books too. The students are always reading books while they wait to move on to the next task, but I wonder if they mostly explore the pictures or if they look at the words also. I think one way I could help direct the students attention to words that we are focusing on outside of the initial activity would be to give them a "weekly word hunt". On the board I will post a word and introduce what the word is and how it is spelled. I will ask the students to look for that word as they read books during that week and have them put a post it note on the page when they find that word. At some point during the day I will have the student share the sentence that contained the word of the week with the rest of the class. I have gathered that the student love the opportunity to share things with the class and this way they are able to do so while also connecting what they are sharing to the curriculum.
Another thought I had came when talking with the other kindergarten teachers about how they can challenge their students. While five and six year olds are not capable of writing a book report as eloquently as an older student, I think they are still able to compose book report using illustrations and some writing. When thinking about this I realized that it would be better if there was a template made for the students to use to help make this an independent, self directed assignment. It could be challenging for students to write a book report if they were just handed a blank piece of paper, especially when you have 25-30 students. The template could have a line where students put the title of the book, a box where they could draw something that happened in the story, and lines at the bottom of the page where they could first start by writing three words from the story to later on copying a sentence for the story. This is something that I think this age group could be very capable of working on, however, I could be wrong. This is when I get back to the question: is it okay to experiment with different activities when it might be beyond the grasp of what is developmentally appropriate?
Other things I would like to have to promote literacy in my classroom:
One thing that my master teacher has been working on with the kindergarteners is creating their own Brown Bear books. Each day they work on one page at a time coloring the illustrations and then read through the book using their "reading glasses pointer" they made. While reading they are encouraged to find the words "I", "see", and "at". (Below is the pointer that the students made)
Another thought I had came when talking with the other kindergarten teachers about how they can challenge their students. While five and six year olds are not capable of writing a book report as eloquently as an older student, I think they are still able to compose book report using illustrations and some writing. When thinking about this I realized that it would be better if there was a template made for the students to use to help make this an independent, self directed assignment. It could be challenging for students to write a book report if they were just handed a blank piece of paper, especially when you have 25-30 students. The template could have a line where students put the title of the book, a box where they could draw something that happened in the story, and lines at the bottom of the page where they could first start by writing three words from the story to later on copying a sentence for the story. This is something that I think this age group could be very capable of working on, however, I could be wrong. This is when I get back to the question: is it okay to experiment with different activities when it might be beyond the grasp of what is developmentally appropriate?
Other things I would like to have to promote literacy in my classroom:
- Snap words: A list of words that you can say in a snap! Students will be encouraged to find snap words and then they will be displayed in the classroom. If the alphabet is something that is always posted on the walls for reference and exposure why shouldn't other words be on display?
- Writing center: The article mentioned that the students need opportunities to experiment daily with reading and writing and I think a center where students can go and just write in whatever way they would like to express their self would be beneficial. There would be a variety of things to use in the writing center from paper and envelopes, to blank books where students could create their own stories.
- Morning message: The morning message is a great way to let students know what they will work on during that day while also exposing them to the words as they read it as a class. When I worked at the preschool they had their morning message be interactive. The teacher had jumbled the message that was written on strips of paper and the students had to put it in the right order using the things they knew (like words with capital letters go at the beginning and periods go at the end) and by reading the words.
- Flannel board: I want a large flannel board in my classroom where students will be able to create their own stories or can reproduce stories they have already read. There would be an assortment of different characters and settings to be used on this flannel board.
- Guest story reader: I really liked the story in the article about the class who invited people in to read stories to the class. The who process had a heavy emphasis on literacy. The students were required to write letters inviting their guests to their classrooms. The guest then would come and read a book to the class. Having someone come to the class helps the students to recognize the importance of reading and that reading is for everyone and not just students and those in schools.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Tip # 237 Pictures for Thought
For my first blog I decided to create a slide show of some of the pictures I have taken during my September Experience. One of the great pieces of advice my master teacher gave me was to take pictures of the classroom. That was something I had not really thought of doing. I was hoping that taking notes on the classroom layout and some of the activities in my journal would be all I would need if I wanted to recall or use something later. However, the reality is that I would most likely not remember everything that I was seeing in my class. Not only is taking pictures a much quicker way to document the things I see but also a good aid for jogging my memory. Enjoy!
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| Digital slideshow personalized with Smilebox |
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