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.