Blog about your Field Exp. the week of Oct. 13-17. What did you get to do? What did you observe? What are you seeing that will impact your teaching (negative or positive)?
Today, it was reading test day in Ms. Brown's class. They all had to take a 34 question reading test on their computers. I was told to watch a student take her test in the hallway and make sure she wasn't just clicking answers. So, I didn't do much because I wasn't allowed to help her. I think it would be beneficial to watch them take the test as a teacher though, because I heard which words she was struggling with. She had trouble with words like island, sound, outside, and she mixed up the wh words sometimes. I think, if you watched this as a teacher, you would be able to work on the words that most of the kids were struggling on. The end result of the test is helpful because it shows how many they got right, but it would be even more beneficial to know what specific things they had trouble with. I did think that there wasn't enough time for her to read the passage, read the question, then go through the answers and choose. She ran out of time on a lot of questions. I also think 34 questions was a lot for them to do at once. I noticed her and the other boy in the hallway that Danelle was working with were both distracted. There was stuff going on in the hallway and my student kept yawning and counting down how many she had left. My student was also talking out loud while taking the test and Danelle's student was reading silently. I think talking out loud helps a lot of students when they are reading, but, if they were all in the classroom, how would you go about this so that they could read aloud if they wanted, but not distract the other students and give the answers away? I was also curious if they were all the same questions or not on their tests.
In my reading classroom, the teacher lets the students read aloud, and she solves the noise problem by encouraging the students to use the headphones they have for their computers, and she also plays background music while they read. I think the background music helps tremendously because I am someone that gets distracted from little noises like someone tapping their foot, and the background music helps drown out obnoxious noises like that. I also think it would be helpful for teachers to go around while students are taking tests and writing down the words that students struggle with the most. I'm pretty sure the tests like that also tell teachers the questions that students struggled with the most and how much time they took for each question ext.
I think you bring up some great points. 34 sounds like a lot! I don't think I would be able to keep my focus. I guess the timer can encourage the students to stay focused, but after a certain amount of time I would just stop caring. I think that in a classroom it would help for the teacher to write down words that the students are verbally struggling with. That if the teacher can then review them or ask the class what words they had trouble with to help fix any problems they are having could help.
I do not like timed tests. I do not feel like students can do the best of their ability if we don't allow them to do so. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a time constraint, but if the student isn't able to finish a handful of questions then something isn't quite right. I love Lori's point about background music! I always loved that as a kid as well.
I understand how hard teacher have to make the students focus on something that not everyone interesting in. But the best way to do is to encourage them to try their best and do not give up. Also, teacher needs to know the students background before assign their work.
Today was a slightly different day because the students had a bus safety drill in the morning, which cut into reading time a bit. Once reading actually started, the kids as usual divided into their reading buddies, and us Westminster students went with out kiddos. I have been reading with Jayna, and we read a Social Studies article about Political and Physical Maps. I realize that there is very little time to teach social studies, but these articles are horrible. They are extremely uninteresting, and while Jayna struggles with reading a little, overall she has a pretty good grasp. She has told me multiple times that she does not like these articles, and I wonder if it would be better to have the students choose a social studies, or current events article of their choice.
I think that is a great idea. I hate that students find social studies boring! It does not have to be! Reading boring articles for any subject makes it boring, but giving the students more choice helps them find something that they can try and connect with more. I think you should suggest that to your teacher. There are better ways to teach social studies. Have the students discuss current events from small to big (i.e. their life, Fulton, Missouri, USA, and the world). Find ways to relate it to the student first and then have them read background on a subject that interests them.
In my classroom, we read social studies magazines a lot. I agree with you that they are not the greatest and that they make both reading and social studies not very fun for the kids. Having a different activity where the students could choose their readings is a good idea. I also think Meredith's idea about finding ways for them to relate to the articles would help them be much more involved and interested, improving their reading skills at the same time!
That is a great idea!! Students will be more interested in the articles and then as a teacher you can relate a current social studies article with something that happened in the past and make connections between the two. Howe could you incorporate other subjects into reading?
