Teresa Patterson"s Blog Post #3: Chapter 4 Teach with a Sense of Urgency

Teresa Patterson’s Blog Post #3: Regie Routman Chapter 4 Teach with a Sense of Urgency

“We need to keep our expectations high.”  I totally agree that not necessarily does Routman feel that leads to more activities but rather higher level thinking, problem solving, and questioning through relevant texts and curriculum. We do need to support our students in becoming more self-sustaining, thoughtful, independent readers and writers.

When reading her top five things listed that teachers do to ensure students become excellent readers,  I think most of those are done in our grade level. I think we are even in process toward her top five things, a work in progress. So often throughout my teaching career, I have unfortunately heard what the prior teacher didn’t do with a child. In the early years, I guess we could put blame on the parents or the home life which, without question, is very influential on the child’s learning we would all agree.  I still question how a child could be five and not know colors or some of them, yet I was enriched in a learning environment whereas many of our low poverty students lack that luxury. To teach is to take that student who comes into your room and move them forward as far as that teacher can with that sense of urgency as mentioned. The first of the year is always difficult for us as we forget how far students have truly progressed the year before and we have to remember to slow down enough to begin again. I think that has always been my joy in teaching kindergarten as the leaps and bounds are tremendous from beginning to year end.

The four phases of learning-demonstration, shared demonstration, guided practice, and independent practice somehow reminded me of student teaching. The teacher demonstrates first while the student teacher observes followed by student teacher participation. The student teacher then practices with support until finally achieving minimal assistance becoming solely independent. Yet, they are all integral pieces reaffirming that Don Holdaway’s beliefs that “all learning is social and dependent on relationships with others, with context, with environment, with the world, and with self” is substantiated.

In Routman’s section on interactive reading, I reflected to a past program we used where partners would “think, pair, and share”. The students did talk more to each other rather than just the teacher. I often stop during stories to explain the meaning of words or ask questions rather than rolling on through it. I found it relevant that second language learners could benefit from the interaction.

I loved the examples of creating our own texts and integrated reading-writing activities. We have already made a class book the first week of school with Pete the Cat. The students love to see Pete reading his book as well as looking at it themselves. I look forward to creating more texts they can read. The “What we’re really good at” example reminds me of our “I’m OK” writing we do.

In conclusion, I differ with Routman that “we expect very little from poverty-stricken students in financially strapped schools.” Our children are definitely poverty stricken but our expectations are high for them as they should be. Many of the students come to our school with no prior education, not knowing even his/her name sometimes. We find so many of our poverty stricken students begin to soar once they form a bond with students and teachers and are exposed to that which they have never had. They come to us knowing no letters or sounds and cannot follow the simplest of directions. With meaningful instruction these same children leave as little readers!