Not so final thoughts about technology in the classroom

One thing that I've taken away from this quarter through my classes and working in classrooms with students is that differentiation isn't just about ability level.  Differentiation can be about individual interests, cultural backgrounds or learning styles too.  Either way, the goal is to help all students learn.  Technology is one way we can do this.  With the use of technology, students have many more avenues through which they can be reached.  While I was not able to take full advantage of having the ipod touch in my classroom,   I am starting to see more and more how it can help differentiate instruction.

The most relevant way that I believe it could help students is to differentiate instruction for students with different learning styles.  Whether they are learning Math, Science, Reading, Writing or Social Studies, there are apps on the ipod that allow students to access those subjects in ways other than those that may have been taught in the classroom.  In Math, students can use the technology to practice facts they've been struggling with or to enrich instruct and go further into concepts they're learning.  They can also use it as a way to see different ways of attacking the same type of problem, differentiating instruction by ability level and learning style.

In reading instruction, students can use ipod touch technology to improve their reading fluency, read a variety of texts and learn about various strategies for decoding.  Using it to enrich a social studies curriculum can allow them to access the internet from right where they are and have access to information on topics that interest them.  These strategies allow for differentiation by ability level, learning style and student interests.  Additionally, there are many apps for translation in a variety of languages, helping some students to overcome a language barrier in their classroom.

Moving From Assessment to Instruction

This last week, I had an interesting reading conference with R.  He read two separate reading passages, one about Amelia Earhart and one about steam engines.  When we started our reading conference, I gave him a choice of which passage to read.  He chose the steam engine passage.  He had almost not trouble with miscues or comprehension, and he got through it relatively quickly.  Because we had time at the end of the conference, I also assessed him on the Amelia Earhart passage.  His ability to retell and comprehend both pieces was strong.  


Initially, I had predicted that his comprehension level would be higher on the piece he was able to choose, however, his comprehension was strongest on the Amelia Earhart passage.  This is likely because he had more background knowledge going into the reading.  


From these observations it is clear that R has a strong ability to comprehend and infer from grade level text.  He is also interested in realistic fiction as well as literature about sports.  As a result of this, possible learning objectives could be, using a text slightly above grade level for R to make inferences about the author's purpose for writing the text. Analyzing these elements of literature would also be useful in developing R's ideas and content in his writing. 

Literacy Project 1

Analysis

This analysis is based off of the writing sample of one short story written by “R,” my fourth grade buddy.  The sample is taken from the rough draft of a creative writing assignment called “The Bottle.”  I believe this story was written in response to a prompt that asked students to write a story about what happens when their character finds a mysterious bottle.  I have analyzed the spelling in both the writing sample and the spelling inventory.

Meaning

In the piece of writing we chose, “The Bottle,” R has responded to a creative writing prompt regarding the events that take place after the character finds a strange bottle.  Because we spent most of our time talking to our buddy about the outline for his next writing piece, we weren't able to discuss the meaning of this piece other than in relation to the prompt.    

Six Traits

Ideas

In terms of assessing his rough draft on the ideas and content, R chose a narrow and manageable topic.  He generally stays on topic but hasn’t developed a clear theme or sense of purpose. Additionally he tends to be drawing on his own knowledge and experience, using a video game sale as the main purpose for the message in the bottle.  While his ideas are reasonably clear with attempted support, the ideas aren’t expanded upon in a way that relates to the prompt at all.  As a reader, it was hard for me to pick out which events were the most important.  Many of them did not seem related to the prompt.

Organization

From this writing smaple, R shows a strong sense of organizational abilty.  His introduction introduced the topic clearly, creating anticipation for the rest of the story.  His transistions, such as “seconds later…” and “thirty long minutes later…” and even “then…” clearly showed how his ideas connected to one another.   In this piece, the sequencing occurs in logical order.  While the writer  controls his pace fairly well, he often does not slow down and elaborate on potentially important parts of the story.  While the title is present, it mainly just restates the prompt. 

Voice 

When reading this writing sample, it was hard to pick up on a distinct voice.  His writing is sincere, but doesn’t reflect his individual perspective on the topic. From this piece, it does not appear that R took many risks in the development.  Although the piece was intended to be a creative writing assignment, he mostly wrote about what he was comfortable with and did not risk revealing much about himself. 