I don't think the students in my class like them either. They are really long and take up a lot of time. I think the school district/government/whoever is more concerned about the testing than about the interests of the students. If the students each chose a different article, they wouldn't all be able to take the same test. But, I feel like this could be worked out just like how students take different tests on books they've read.
I agree with you. This article was not very interesting and my girl did not know what was going on. It was one of the worst reading days for her compared to ones she's had in the past. I believe it is because of the article. I think choosing a social studies event or current events article would be a lot more interesting for the students. It's hard to find articles on their level that are current event I think, but maybe there is a website out there!
I hate the articles too. I believe that Ms. Speer could do a much better job at teaching social studies other than having them read this article (it may just be a case were they are reading them because we are here) for the social studies period). I remember the students being so happy when they were told they could do an activity with it after they blogged, maybe Ms. Speer should have them do that again and maybe that would bring the students' engagement back.
Today, Ms. Brown focused the early hour I was there on spelling and then reading. I think that this is a great way to transition lessons because the spelling book they use had students looking as sentences and understanding the meaning of the word in order to match up which sentence it belongs in. This lesson was a little hard for them, but Ms. Brown and I helped the students understand by inserting every word individually into the sentence and asking the student if each sentence made sense to them. I think that took a lot of time, but I think the students were able to understand some of the words better. I worked with a new student today on her reading abilities. I think that it is a great idea to have struggling or non-struggling students read to another individual or item in order to practice their reading. I think that if I was a teacher, I would get a "reading buddy" for each of my students. I think maybe going to goodwill and getting a bunch of teddy bears or stuffed animals that are not intimidating, but a partner to read with to encourage the students to practice reading aloud.
Do you think, even though the lesson took a lot of time, that it was worth it? Also, would you change the lesson at all to make it easier for the students to do on their own? I agree that a reading buddy is a good thing for students to have. A buddy who is a non-struggling reader would be able to help them with their reading and a teddy bear would help those who are more intimidated by reading to someone else.
I like your idea of having a reading buddy and especially using a teddy bear. Would you allow them to bring stuff animals from home to read to? and how would you address the situation if a pair of students - a struggling reader and a non-struggling reader together and the non-struggling reader becomes frustrated with the other student because he/she can't read?
I would like to see how transitions are made by teachers. That's one thing I have not seen yet or maybe it happened and it was so smooth that I didn't even pick up on it! I agree with reading aloud to the students. We learned in Dr. Bum's last year that it is one of the most important things!
I would use the technique of students working in pair because I think it is a great idea. Working together builds the students learn more about society and be able to listen to others people opinions. I totally would use this idea for my future class.
I agree with your idea of buddy reading. We used to do something similar to that when I was younger, and I always loved helping other people read and felt important when I was chosen to help others read. I also like the idea of getting buddy teddy bears. The students can read aloud to the teddy bears and work on their reading skills and their intonation (not the word I'm looking for, but I can't remember what word I want to use) and not feel self-conscious.
Last Friday in Ms. Downey's class the students read an article over a social studies topic related to Missouri and then blogged about the most significant ideas in the article. While Ms. Downey was explaining how to get to the blogging website and log in I walked around and helped student enter in the address for the website. Some students didn't know where to type the website address and how to get to the page Ms. Downey had up on the screen. It was difficult for them to keep up with her because she went over the directions fairly quickly and would get upset with students who weren't on the website. Then they finally got to read the article in which they were assigned based on their interests of the title of the article. I helped a a pair of kids where one boy was clearly at a low reading level. When he read he would add letters to words and would think that his pronunciation was right. I had to stop him almost every word for him to go back and reread the word. I would help him pronounce it by dividing the word up into simpler words or sounds then go back to put all the words/sounds together. It was difficult to work with him at times because even on simple words he would add letters. There were some words I knew he knew because he read them clearly previously in the article and then when I questioned what the word was and compared it to the exact word previously in the article he would know the word. I am seeing that working with students with lower reading levels will be difficultly especially when you have others who are above their reading level. How would you work with a student who has a difficult time reading?
