Lindsey Layton - Blog Post #7

Lindsey Layton:  Blog Post #7 – Chapter 9:  Emphasize Shared Reading

I really enjoyed reading this chapter because I think it is a great way to share reading with our students and even our own children.  Shared reading allows the teacher to model reading and also allows students the opportunity to read with their own peers. 

            During Shared Reading time, both the students and the teacher have responsibilities.  The students’ main responsibilities are for them to listen, talk with others, respond to the teacher, and think about what is happening in the story/book.  The text that the teacher chooses should be text that will keep the students engaged and interested.  In my classroom, my students thoroughly enjoy reading The Magic Treehouse books because Jack and Annie are younger children about their age.  I feel the students are able to relate to Jack and Annie; therefore, they are more engaged during the reading.  I have found that if my students are engaged and feel successful at reading, than they are more likely to want to read more work harder in the classroom.

            During Shared Reading in my own classroom, I allow the students to turn and talk to each other.  This allows the students to share their ideas with each other, ask questions to each other, and gets them thinking outside of the box.  When we do Share Reading, I will show my students what I am thinking so they realize they should be thinking and asking ideas to themselves while they are reading on their own.  I definitely want to incorporate additional shared reading in my classroom because I feel it is an excellent way to model reading to students. 

Ch. 12 Krystal Blog Post

Chapter 12 You Only Have So Much Time

It is so true that some teachers feel exhausted after teaching all day and still bring work home to complete.  I have experienced this for myself.  It is very difficult to tell friends “no” when asked to hang out during the weekdays because I am either stuck at work until 6-7 PM or working on assignments at the house.  However, I do know it is not beneficial for the students, when I am feeling exhausted.  I have always planned out at the beginning of the year, how I would spend my time more effectively in the classroom.  It sounds like a great plan until the school year actually begins.  That’s when programs, grades, evaluation assignments, professional developments, grad courses, etc begin to happen.  Trying to find that balance between my career and my personal life has always been a struggle for me.  I throw all of my energy into my career and let my passion drive me.  Unfortunately, that means my family and friends suffer from my absence most of the time.  This chapter has truly opened my eyes to how I am really most likely doing a disservice to myself as well as students.  Feeling burnt out should not be happening.   Although I may not see it, I am probably not utilizing the time in the classroom to the best of my ability.  In future planning, I will reflect on my current teaching schedule and modify or adjust for the coming school year.  I will also spend my summer catching up with those I neglected during this current school year and readings I have thrown to the side.  I will take time out to find out how I can become a more effective teacher and establishing and maintaining a balance between my career and personal life.

 

Routman Chapter 12: Jeff Young

Chapter 12 of Regie Routman’s book Reading Essentials is entitled “You Only Have So Much Time.”  As teachers, we know that to be so true!  Routman gives a set of questions for teachers to have in the back of their minds as they are teaching and preparing:  “What do I want them to know and understand, how can I help them understand it, how will I know they understand it, and what are my new expectations for students?”  Routman emphasizes the need for the work students are assigned to be meaningful.  When students can connect what they are doing to the real world, they are more motivated to learn and accomplish tasks given.  We all may be guilty at one time or another of assigning activities to just fill time, but Routman asks us to assess how the activity will “help my students become more independent as readers, writers, and thinkers.”

 Instead of administering time consuming assessments, Routman suggests making ongoing evaluation a priority.  (There may be some assessments that are required, but we are to assess the evaluations we have control of).  Another key in making time count is by allowing for active participation, which Routman explains, will promote higher learning and maximum participation.  I have found that students are eager to engage in the lesson if they can have an active part in it. 

Another interesting point to ponder is to ask yourself how effective are you using the walls in your  classroom.  Too often it’s easy to find colorful posters to paste up, but Routman says that walls, carefully used, with accessible helpful information such as content area words or vocabulary can benefit students.  Routman also encourages teachers to examine their daily schedule to maximize beneficial activities.