Word Choice
Overall, this piece displays word choice that serves to get the point across, but does not enhance the interest of the reader.  R uses words that are specific and accurate.  At times he attempts to use more colorful language but can go beyond what would be appropriate for the described situation.  He mainly uses familiar words and phrases, but once or twice shows evidence of revision to phrases that are more eye catching such as “so hungry I could eat a…”

Sentence Fluency
R’s sentence fluency, much like his word choice, is generally functional.  With a few changes, he could make this story much more expressive.  His sentences vary in length and structure, however, the included dialogue sounds slightly unnatural.  While he does attempt to vary his sentence beginnings, there are multiple sentences that start with “then…” “it…” and “I…”  He uses appropriate and sometimes creative connectives between sentences and thoughts to show their connectedness such as “Thirty long minutes later…”  These thoughtful transitions allow for some expressive oral reading, but other sentences are still stiff and choppy.

Conventions

Overall, R’s conventions are strong.  His grammar is always correct and his capitalization skills are consistent.  His end punctuation is almost always accurate, however, his internal punctuation is sometimes missing.  For example, a few of his compound sentence did not include a comma prior to the conjunction, and many of his transitions lacked punctuation.  Moderate editing, some of which is included in the sample, would be necessary before taking the draft to publication.  The spelling in this sample is generally correct.  There are a few misspelled words (their instead of both they’re and there, lightning and trafic).

Ownership

While we did not formally engage our buddy in discussion in terms of his ownership of writing, we were able to collect a few pieces of information on the topic. When we discussed the subject of writing with our buddy, he was eager to tell us about how much he enjoyed it.  He sees himself as a capable writer and speller.  He enjoys writing mostly about topics that he has some experience with such as sports and school and likes writing less in the genres of fantasy or adventure.

Spelling
I believe that R’s spelling is advanced for his age.  He missed only 2 words in his spelling inventory (pleasher and oposition).  When looking at his writing, he appeared to be using but confusing double consonants to change the sound of the vowel in the word (shinny, trafic).  He seemed to know that the double consonant changed the sound, but was confused as to whether it made the vowel long or short.  It might be useful for him to pay attention to consonant doubling (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston, 2004).  He also confused their, there and they're, catching himself once as he was writing.  

Lesson Plan

Objectives:

The student will understand the way that a double consonant affects the vowel sound in word.

Standards

3.3.2   Spells words appropriate for the grade level accurately.  

Materials

·         List of words with single consonants that cause a long vowel sound

·         List of words with double consonants that cause a short vowel sound

·         White Board

·         Dry Erase Marker

·         Eraser

Instruction

• The teacher will begin the lesson by giving the student a list of 15-20 words, of varied lengths, that either follow the rule of double consonants creating a short vowel sound or words that have a single consonant and a long vowel sound.  Some of these words will be ones misspelled in the students writing.  Using words from the student's own writing and incorporating this into the patterns in other words will make the spelling more relevant to the student (Templeton and Morris, 1999). 
• The student(s) will use a white board to put the words into categories however (s)he choses.  (Words are written out to reinforce correct spelling as well as to make the student aware of the patterns as he is writing them).  As this is happening, the teacher will be doing a formative assessment to see how the student choses to sort the words.
• After the words are sorted, the teacher will discuss with the student(s) how the sorting decisions were made.  Based on this, the teacher may ask to see if there is a different way to sort the words, or, if more support is needed, may sort them and ask the student what (s)he notices about the patterns (both in spelling and sound).
• The teacher will then explain how words with a double consonant before the vowel sound different than some words with a single consonant before the vowel.  She will then model (using words from the sort as well as new words) how she thinks aloud when spelling about the way the word sounds and how that relates to how they are spelled.
• The teacher will repeat the process, asking the student to spell the words aloud with her.
• After guided practice, the student will independently practice correctly using these types of words in his writing over the course of the week.

Assessment
Teacher will assess student ability to spell words correctly by assessing their knowledge while the student sorts the words and through a spelling test using some of the words from the word sort as well as new words that follow the same spelling patterns.  The teacher will look for correct spelling of the words both on the spelling tests and in the student's writing.  

Taking Risks

As adults, many of us (and by many of us I mean me) are reluctant to have others read what they've written. We're afraid that they'll judge our ideas, the way we write, or even our punctuation. We don't see other's suggestions to our work as an opportunity for improvement as much as we see it as a personal attack on who we are as writers. This makes sense of course, given that most of our lives anything we'd ever written for a class has come back to us covered in red pen. I'm not saying that those comments don't have their place, but there should be another avenue for teachers than to mark up every piece of writing presented by their students.