I think, as a teacher, I would make sure to never assume that my students know something when they might not. It seemed like she just expected them to know how to get on the website and to just be able to do it. I think that I would work on the lesson with the kids who were struggling and give the kids who are more advanced extra work to do to fill the time.
I think that, as a teacher, it will be hard to make sure that I am focusing on every student that needs help. I will try and differentiate my teaching strategies in order to try and cater to various learning processes that could be present in my classroom. I would give each student a chance to first read the article, then I would either read the article aloud to the students, allow groups of students to read the article in portions, or have students volunteer to read portions of the article to the class. I think that if a student had a difficult time reading, it is important for the teacher not to single that student out by possibly meeting with students in a rotation a their desk during an independent reading time to assess each student's reading level.
I do not think it was fair for the teacher to get mad at a student for not being on the website. It's difficult to be able to follow along if you are having trouble with one step and everyone goes on without you. It seems like the boy you were working with wasn't reading for meaning and just wanted to read through it, which is odd considering they chose the article they wanted to read.
We did the same thing in the classroom I was in! The only thing that was different is that the students have used the blog many times before and are practically pros at it now, so do not worry if the kids are just learning and are struggling a bit. The kids will pick up on it very soon. I would just make sure to be very patient with a struggling reader and make activities in moderation for him/her until they feel comfortable and are caught up with the other students.
When I Nanny over the summer, the little girl I work with is 8 and has Downs. She is actually an excellent reader, but she easily gets frustrated. One of the ways that I have learned to help her especially when she starts not paying attention, is by following the words as she reads with my finger. I also let her interrupt and tell stories while she reads because this seems to help her stay focused. Another strategy that helps her sometimes is covering up portions of the text. So, in a chapter book we work on paragraphs at a time instead of looking at them as huge chunks, and this seems to make it more manageable. Lastly, I think it is hugely important to just have patience. If Grace reads something incorrectly I will wait to see if she corrects herself, and if she doesn't I will say something like "hold up, let's try that again" and then she finds the mistake. I don't know if these strategies would help other children, but I think encouraging kids not to rush and to take their time is immensely helpful too.
I think teacher should focus more on helping students who are struggling, like pair them with another students who know the concepts already. When they work together then they can help each other out. This because sometimes teacher cannot help every students who are struggling as the same time in class.
Like Lori I am a nanny and my kiddos have to read for 30min a day. They are only two years apart and the oldest is better at reading mainly because she is interested in it. Her brother however is disinterested in reading because he knows he is reading at a slower/lower pace than his sister. He finds it easier to read with his sister than with me because he is not afraid to mess up in front of his sister. With this said I will ask students of various levels to read with each other or have a child read with me.
This week I was with Brooke again. We read from the social studies newspaper. The article was not very fun to read. I also feel like Brooke was confused. There were vocabulary words they were reading that they had not learned yet. I guess Mrs. Speer was trying to just put the words out there for the students to see so when it came time to learning they then they were not completely unfamiliar with them. Brooke was not reading very well today. I had to help her out a lot and I think she was distracted. I think this will impact my teaching a lot. I am worried that I will not have helpers in my classroom, so how will those students who are struggling get special attention?
I think that it is important to include the parents as much as possible at that point. Some parents may enthusiastic or some may be less than so, but it is important to try and reach out to the parents and let them know you, as the teacher, are worried about the students reading level and are curious if the parent could work more on reading outside of the school. I would also check with the librarian and my principle to see if there are any reading programs after classes that could help a student in particular with their reading level.
It seems like the articles are not beneficial for a lot of the students. This makes me wonder if the teachers realize how much the students struggle with them? You also give a great point about not having helpers for the struggling kiddos. I think reading specialist are a really big help, and I believe we need to try to take time out of our day to get some one-on-one time with those who are struggling and at the same time not forget those who are not struggling.
