So far, I've been to my clinical
school twice this semester! It has been an amazing experience so far, my new cooperating
teacher is great (insert sigh of relief).
The students are such a diverse bunch of 2nd graders. Having
only been there twice, I must admit I do not have all their names memorized. I
realized I still don’t know all of their names just yet when I confused my
teacher during a conversation. I have definitely been enjoying getting to know
them all so far.
This week I've been focusing on my
classroom’s literacy instruction and assessment. According to the class
schedule each morning; literacy begins each day with PAWS followed by reading
literacy. PAWS begin each morning at
9:00AM-9:30AM. I have yet to observe a classroom that uses PAWS as a part of
their literacy curriculum, so I must admit I’m a bit disappointed. For those of
you like me who are not too familiar with the PAWS for Reading program, let me
explain what this is. This is a 30 minute reading period where students spend
time reading. They choose to be a part of the Cats or Dogs team and each day
they track their reading time. It also includes plenty of cool rewards and fun
activities. Unfortunately, on the day of the week that I visit, all of the 2nd
grade classes meet for 2nd Step, a social and academic skill
building school-wide curriculum. Following 2nd Step is literacy
reading, during this time students separate by reading groups. In my
cooperating teacher’s reading group were 3 students, 2 of her students and 1
from Mrs. Gordon’s classroom. They began with a phonemic activity led by my CT,
it focused on building words and identifying real and nonsense words. Next, they
played a Lakeshore Who, What, When, Where game that
focuses on reading comprehensions skills, allowed the students to demonstrate
detailed comprehension. For this game, students read a short story as a group
and/or individually and played a game similar to Jeopardy. Students were required to show evidence in the
text to support their final answers. I like that my CT engaged all the students
when answering a tough inference question someone struggled with. This allowed
them all to support each other and was a great way to keep the group on task before
the wait caused distractions for others. Surprisingly, the kids loved this
literacy game. They were anticipating which category to begin with in order to
win with the most points this time. Funny thing is, so far they always end with
a tie. After this activity the students returned to their respective classrooms
for story time. During this time, my CT read aloud to them as they followed along
silently at their desks. Mrs Beard added digital literacy one day and allowed groups
of students to use iPads to reenact a scene from the chapter and share it with
the class. Reading literacy in my classroom was pretty interesting to observe so
far.
Compared
to what I have been studying here at ISU, my CT uses popular strategies for
literacy. In my opinion, it’s great for
building comprehension skills and the students really enjoy it. It’s also at a
just-right 30 minute time span; just learned about those in my 277 course. From
my standpoint, I give reading literacy a thumbs up. In the past, my experiences
with literacy focused mostly on phonemic awareness. My students always were able to enjoy a good
read-aloud and the same hold true this clinical experience. With this older
group, they were able to follow along with their own copies and experience what
good reading is like.
I must say, I picked up a couple
things about literacy and assessments thus far. I already knew how truly
important it is to allow young, developing readers to hear good reading skills
in practice. I took the initiative to show some of my own reading skills to my
class, after lunch. I chose and read a short story about Abraham Lincoln’s life.
As many stories as my CT kept near her chair on Abe, I knew I had to make this
story sound engaging and worth listening to. I also took note about asking
questions to ensure that answers to comprehension questions are backed with
evidence. Asking meaningful questions can be used as a formative assessment
during any activity. Questioning also allows students to build inquiry skills
and promote learning. Young children and their imaginations manage to shock me
often when they explain why they are correct and the conversation often takes a
turn somehow. During small group reading instruction, I realized that is
something I should begin to do more of in my teaching career.
The
literacy and assessment components of my clinical are all I’ll focus on this week.
Meanwhile, continue to follow me on my journey as an ISU clinical student. I
have much more to share and I’m anxious to hear any comments you may have. My
next post will focus on another aspect of my class and all about the experience.
Stay tuned bloggers!
Am I ensuring my students 4 C's are met?