Routman's ideas about writing conferences seem like a valid way to combat the stigma associated with constructive criticism in writing. Having content and editing conferences with students before they publish eliminates much of the frustration in getting back a marked up piece of published work. Her approach to writing as a collaborative effort allows students to work together to come up with ideas as well as creates an atmosphere where students aren't afraid to share their writing with their classmates. Additionally, she allows students to create their own goals so that the conference process is more student centered than curriculum centered.

Raising the Bar

So far one of my favorite parts about Regie Routeman is her high expectations of her students. What we believe abouts students will be obvious to them in the expectations that we set. When we set low expectations, students often believe that's all they're capable of. Setting high expectations sends the message that every student is capable of expanding their knowledge. Routeman cited teacher's tendency to set expectations below students' actual ability as a reason for such low achievement in their writing. And I agree. But where do we draw the line? How do we distinguish the line between how much our students are capable of and how much to expect before they become overwhelmed and disengaged?

I know that part of the answer lies in knowing your students. There is a combination of information that is important to know in regards to academic ability as well as how they react emotionally to being pushed to the edge of that level. But clearly finding that line will be an art. As new teachers, how will we know when we've crossed that line?

In working with our Kindergarten buddy, this was a question my partner and I addressed often. Our buddy seemed excited to work with us at first, but as the weeks went on he seemed less and less engaged. We thought we were doing everything right. We really tried to get to know him the first week. We wanted to be able to incorporate as much of his interests into our lessons as possible. His attitude seemed to change somewhere during his initial reading assessment. As soon as he was unsuccessful in one section, he seemed to grow tired of the assessment and of us. In reflecting on his change in attitude, we considered many options. It was possible that the end of the test was tiring for him, or that he had never learned the section on which he was being tested, or quite possible he was just sick of us asking questions.

With these considerations, we opted to make lessons that focused on the areas he was having trouble with. However, week after week, he seemed to shut down. While he seemed to be making progress each week, he never seemed excited to learn with us. We wondered: Was he bored? Did he hate us? Were our expectations too high?

Teachers as Writers

After completing this week’s readings, I thought to myself, “I’ve never been much of a writer... Sure I can teaching writing as long as I don’t have to write anything myself…” like many of the students in Routman’s book, I remember loving to write in early elementary school and somewhere along the way growing to resent it. Because I was so often forced to write about topics that I didn’t have any say in, I now even have a hard time writing about topics I choose myself. It’s become easier for me to write about specified topics than it is for me to express my own creativity. I fear judgment, not of my ability to respond to a prompt, but of my ability to clearly illustrate with words what I’m feeling or thinking. How should I expect my students to love writing, if it’s something they see me avoid?

After reading the beginning of Routman’s book, I’ve really realized the importance of keeping students passionate about writing. How can we ensure success in a subject to which students have become so resistant? My master teacher in my main placement classroom does a fantastic job of ensuring success in her writing curriculum. She doesn’t teach specific writing traits as lessons dissociated with writing itself and she doesn’t give children topics about which to write that don’t leave room for creativity. She embeds her lessons on organization, word choice, and paragraph elements on writings that students are already doing on topics of their choice. She models those elements of writing in her own work in front of the students. Not only does this allow her to show her students that nobody’s writing is perfect, it also lends itself to creating community in the classroom through learning more about one another. She goes through the revision process in front of the class allowing her students to see and hear her thought process as it is happening. After they are comfortable with this idea, she publicly helps individual students and allows the class to give suggestions as well. This promotes the idea that there is nothing wrong with very rough rough drafts of an assignment.

One of the most successful assignments I have witnessed her give to students is her “small moments” assignment. On the first day of school, students make a “name art grid.” They divide a piece of paper into 4 sections and decorate their name on one of them and are asked to draw 3 exciting life events in the remaining 3 squares. These students never have problems deciding what to draw. What they don’t know at the time is that they will use these for a later writing assignment. The teacher asks students to pick one story and journal about it. They are then asked to expand on one part or moment of that story in order to elaborate and give more detail. The teacher uses this to model many elements of adding detail to a story and completes the assignment herself. She models the writing process while making it relevant to something the students feel connected to. She celebrates student work and encourages their love of expressing their ideas on paper.

It has been a great experience for me to have seen many of the approaches in Routman’s book ahead of time. It helps me to realize that there is really a practical way to apply many of the strategies that we have been learning!

Back to Kindergarten!

