Week 7

Assignment #1:

What texts and materials do teachers have in their classrooms that support students' development of fluent reading?

School has a library for categorized books for different levels from too easy to too challenging. They choose texts that are appropriate to match both the kid’s level of reading proficiency and their level of conceptual development particularly in the area of social studies. They have rich supplies of reading material that tight to key content of standards.

How do they select vocabulary to teach in all areas of your curriculum?

     Vocabulary is categorized into three kinds. The first level of words is quite familiar with kids we don’t have to teach. The second level of words appears often enough in print, normal daily conversation or TV news. The third level of words are highly technical from biology or chemistry which are quite unique. They just focus on the second level, and most of those words can be found in the kid’s reading materials, science & social study books and literature books.

How much time do they allocate to word study?

    Better readers will spend 1.5-2 hrs a day for reading.

What word study routines do they teach and encourage their students to use?

Non-interruptive reading is encouraged which requires self-regulating and self-monitoring. Teachers should point out the key elements of reading. For example, it is shown in the video that a teacher pointed out smooth, correct, expressive as key points. Last but not least, it’s necessary to increase the volume of reading. The more they read, the more exposure they will have to these patterns.

How do they differentiate instruction and tasks based on their students' needs?

  Teachers will do side by side teaching which is also called coaching. They are moving around the classroom and dealing with problems that are specific to the child in the particular text he is reading.

Assignment #2:

How can you ensure that your struggling readers have access to texts they can easily read?

Provide a library filled with books varied of different levels which they can choose from. Books also covered both fiction and non-fiction that might attract different interests. Students are able to access books within their level, or above their level if they want some challenge.

How can you foster a learning environment in which students have many opportunities to practice reading?

    Whole group instruction which is mainly about shared reading is encouraged to foster a great learning environment. Students can share different opinions toward the same text. In addition, coaching is another way to foster the learning environment which tends to be more concentrate to specific needs.

Describe ways in which you can model fluent reading in your classroom throughout the day.

Place weak students into groups with good readers. If the whole group is doing unsatisfactory, then teachers need to read out loud in front of the whole class for students to follow and imitate. Otherwise, the model reading in the video can be played for students to learn from. It shows how reading is supposed to be.

Assignment #3:

Explain the three levels of words and how you can use word levels to decide which words to teach.

The first level of words is quite familiar with kids we don’t have to teach such as “good”, “run” and “luck”. The second level of words appears often enough in print, normal daily conversation or TV news such as “hurricane” and “democracy”. The third level of words are highly technical from biology or chemistry which are quite unique. They just focus on the second level, and most of those words can be found in the kid’s reading materials, science & social study books and literature books.

How do you teach your students to "chunk" words as a strategy for decoding unfamiliar words? When do you provide this instruction?

Use previous knowledge to figure out new words. We can just tear off the front or the back of a big word and ask student to pronounce the middle. Gradually uncover the whole and ask student to reread the word. After a 10-day period instruction practice, they are able to deal with unfamiliar words without a thumb.

Based on Professor Allington's comments and the classroom examples, what are some ways you might foster word study in your classroom?

Whole group instruction might not be the most effective way of teaching. In my future teaching process, I would focus more on the side by side teaching which I intended to get to know every student’s special needs in order to allocate different levels of reading material to different students.

Week 6

Assignment #1:

Short Lesson Plan:

5 minutes  Review the words that he didn't pronounce correctly. 

5 minutes  Explain the differences between though and through; most and must.

5 minutes  Find some other similar words for her to practice the pronunciation.

Assignment #2:

(a)   What you’ve learned about “reading fluency”?

“Reading fluency” means the ability to read aloud without hesitation and with good inflection. It requires students not only be able to decode, but also the speed of decoding and with comprehension. Fluency is not simply to read out a certain paragraph, more importantly it is about understanding of the text and connection with existed knowledge.

(b)   How you can apply “fluency assessment” in you classroom?

As it is learnt the last class, teachers can apply both formal and informal assessment to students. Students’ fluency assessment can be done with observing students reading for both pronunciation and comprehension. It can also be assessed with timed reading and compared their performance with published standards.

(c) How you will plan your “fluency instruction.”

