Reflections on the readings of Christie, Enz, Vukelich, & Roskos (2014) Teaching Language and Literacy Preschool through the Elementary Grades (5th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Chapter 4
The size of a child’s vocabulary impacts reading development and comprehension so it’s necessary for students to be exposed to a large volume of words through explicit instruction strategies in addition to natural and incidental experiences beginning in preschool and kindergarten. One effective strategy to vocabulary instruction is to introduce students to words they can use in their everyday social interactions at school, then intentionally set up opportunities for them to practice using the words as they go through their day. Another way that I use daily in my 2nd grade classroom is modeling how to determine the meaning of unknown words in text during a read aloud. As I’m reading, if I encounter a word that I have pre-selected for my students to learn, I think aloud for them and explain how I can understand the word from the picture cues or context of the sentence or sentences near it. In addition, after a direct teaching lesson on content vocabulary, surrounding students with realia and visual aids in centers will assist them in transferring knowledge of the words into their speaking, reading and writing. For example, if I’m teaching a unit on rocks and minerals for Science, I could incorporate vocabulary from that unit in the classroom word work station and writing station by providing various types of rocks (or photos) that are labeled and have students complete a specific activity using them. Providing a basket of books about rocks and minerals in the classroom library for students to use during independent and buddy reading would also support their learning on the topic.
Chapter 5
Because my previous experiences do not include teaching PreK, the information presented in Chapter 5 about literacy-enriched play centers was interesting and enlightening to me. Over the years, I have incorporated props for students to use with cooperative learning activities when possible, but haven’t ever considered setting up an entire area dedicated to a particular setting like a post office, fire station or pizza restaurant like the one described on pages 131-132 in Christie, Enz, Vukelich & Roskos (2014) As the author suggested, providing students opportunities for dramatic play in settings that include a variety of print like signs, menus, name tags, credit cards and more, “provides motivation for literacy learning”. (p.132) Children will have an increased desire to learn about reading and writing as well as view literacy experiences as fun and positive.
As a Reading Specialist, I could assist teachers with incorporating these types of literacy rich play areas and help them understand their value. Also, setting up a model classroom that demonstrates what the various literacy areas of a well-designed classroom could look like would be helpful for them. I know many teachers spend a lot of time and energy thinking about the layout of their learning environments at the beginning of the year. They want to best meet students’ needs, but some teachers, especially new educators, are unsure of where or how to start.
Chapter 6
Early childhood instruction should develop children’s phonological and phonemic awareness skills on the continuum which include rhyme, alliteration, sentence segmentation, syllables, onsets and rimes, and phoneme manipulation. (Adams, 1990; Ball & Blachman, 1991; Blachman, 1997; Chard & Dickson, 1999; Goswami, 2000/2001; Smith et al., 1998; Torgesen, 1999; Torgesen & Mathes, 2000; Uhry, 1999) These skills build upon each other so students should first be exposed to activities that strengthen their understanding of rhyme, then alliteration, and so on, up the continuum ladder. Phonemic awareness, which refers to the ability to identify and manipulate individual phonemes, is so vital that it’s one of the most important indicators for a student’s reading development success. (Adams, 1990) Students who don’t have a strong foundation in these skills will struggle to understand phonics instruction and subsequently they will have difficulty becoming proficient readers and writers.
As a Reading Specialist, I would use my knowledge of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness and phonics to improve PreK and Kindergarten instruction by providing professional development for teachers. Some teachers are not aware of the sequence of skills that should be included in early childhood instruction or they don’t understand their importance. Providing training to increase their knowledge of child development and the value of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness activities will improve their instruction. In addition, collaborating with staff to create activities for lessons and modeling lessons for them will increase their teacher toolbox for these skills and help them implement more phonological awareness and phonemic awareness strategies in their classrooms.
Chapter 7
Currently, I use primarily anecdotal notes, reading records, writing checklists, digital audio and video recordings, journals and daily teacher observations of student performance to measure literacy abilities in my 2nd grade classroom. Students are also administered the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) and ISIP Reading (Istation Indicators of Progress) three times per year, which are district required benchmark assessments. Upon reading the ongoing assessments described in Chapter 7 of Christie, et al. (2014), I would like to incorporate more observational checklists and teacher reflections in order to give me additional data points and information to analyze. I like the way the authors explained how Mrs. Saenz used digital photographs of students participating in specific reading activities to jog her memory later and help her write down some reflections. It’s difficult to recall students’ behaviors by the time I have a chance to write them down, so having that visual would be helpful.
References:
Chapters 4-7. Christie, Enz, Vukelich, & Roskos (2014). Teaching Language and Literacy Preschool through the Elementary Grades (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Continuum—Retrieved September 22, 2019 from
http://www2.nefec.org/learn/teacher/elementary/pa/research/howDo2.htm