I agree that a lot of the articles the kids are assigned to read are not very interesting and they struggle with them. I am also worried about giving struggling readers the attention they need in my future classroom if I don't have a helper. Maybe some things to help would be to tell them to circle words they didn't understand, to ask questions about the reading, and to ask them at the end if they liked it and if it was easy or hard for them. Then, even if you couldn't give everyone who needed it special attention, at least you would get a feel for what they thought of it and what they struggled with.
I think it is really important to allow students plenty of time to read independently, and also read aloud to students. Both of these strategies have been shown to work really well with helping students read and retain information. I think word walls would also help and having a small amount of time going over words and working on words that the whole class might be struggling with.
Sometimes, I am worried the same situation that you have as well. But I believe there will always be the best way to do. I think in my future class, I will make sure that I can handle everyone in my class and prepare materials for the students by checking their background before assign the works.
I think we are all worried about that situation because we want every student to succeed and get personal attention. If a student is struggling as a teacher you want to help them more and you should but also make sure that at times you are giving attention to those who rarely get it. Also if you are reading an article in which a student doesn't know the word maybe you should look up the word together and find the meaning and how to pronounce it. To make reading more fun students could pick out their own social studies article to read.
This past Friday I was more of Mrs. Fitz's little helper. I made copies for her and organized the Friday folder. I had a fight with the copy machine. It got jammed in the middle of another teacher's copies and we were having trouble getting it to start back up again and finish. We ended up winning the battle eventually! While I was organizing the Friday folders I was able to witness Mrs. Fitz give a social studies test. They use articles to learn about different things and they get to use them on their test. Something that I'm not quite sure about is the fact that she tells the kids pretty much exactly where the answer is. I feel like by 5th grade they should be able to find the answers on their own.
Those sound like all things teachers deal with everyday. I remember my old teachers having fights with the copy machine and then accommodating her activity if we did not have a certain worksheet printed off. I continuously hear of social studies because taught through articles and then answering questions about the articles. Are the students really learning? It would be nice to see what other teachers do to teach social studies instead of just reading articles.
I agree by fifth grade they should know how to find answers on their own and quite frankly I don't like how Ms. F gave the answers to them. For time purposes I would tell students what pages not to read so they can focus on the article pages that have the answer to them so they do not feel rushed to read during the time allowed.
I'm sorry about your copy machine battle! Maybe by the time we become teachers they will have a robot to do it for us! I agree that giving the students almost the correct answer won't help them at all on the test. The students could use the articles to help them on the test and maybe even find examples from the article. As teachers we need to guide them to the right answer by asking broad questions or giving them broad answers and not go into the specifics or the actual correct answer.
I went to preschool again; it was very to be back and the students were happy to see me. When I was there in the class, the all were sitting in the circle and got ready to go for a few trip. They were so exciting to go out and visit the library again. The lesson plan of the day is grape and what they learned is about what we can do with grape and the difference types of grape. So we started walking to the library, which takes like 6-8 minutes but they have to be careful while they walked. There are many roads that they had to across. So we made it safe to the library and watched the video about grape. They were so excited to see and the video showed how we used grape to make, jam, snack and juice. Sometime, I think taking the students outside can be great for them to relax and take a break from classroom. But sometimes we need to be careful of taking kids outside of class, especially for preschool kids.
On the 17th Ms. Speer assigned different readings to different students for instance my buddy got the first section of the Scholastic newsletter that was only 3 paragraphs long while the student next to him got a longer section of the newsletter to read. Overall my buddy seemed more interested in reading this because again it was shorter but he liked seeing other peoples responses to the article they read because he likes hearing about articles and not necessarily reading them. Having read multiple scholastic newsletters I will most likely not use them in a third grade classroom mainly because it does not seem interesting to the students. I will however read from articles to my class and have them answer questions either out loud or silently and make a game out of the article to make it fun.