   Prepare an appropriate text for students to learn and make a rubric for assessment. Make students try to read aloud and make an initial judgment for the later instruction. Provide a model fluent reading which students can catch the sense and imitate. Then they need to repeat reading and do some activities according to the text. Activities such as student-adult reading, choral reading, tape-assisted reading, partner reading, readers’ theatre can be applied into instruction.

Assignment #3:

Lesson Plan

Topic: Pronunciation of Initial Letter

Level: K-1

Objective:

Students will recognize the sound of the initial letter of a word.

Students will generalize the rules of pronunciation of single letter within context.

Students will learn to collaborate with each other to achieve goals.

Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.1.5a Sort words into categories (e.g., colors, clothing) to gain a sense of the concepts the categories represent.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

Materials and Preparation:

Prepare several flash cards and hide them somewhere in the classroom.

Print out a song for each student and leave every word’s initial letter blank.

Download the song on the computer.

Procedure:

1.      Have a brainstorm at the beginning of the class. Let the students think of words start with the same sound (For example: “b”, boy, book, box and ball). Ask them to repeat the sound of the initial letter. Try two more examples and help the students to get the idea.

2.      Do some related exercises. I say a word; then the students should say the letter and pronounce the first letter.

3.      Separate the class into two groups and ask them to find out all the flash cards and sort those cards according to the first letter. Each group will be required to read the words on the flash cards and point out the beginning letter with its pronunciation.

4.      Give out the worksheet, play the song and let the students filling the blanks. Play the song again and let them check their work. 

Assessment:

Students’ understanding of the beginning word will be assessed through their worksheet and their performance during the whole class.

Week 5

Assignment 1:

a.      What surprised or interested you?

The first thing interested me is that students themselves are taking responsibilities to organize the morning activities. Secondly, Ms. Wilson combined a lot of cultural stuff into the practice of both reading and writing. The traditional dragon is showed in front of the class and students cam even taste the Chinese food in class. On top of that, they are able to create a dragon by hands. It is real cultural experiences. Lastly, the books they have done are all posted on the wall which can be shared with other classes and parents.

b.     What did you find that affirmed what you already knew or had been doing?

Teachers must have a good preparation before class. Abundant learning materials should be provided while learning new knowledge. That’s a good way to help students connect concrete objects with abstract concepts.

c.      What new approaches or ideas will you try?

In my future teaching, I will also let the students take responsibilities to the whole classroom. Collaborative learning is lack in schools in my country, I think that’s a good way to make students share experiences and learn from each other. I will definitely try that as well.

d.     What questions do you have?

This is a class for students who are learning English as their second language. I’m just curious how they are able to pronounce English words as mother tongue. Students in my country started to learn English from the first grade, but more or less, we do have very obvious accent. In addition, I noticed that the instructor Ms. Li spoke Cantonese which might not understand by all the Chinese kids. Why don’t they choose someone speaks Mandarin Chinese?

e. After watching the video, do you think differently about classroom practices you observed through field experience?

I appreciate a lot of Ms. Wilson’s class. She has so many activities for students to learn language. Obviously, students enjoyed those activities very much. In addition, Ms. Wilson said teachers shouldn't take our own background and how we learn, we should think about Children and the cultural implication.


Assignment 2

For the first 5 minutes, I would like to review the words that he didn't pronounce correctly. For the next 5 minutes, practice will be give for distinguishing between similar spelling words but with different meanings. (eg: though and through) For the last 10 minutes, I would like to give him an explanation of the form of singular and plural, then I will let him do some exercise.

Week 4

Assignment 1:

The results are as following:

Accuracy rate = 94%

Error rate = 1:17

Self-correction rate = 1:5

Details were written at the bottom of the page.

Assignment 2:

Strength: The little girl had a very good beginning.She had a very fluency reading skill with words that she has already known well. Sometimes she was able to conjecture the pronunciation according to the alphabets.She has a good comprehension ability of understanding the main idea of an article.And she was also able to go into most of the details. Last but not least, she has equipped with the basic logical thinking ability due to her retelling order.

Needs: She was still unclear about the changes between the form of singular and plural. She was also confused about the present and past tense. Her confidence of reading weakened after meeting unfamiliar words. She relied on her teacher too much and her self-correction rate is low. So she probably needs more training on independent reading.