After reflecting as a class on meeting with our Kindergarten buddies, I was surprised to see how many different levels of literacy kids can be at, even this early in the year. It was also interesting to see how many different ways kids expressed their understanding of literacy. Working both in my main placement in 4^th grade, and in Kindergarten, I have noticed evidence of best practices for literacy in place. In my 4^th grade placement, my master teacher spends a significant amount of time during their literacy block giving individualized instruction to students with both their reading and writing strategies. She works with her students individually and in small groups and only focuses on a couple of strategies at each time. After this focus, she checks in periodically over the next couple of weeks to assess student progress on those strategies. Many of the best practices for teaching children in the prealphabetic stage will benefit children. For example, even in 4^th grade, my master teacher will give her students opportunities to experience a variety of meaningful texts at different levels. This occurs both on their own and during read alouds. They are also expected to write every day for a variety of purposes. This is experienced both during literacy and at times during social studies, where they will journal about various experiences in the class.

Additionally, during my experience in Kindergarten, I noticed much evidence of best practices for literacy in the classroom. Before even reading Fox’s definitions of best practices, it was obvious that literacy was valued in the classroom. The alphabet was displayed in various places around the room and was also written on a placemat at each student’s desk. She had bulletin boards with word groups on them as well as a place for the letter of the week with words listed that began with that letter. She also had a bulletin board to track each student’s monthly progress through pictures and words. In terms of best practices, I noticed that she taught phonemic awareness through stretching and shrinking words. Students could hear her model this strategy and then were able to copy it in order to hear and identify individual sounds in words. Also, by having one letter of the alphabet as a focus each week, she was able to concentrate on teaching one or two skills at a time.

In working with my Kindergarten buddy, I noticed many elements of emerging literacy. I was surprised by how eager he was to show me everything he knew how to do. When we did our “get to know you” activity, he was able to write the answers for many of his own questions and wanted to write the answers for my questions that he knew how to as well. He was hesitant to make mistakes in his spelling and if he didn’t know how to spell something, he would resort to drawing a picture of the answer. He had a very clear understanding that he was to read left to right, which was obvious when he wanted to spell the name of TV show written on his shirt. Since he was looking at it upside down, he read from left to right as he saw it on his shirt and ended up spelling the word backwards!

When we read together, we read the book, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which he was quite familiar with. When I would pause in my reading, he was able to finish the sentence. I wasn’t quite able to tell whether that was because he was so familiar with it or because there were parts he was able to read on his own.

Teaching Literacy

Throughout this program, I have expanded my definition of literacy quite a bit. I used to think that teaching literacy was solely about teaching students how to read. I thought that those who could read were literate and those that couldn’t weren’t. I’ve since come to realize what a narrow definition of literacy that was. Through my September Experience, my definition broadened to include reading and writing as a means of communication for someone to express their ideas. Since then I’ve furthered it to mean the ability of person to use language to communicate with others and express ideas both orally and through the written word in order to participate effectively in society. This implies that even before children are able to read, they are growing their literacy abilities (Sulzby and Teale). The changing of that definition will make a huge difference in the way I both instruct and assess my students in areas of literacy.

Sulby and Teale’s article on emergent literacy discusses methods teachers can use to develop students’ literacy at every level. Even before children are able to read and write fluently, they are still able to some extent to communicate their ideas through writing and to take in other ideas through reading. Successful literacy curriculums prioritize “active involvement” in literacy and should have opportunities for both reading and writing daily (Sulzby and Teale). This standard for literacy has been modeled to me by my master teacher, who makes time for both reading and writing daily. During the majority of days, there is a specific lesson centered around reading and writing, but on the days that there aren’t, children still have opportunities to do both. She models this through giving students opportunities to journal about their learning in other subjects, giving them opportunities to read aloud and silently in other subjects, and reading aloud to students at a variety of reading levels.

Read alouds are a great way to engage students in text they may not otherwise try (Ivey). Students take an interest in texts that may be above their reading level and then have the read aloud to help them navigate that text. Reading at different ability levels helps “demonstrate value for all levels of text,” which can build the self esteem of students who may be a lower reading level than the rest of their class (Ivey). Students are able to derive a deeper meaning both from texts that may seem below their reading level and from ones they wouldn’t be able to understand on their own. When teachers read aloud, they can model strategies for the students to use when they are reading silently. When students apply these techniques to their own reading, they are able to make deeper meanings from their own reading. My master teacher often uses read alouds to explicitly teach techniques she expects the students to adapt to their own reading. She uses multiple levels of texts to model to students how to make predictions in their readings and to stop and ask what the author is trying to tell them in their text.

I am excited to start using these techniques with students so I can more fully understand their value!