Today, it was reading test day in Ms. Brown's class. They all had to take a 34 question reading test on their computers. I was told to watch a student take her test in the hallway and make sure she wasn't just clicking answers. So, I didn't do much because I wasn't allowed to help her. I think it would be beneficial to watch them take the test as a teacher though, because I heard which words she was struggling with. She had trouble with words like island, sound, outside, and she mixed up the wh words sometimes. I think, if you watched this as a teacher, you would be able to work on the words that most of the kids were struggling on. The end result of the test is helpful because it shows how many they got right, but it would be even more beneficial to know what specific things they had trouble with. I did think that there wasn't enough time for her to read the passage, read the question, then go through the answers and choose. She ran out of time on a lot of questions. I also think 34 questions was a lot for them to do at once. I noticed her and the other boy in the hallway that Danelle was working with were both distracted. There was stuff going on in the hallway and my student kept yawning and counting down how many she had left. My student was also talking out loud while taking the test and Danelle's student was reading silently. I think talking out loud helps a lot of students when they are reading, but, if they were all in the classroom, how would you go about this so that they could read aloud if they wanted, but not distract the other students and give the answers away? I was also curious if they were all the same questions or not on their tests.
ReplyDeleteIn my reading classroom, the teacher lets the students read aloud, and she solves the noise problem by encouraging the students to use the headphones they have for their computers, and she also plays background music while they read. I think the background music helps tremendously because I am someone that gets distracted from little noises like someone tapping their foot, and the background music helps drown out obnoxious noises like that. I also think it would be helpful for teachers to go around while students are taking tests and writing down the words that students struggle with the most. I'm pretty sure the tests like that also tell teachers the questions that students struggled with the most and how much time they took for each question ext.
DeleteI think you bring up some great points. 34 sounds like a lot! I don't think I would be able to keep my focus. I guess the timer can encourage the students to stay focused, but after a certain amount of time I would just stop caring. I think that in a classroom it would help for the teacher to write down words that the students are verbally struggling with. That if the teacher can then review them or ask the class what words they had trouble with to help fix any problems they are having could help.
DeleteI do not like timed tests. I do not feel like students can do the best of their ability if we don't allow them to do so. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a time constraint, but if the student isn't able to finish a handful of questions then something isn't quite right. I love Lori's point about background music! I always loved that as a kid as well.
DeleteI understand how hard teacher have to make the students focus on something that not everyone interesting in. But the best way to do is to encourage them to try their best and do not give up. Also, teacher needs to know the students background before assign their work.
DeleteToday was a slightly different day because the students had a bus safety drill in the morning, which cut into reading time a bit. Once reading actually started, the kids as usual divided into their reading buddies, and us Westminster students went with out kiddos. I have been reading with Jayna, and we read a Social Studies article about Political and Physical Maps. I realize that there is very little time to teach social studies, but these articles are horrible. They are extremely uninteresting, and while Jayna struggles with reading a little, overall she has a pretty good grasp. She has told me multiple times that she does not like these articles, and I wonder if it would be better to have the students choose a social studies, or current events article of their choice.
ReplyDeleteI think that is a great idea. I hate that students find social studies boring! It does not have to be! Reading boring articles for any subject makes it boring, but giving the students more choice helps them find something that they can try and connect with more. I think you should suggest that to your teacher. There are better ways to teach social studies. Have the students discuss current events from small to big (i.e. their life, Fulton, Missouri, USA, and the world). Find ways to relate it to the student first and then have them read background on a subject that interests them.
DeleteIn my classroom, we read social studies magazines a lot. I agree with you that they are not the greatest and that they make both reading and social studies not very fun for the kids. Having a different activity where the students could choose their readings is a good idea. I also think Meredith's idea about finding ways for them to relate to the articles would help them be much more involved and interested, improving their reading skills at the same time!
DeleteThat is a great idea!! Students will be more interested in the articles and then as a teacher you can relate a current social studies article with something that happened in the past and make connections between the two. Howe could you incorporate other subjects into reading?
DeleteI don't think the students in my class like them either. They are really long and take up a lot of time. I think the school district/government/whoever is more concerned about the testing than about the interests of the students. If the students each chose a different article, they wouldn't all be able to take the same test. But, I feel like this could be worked out just like how students take different tests on books they've read.