Lastly, Routman gives a few keys to being an exemplary teacher: read a lot (personal and professional books), reflect on one’s teaching, and invest in creating a classroom that nurtures the love of learning.  Routman’s suggestions, if carried out, can really change a classroom and school in significant ways. 

Schmidt Blog Post #7

Routman (2003): Chapter 9- Emphasize Shared Reading

April 11th, 2016

        Shared reading is a great way to demonstrate good reading to young learners. They get the chance to watch the teacher model, and work on skills that are essential to successful reading and fluency. Then they get the chance to read with their peers and work together. It is a fun way to learn reading.

        When doing shared reading in the classroom, there are different roles. The teacher gathers the materials, models to the students, asks questions, and provides demonstrations to the students. The role of the student is to listen, talk with others, respond to the teacher, and think about what is happening. The text that the teacher chooses is a text that is very engaging, and is worth the students' time, a book that they will enjoy and remember. (In our classroom, that would be the "Jack and Annie" books, Magic Treehouse . There are many purposes of shared reading, but one that I find to be extremely important is the give all students a chance to be successful. If students feel successful, they will work harder to achieve more goals. There are also many advantages to shared reading. All voices are encouraged to be heard, there is a lot of teaching and practice in not a lot of time, it is effective, it builds confidence in struggling readers, and it goes beyond just listening to a text.

        When doing shared reading in the classroom, there should be a lot of turn and talk. Many questions are to be asked, questions that help build comprehension in students, really getting them to think. It is important for teachers to "show" students what they are thinking, so that they get an idea of what to be thinking when they are reading a text on their own, or with a partner. Most importantly, students should get the chance to see what should be done, and have the opportunity to practice what they have learned. In the end, it will help students become more successful readers.

     I most definitely want to do this more in the classroom. I think it would help if I saw it modeled myself, but I know this is something I eventually want to incorporate in my classroom on a regular basis.

Teresa Knox Chapter 12 You Only Have So Much Time

As I was reading this article, the first quote stood out to me from Routman. "We are not only role models for learning; we are role models for living". This explains why we need to use real-life experiences in the classroom because it teaches our children how to live their daily lives in school and outside of school. When students are in school, they become better at what we teach them if teachers spend more time on instruction and have lots of time to read and talk about books or math problems. Another example that was stated was "To trust your own judgement and knowledge as you teach". When we teach, we should use the knowledge that we learned throughout our educational classes and apply that information into our planning to make it more interesting for our students. We should not rely heavily on textbooks to tell us how to teach. I try to use the resource books for a guide of how to get started and then create ways to teach the concepts by adding technology, writing, etc. This strategy will continue to keep work meaningful so that more value will come from the students.

Keeping work simple that students can do without the teacher's assistance will help the teacher observe how their students work and be able to help some students in a small groups if needed. When teachers teach a skill and assess, they check different levels throughout the day. During shared reading and writing, you can notice strengths and weaknesses to move a student forward to build confidence. Teaching that keeps students engaged saves time for the teachers and energy. Sometimes you can find yourself spending too much time discipline a student in the middle of the lesson when that time can be used for something else.

Jan/Feb blog-Ferguson

Blog Post: Jan/Feb

Emphasize Shared Reading

Below I have used a table that I saw on Dawn Mitchell’s post for a previous chapter. When I saw this I immediately showed my SRA reading group because I had them complete this same table for one of the chapters in our novel study.

