Week 7

Assignment 1:

• How did the kindergarten teachers, Sheila Owens and John Sinnett, incorporate elements of emergent literacy in their lessons? Which elements were the primary focus of the lessons? 

They used their classroom as a resource so that students could see and make use of all of the letters and words around them. Sinnett told his students to use their eyes, ears and mouth and get ready to listen. He used fill in blanks to get the students to think about the reading.

• What part did oral language play in both classrooms? 

The students shared their thoughts, answers, and sentences aloud. The students applauded each other for their work.

• How did each teacher use the Word Wall to support word study? 

Owens used the word wall for the students to create sentences. Sinnett used the word wall to fill in blanks in a shared reading passage.

• What were examples of planned, explicit instruction in these excerpts? What were examples of opportunistic instruction? 

The directions were clear. The students knew what was expected of them. The teacher asked what can we write here, or think about what would fit best here. The teachers gave appropriate instruction for all students to benefit on their level.

• Both kindergarten teachers used whole-class instruction for their word study lessons. How did it meet the needs of all students? 

Students were given time to think about the answer. The teacher didn't call on any student right away, rather all of the students had the opportunity to think and come up with an answer on their own. Students were given encouragement to succeed and encouraged each other too.

Assignment#2 After viewing the first-grade and first- and second-grade classes, answer these questions:

• How did Charmon Evans and Shari Frost differ in their phonics instruction? Why do you think they used different approaches? 

Evans gave her students the words and they read it. Frost gave her students the opportunity to share words that they had in mind. The reason for this difference is probably because Evans had a special group that needed additional assistance, while Frost's class was able to preform higher level tasks.

• Which principles of phonics instruction were illustrated in these classroom lessons? 

The teacher introduced the 'a' consonant 'e' before reading the story so the students would be familiar with the words when they would come across them. The teachers wrote or let the students think of all the rhyming words, changing the first letter to make a new word.

• Which lessons seemed to promote more student engagement and motivation? 

I enjoyed Frost's lesson better because she used a visual aid that all of the students were familiar as the example word. The students were more engaged because they needed to come up with the words by themselves which made them think more.

• Shari Frost used her "Poem of the Week" and Becky Pursley used her "Readers Theater activities" to practice reading accuracy and fluency. How did student performance in the two activities differ? How would you assess the reading fluency of students performing Readers Theater based on the three stages of fluency? 

The class that read the poem of the week read it as a class while the group that performed the readers theater read their parts individually and everyone else listened. Assessing students could be done by evaluating how well they can read the sight words, how fast they can reading, and whether or not they know when it's their turn to read.

• What other activities have you planned to promote reading fluency?

Students can read and reread a selection to practice familiar texts until they can read it quickly and accurately. Then they can draw a picture about what they read.

Assignment#3 Practice QRI-5 with a child. Briefly summarize your experience and analyze the data you collected.

I practiced the QRI5 on a second grade student. I started with a primer word list. I let her go through the entire list although she missed many words. Then I gave her the pre-primer 3 word list and she got 16 out of 20 words correct. I realized that this was her instructional level, so I gave her a pre-primer passage to read. She read it very well. She only missed a few words that she was able to self correct based on the meaning of the passage. She answered all of the questions correctly. When I spoke to her teacher afterword and I told her that it seems like she is on a higher level than I was able to see based on the word list, she told me that reading sight words is not a strong point for her, and I agree with her. So although her comprehension skills are strong, she can't go to a higher level of reading because she will probably get stuck on too many words.