DeleteI agree with you. This article was not very interesting and my girl did not know what was going on. It was one of the worst reading days for her compared to ones she's had in the past. I believe it is because of the article. I think choosing a social studies event or current events article would be a lot more interesting for the students. It's hard to find articles on their level that are current event I think, but maybe there is a website out there!
DeleteI hate the articles too. I believe that Ms. Speer could do a much better job at teaching social studies other than having them read this article (it may just be a case were they are reading them because we are here) for the social studies period). I remember the students being so happy when they were told they could do an activity with it after they blogged, maybe Ms. Speer should have them do that again and maybe that would bring the students' engagement back.
DeleteToday, Ms. Brown focused the early hour I was there on spelling and then reading. I think that this is a great way to transition lessons because the spelling book they use had students looking as sentences and understanding the meaning of the word in order to match up which sentence it belongs in. This lesson was a little hard for them, but Ms. Brown and I helped the students understand by inserting every word individually into the sentence and asking the student if each sentence made sense to them. I think that took a lot of time, but I think the students were able to understand some of the words better. I worked with a new student today on her reading abilities. I think that it is a great idea to have struggling or non-struggling students read to another individual or item in order to practice their reading. I think that if I was a teacher, I would get a "reading buddy" for each of my students. I think maybe going to goodwill and getting a bunch of teddy bears or stuffed animals that are not intimidating, but a partner to read with to encourage the students to practice reading aloud.
ReplyDeleteDo you think, even though the lesson took a lot of time, that it was worth it? Also, would you change the lesson at all to make it easier for the students to do on their own? I agree that a reading buddy is a good thing for students to have. A buddy who is a non-struggling reader would be able to help them with their reading and a teddy bear would help those who are more intimidated by reading to someone else.
DeleteI like your idea of having a reading buddy and especially using a teddy bear. Would you allow them to bring stuff animals from home to read to? and how would you address the situation if a pair of students - a struggling reader and a non-struggling reader together and the non-struggling reader becomes frustrated with the other student because he/she can't read?
DeleteI would like to see how transitions are made by teachers. That's one thing I have not seen yet or maybe it happened and it was so smooth that I didn't even pick up on it! I agree with reading aloud to the students. We learned in Dr. Bum's last year that it is one of the most important things!
DeleteI would use the technique of students working in pair because I think it is a great idea. Working together builds the students learn more about society and be able to listen to others people opinions. I totally would use this idea for my future class.
DeleteI agree with your idea of buddy reading. We used to do something similar to that when I was younger, and I always loved helping other people read and felt important when I was chosen to help others read. I also like the idea of getting buddy teddy bears. The students can read aloud to the teddy bears and work on their reading skills and their intonation (not the word I'm looking for, but I can't remember what word I want to use) and not feel self-conscious.
ReplyDeleteLast Friday in Ms. Downey's class the students read an article over a social studies topic related to Missouri and then blogged about the most significant ideas in the article. While Ms. Downey was explaining how to get to the blogging website and log in I walked around and helped student enter in the address for the website. Some students didn't know where to type the website address and how to get to the page Ms. Downey had up on the screen. It was difficult for them to keep up with her because she went over the directions fairly quickly and would get upset with students who weren't on the website. Then they finally got to read the article in which they were assigned based on their interests of the title of the article. I helped a a pair of kids where one boy was clearly at a low reading level. When he read he would add letters to words and would think that his pronunciation was right. I had to stop him almost every word for him to go back and reread the word. I would help him pronounce it by dividing the word up into simpler words or sounds then go back to put all the words/sounds together. It was difficult to work with him at times because even on simple words he would add letters. There were some words I knew he knew because he read them clearly previously in the article and then when I questioned what the word was and compared it to the exact word previously in the article he would know the word. I am seeing that working with students with lower reading levels will be difficultly especially when you have others who are above their reading level. How would you work with a student who has a difficult time reading?