Author’s Words	My thoughts
“Shared Reading is an important missing piece in many reading programs, especially in grade 2 and above.”  P.130	This first thought in the chapter really caught my attention. This statement is so true. I tend to stay away from shared reading because I want to give them all the time to read. I need to spend more time in my classroom reading to them and modeling good reading!
“In shared reading, a learner---or group of learners—sees the text, observes an expert (useullay the teacher) reading it with fluency and expression, and is invited to read along. P.130	(Before reading I thought) *What is shared reading???? Then I found this quote (see left).
“Shared reading is also powerful because it helps teacher and students bond” p. 130	I think trust and a relationship is so important between teachers and students. Rotuman states that  shared reading helps form bonds. I can totally see how this could help form relationships. You can learn a lot about students as they make text to self connections. As I think back I can recall several times when I have learned something new from student when reading with them.
“…we see that shared reading is not just a pleasant frill but a critical learning context for demonstrating and scaffolding learning”  p.131	Scaffolding is such an important thing even in the second grade. The more I model and scaffold learning the more success I see in my students. Shared reading would help me scaffold a larger group (or small group) and provide me more time for them to read during our small group instruction time.
“Shared reading is ideal for showing how any text works…” p. 132	Shared reading would be a great idea for introducing students to new text. I will be adding shared reading  to my lessons when introducing new text.
*Checklist on page 133	Great list to keep handy for trying to incorporate shared reading into a lesson.

The next section of the chapter provided a framework for shared reading. This framework will help me to make sure my shared reading is meaningful. I have done shared reading several times but never knew if what I was doing was meaningful and help students become better readers. I believe so much in scaffolding and modeling, that I am very interested in completing shared reading as a way to model and teach students.

The next section provided example lessons. I really learned a lot from the informational book shared read aloud lesson. I loved the way the teacher got very excited about the book. I liked the pace the teacher took with reading/thinking. I like that towards the end she got the students involved in the thinking/talking.

I am eager to get started using shared reading in my classroom! 

Chapter 5: Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library Blog # 7! Tori Miller

While reading Routman chapter 5, Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library, I focused on evaluating my classroom library using the chart found on page 66-67. I decided to evaluate my classroom library so I could focus on things I needed to improve on for the next school year.

1.       My classroom book nook does jump out at me and others that come into my classroom. Many times this year others have walked into my room and commented, “I love your reading garden.”

2.       My classroom library does look beautiful and contains an inviting display of plentiful reading materials.

3.       My classroom library does include a variety of genres and literary forms. Poetry would be the least that I have so I do need to focus on getting poetry books for my kindergarten room. Any ideas where to find any? Or suggestions of good poetry books for a kindergarten classroom?

4.       Yes, most of the books in the library are written by well-known children’s authors such as Bill Martin, Eric Carle, Mo Willems, Lucille Colandro, and Dr. Seuss.

5.       I have current books that accurately and aesthetically portray other cultures but not enough. I definitely could use more of these!!

6.       Like number five I could use more books that have the students’ language and culture in them, I have a few Dora books that have Spanish words but do need to increase my books selections for this.

7.       I have made all of the selections and organizational decisions about the design of the library and how books are to be grouped and what reading materials to include. I do change out the books based on our studies at the time and the students’ interest but I haven’t let them give much input on the grouping and design. This I will try to change.

8.       Struggling readers can easily find books that they can read and want to read. I have books that just have one or two words, sight word books, picture books, and leveled readers that are leveled by letters (A-D) and colors (red, blue, green).

9.       There are comfortable areas for students to sit and read. I have a child size Adirondack chair with a lime green pillow in it, lime green rugs on the floor with pillows for the students to sit and read, a floor chair with a Pete the Cat pillow, a child size chair and couch, and a bus tent for the students to read in.

10.   I do add to, change, and rotate to my collection of books based on the needs, interests, curriculum of my students.

11.   My classroom library does include children’s favorite authors, books, and series and is based on the students’ preferences and not mine.

12.   My classroom library is a place that children love to go to seek and find wonderful reading materials. My students love to find the “new books” that I rotate in and see if they can read them. They get so excited when they can read the books!

Through this self-evaluation of my classroom library I have a list of things to improve on for the next school year to improve my classroom library that I might have the OUTSTANDING CLASSROOM LIBRARY that every student deserves!