ReplyDeleteI think, as a teacher, I would make sure to never assume that my students know something when they might not. It seemed like she just expected them to know how to get on the website and to just be able to do it. I think that I would work on the lesson with the kids who were struggling and give the kids who are more advanced extra work to do to fill the time.
DeleteI think that, as a teacher, it will be hard to make sure that I am focusing on every student that needs help. I will try and differentiate my teaching strategies in order to try and cater to various learning processes that could be present in my classroom. I would give each student a chance to first read the article, then I would either read the article aloud to the students, allow groups of students to read the article in portions, or have students volunteer to read portions of the article to the class. I think that if a student had a difficult time reading, it is important for the teacher not to single that student out by possibly meeting with students in a rotation a their desk during an independent reading time to assess each student's reading level.
DeleteI do not think it was fair for the teacher to get mad at a student for not being on the website. It's difficult to be able to follow along if you are having trouble with one step and everyone goes on without you. It seems like the boy you were working with wasn't reading for meaning and just wanted to read through it, which is odd considering they chose the article they wanted to read.
DeleteWe did the same thing in the classroom I was in! The only thing that was different is that the students have used the blog many times before and are practically pros at it now, so do not worry if the kids are just learning and are struggling a bit. The kids will pick up on it very soon. I would just make sure to be very patient with a struggling reader and make activities in moderation for him/her until they feel comfortable and are caught up with the other students.
DeleteWhen I Nanny over the summer, the little girl I work with is 8 and has Downs. She is actually an excellent reader, but she easily gets frustrated. One of the ways that I have learned to help her especially when she starts not paying attention, is by following the words as she reads with my finger. I also let her interrupt and tell stories while she reads because this seems to help her stay focused. Another strategy that helps her sometimes is covering up portions of the text. So, in a chapter book we work on paragraphs at a time instead of looking at them as huge chunks, and this seems to make it more manageable. Lastly, I think it is hugely important to just have patience. If Grace reads something incorrectly I will wait to see if she corrects herself, and if she doesn't I will say something like "hold up, let's try that again" and then she finds the mistake. I don't know if these strategies would help other children, but I think encouraging kids not to rush and to take their time is immensely helpful too.
DeleteI think teacher should focus more on helping students who are struggling, like pair them with another students who know the concepts already. When they work together then they can help each other out. This because sometimes teacher cannot help every students who are struggling as the same time in class.
DeleteLike Lori I am a nanny and my kiddos have to read for 30min a day. They are only two years apart and the oldest is better at reading mainly because she is interested in it. Her brother however is disinterested in reading because he knows he is reading at a slower/lower pace than his sister. He finds it easier to read with his sister than with me because he is not afraid to mess up in front of his sister. With this said I will ask students of various levels to read with each other or have a child read with me.
DeleteThis week I was with Brooke again. We read from the social studies newspaper. The article was not very fun to read. I also feel like Brooke was confused. There were vocabulary words they were reading that they had not learned yet. I guess Mrs. Speer was trying to just put the words out there for the students to see so when it came time to learning they then they were not completely unfamiliar with them. Brooke was not reading very well today. I had to help her out a lot and I think she was distracted. I think this will impact my teaching a lot. I am worried that I will not have helpers in my classroom, so how will those students who are struggling get special attention?
ReplyDeleteI think that it is important to include the parents as much as possible at that point. Some parents may enthusiastic or some may be less than so, but it is important to try and reach out to the parents and let them know you, as the teacher, are worried about the students reading level and are curious if the parent could work more on reading outside of the school. I would also check with the librarian and my principle to see if there are any reading programs after classes that could help a student in particular with their reading level.
DeleteIt seems like the articles are not beneficial for a lot of the students. This makes me wonder if the teachers realize how much the students struggle with them? You also give a great point about not having helpers for the struggling kiddos. I think reading specialist are a really big help, and I believe we need to try to take time out of our day to get some one-on-one time with those who are struggling and at the same time not forget those who are not struggling.
DeleteI agree that a lot of the articles the kids are assigned to read are not very interesting and they struggle with them. I am also worried about giving struggling readers the attention they need in my future classroom if I don't have a helper. Maybe some things to help would be to tell them to circle words they didn't understand, to ask questions about the reading, and to ask them at the end if they liked it and if it was easy or hard for them. Then, even if you couldn't give everyone who needed it special attention, at least you would get a feel for what they thought of it and what they struggled with.
DeleteI think it is really important to allow students plenty of time to read independently, and also read aloud to students. Both of these strategies have been shown to work really well with helping students read and retain information. I think word walls would also help and having a small amount of time going over words and working on words that the whole class might be struggling with.
DeleteSometimes, I am worried the same situation that you have as well. But I believe there will always be the best way to do. I think in my future class, I will make sure that I can handle everyone in my class and prepare materials for the students by checking their background before assign the works.
DeleteI agree with Lori. I believe class discussion is the best way to go.
DeleteI think we are all worried about that situation because we want every student to succeed and get personal attention. If a student is struggling as a teacher you want to help them more and you should but also make sure that at times you are giving attention to those who rarely get it. Also if you are reading an article in which a student doesn't know the word maybe you should look up the word together and find the meaning and how to pronounce it. To make reading more fun students could pick out their own social studies article to read.
DeleteThis past Friday I was more of Mrs. Fitz's little helper. I made copies for her and organized the Friday folder. I had a fight with the copy machine. It got jammed in the middle of another teacher's copies and we were having trouble getting it to start back up again and finish. We ended up winning the battle eventually! While I was organizing the Friday folders I was able to witness Mrs. Fitz give a social studies test. They use articles to learn about different things and they get to use them on their test. Something that I'm not quite sure about is the fact that she tells the kids pretty much exactly where the answer is. I feel like by 5th grade they should be able to find the answers on their own.
ReplyDeleteThose sound like all things teachers deal with everyday. I remember my old teachers having fights with the copy machine and then accommodating her activity if we did not have a certain worksheet printed off. I continuously hear of social studies because taught through articles and then answering questions about the articles. Are the students really learning? It would be nice to see what other teachers do to teach social studies instead of just reading articles.
DeleteI agree by fifth grade they should know how to find answers on their own and quite frankly I don't like how Ms. F gave the answers to them. For time purposes I would tell students what pages not to read so they can focus on the article pages that have the answer to them so they do not feel rushed to read during the time allowed.
DeleteI'm sorry about your copy machine battle! Maybe by the time we become teachers they will have a robot to do it for us! I agree that giving the students almost the correct answer won't help them at all on the test. The students could use the articles to help them on the test and maybe even find examples from the article. As teachers we need to guide them to the right answer by asking broad questions or giving them broad answers and not go into the specifics or the actual correct answer.
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ReplyDeleteI went to preschool again; it was very to be back and the students were happy to see me. When I was there in the class, the all were sitting in the circle and got ready to go for a few trip. They were so exciting to go out and visit the library again. The lesson plan of the day is grape and what they learned is about what we can do with grape and the difference types of grape. So we started walking to the library, which takes like 6-8 minutes but they have to be careful while they walked. There are many roads that they had to across. So we made it safe to the library and watched the video about grape. They were so excited to see and the video showed how we used grape to make, jam, snack and juice. Sometime, I think taking the students outside can be great for them to relax and take a break from classroom. But sometimes we need to be careful of taking kids outside of class, especially for preschool kids.
ReplyDeleteOn the 17th Ms. Speer assigned different readings to different students for instance my buddy got the first section of the Scholastic newsletter that was only 3 paragraphs long while the student next to him got a longer section of the newsletter to read. Overall my buddy seemed more interested in reading this because again it was shorter but he liked seeing other peoples responses to the article they read because he likes hearing about articles and not necessarily reading them. Having read multiple scholastic newsletters I will most likely not use them in a third grade classroom mainly because it does not seem interesting to the students. I will however read from articles to my class and have them answer questions either out loud or silently and make a game out of the article to make it fun.
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