What are high frequency words? They are words that appear the most often in texts. They represent approximately one hundered of the most commonly used words in the english language. High frequency words are taught in preschool and in kindergarten through repition and then memorization. High frequency words are often also know as sight words because these words need to be recognized in a blink of an eye. It is very difficult to teach children these words because they are very abstract and have no visual cues to help. The tend to be the most difficult words to know on beginning reader, that is why it is so important to teach young students these words. Knowing these words will benefit an early reader in the sense that they can focus on the other words in the text and their meaning because they have already learned to memorize the high frequency words. Also, knowing high frequency words help build confidence and self-esteem in students to read better and develop decoding skills. These words appear over and over in a text and can therefore help affect the meaning of a sentence to make it more understandable to beginning readers. Anything that can provide confidence and build self-esteem in my students to read, will greatly affect their ability to learn and decode words that they may not know. That is why learning these high frequecny words early on in a childs developmental stage will help them in the long run. Some interesting facts that I found while researching high frequency words were that The is the most commonly used word in the english language, along with the, I & and account for ten percent of the the words printed. There are approximately one hundered words that make up fifty percent of the words that we read.
What are some examples of high frequency words? There are a lot of websites out there devoted to sets and pages of listing high frequency words. some of the websites included,school.elps.k12.mi.us/donley/.../sitton_word_list.htm, and www.eyeonthesky.org/pdfs/HighFrequencyWords.pdf.
These websites provides some examples of high frequency words so i will also include a small example of some, The, of, and. a. to , is, in, you, that, he, for, was, on, are, as, with, his, they, at, he, ect... the list goes on and on, and just gets into even more words as you get higher into grade levels.
What are some ways to teach high frequency words?
Well I thought it would be fun to learn some interactive games that can help children learn and memorize these words. There are tons of flashcard games that can be played and in my presentation we played the game roll, say, keep. You can make the board by using poster and just divide the board into sections having 6 sections (3 on one side, and 3 on the other) you can draw out dice or number the squares one through six. Then place notecards/flashcards of high frequency words face down and have a small group of student (3-4 students). The each take a turn to roll the dice and and pick the card number that the dice rolled. Then they say the word on that card, ( if the dont know the word, they place the card down and pace the dice to the next student) if the say the word correctly they keep the card and the teacher will replace the empty space with a new high frequency word card. Once all the cards have been played you tell the students to add up their number of cards and can reward each students for doing their best. I learned this game from my mother-in-law who teaches kindergarten and I though it was a great fun interactive game that wasn't limited to high frequency words, its whatever you could place on an index card, so they can review colors, shapes, adding, subtracting, ect. Its a fun versitile game that students will never get tired of. I actually used this when I taught a private prek class in Georgia, and the students absolutely enjoyed it, they wanted to review their sight words and play the game everyday to see how many cards they could get. I as there teacher saw a change in how many words they knew from the beginning to the end and it was great to seem them sound out the words and just know it through memorization. There are also websites that give great interactive games, for example. www.theschoolbell.com/Links/Dolch/Dolch.html.
Overall, I learned a lot about what high frequency words are and different ways to implement them into the classroom. I can't wait for other future teachers to gain the knowlegde I recieved from learning about high frequuency words and utitlizing the imformation available to them from current teacher, past teachers, mentor teacher, classes, and internet websites.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
June 28th/30th Reflection
We combined the readings for June 28th and June 30th, so my reflection will be divided up into 2 paragraphs, one paragraph representing the readings for June 28th and the second paragraph will represent the readings for June 30th.
I agree with the quote, "story text should be easy enough to develop students confidence and facilitate comprehension, but difficult enough to provide a challenge and require the reader to do some "reading " (Clay, 1991a)." The article discusses the kinds of texts that are appropriate for students at various stages of their reading development and share our criteria for determining the difficulty levels of early reading materials.This article was really interesting to read because it gave a lot of in-depth information on leveled reading. Here again in this article it states that appropriate reading materials for readers should contain meaningful and natural language patterns. It talks about how the leveling system is based on 5 considerations, vocabulary, size, and layout of print, predictability, illustration support, and complexity of concepts. I like how the article talks about the leveling system continues to be a work in progress because teachers are constantly collaborating to identify ways to match texts to an increasingly diverse population of readers. Later in the article is compares and contrasts the leveling system compared to other leveling systems. I really like that that it includes how to use leveled reading materials in a section. Because as teachers we do need to keep in mind that there is no single text that is appropriate for all students, just like there is not on single teaching method that works for all teachers and students. We need to also keep in mind that leveled books are only one type of reading resources available to students. There are lots of resources available to use when teaching students to read. The article also hits on the main points that interests and background knowledge will have a significant impact on the readability for particular students. Students learn to self-select reading materials based on their interests and accessibility. Teachers need to know their students, the books, and the reading process when making decisions on appropriate books for students to read. The Rog and Burton article had a lot of great and useful material for us soon to be teachers and i really learned a lot about leveled reading.
In the other readings, reflecting on how as well as what for effective reading instruction was really interesting to see the data. It wasn't surprising to see that whole group instruction was seen more in the observations because in my observations i noticed a lot more whole group too. However, I saw quite a bit of small group instruction, at least more than what i remember doing when i was in student in school. I learned that effective direct instruction includes clear goals, asking students questions to monitor understanding of skills and content knowledge. I have also learned that more effective teachers use modeling, coaching, and scaffolding techniques in the classroom. Teachers who also stressed a higher level of thinking skills were found to be more effective also. We have already learned most of the important components to reading programs and this article really clues in on these things. It also wasn't that surprising to see comprehension seldom observed, especially in the lower grade levels where phonics instruction was the main focus. It is also important to have your students actively engaged in actual reading and writing along with interactive activities that they can benefit from. I really liked how this article provided a back stage look onto each individual grade level and the awesome characteristics that the teachers used to provide effective teaching instructions. In conclusion to this I found that both the "what" and the "how" are two important concepts when it comes to effective teaching strategies. In Allington's article i really enjoyed the beginning where he talks about schools being viewed as not meeting the standards that society has placed on them and therefore that means that they are failing. He also explains that, "children are more likely to learn what they are taught than what they are not" such a simple thing to say but very honest and true. It's also true that our schools educate larger numbers of children to higher levels of proficiency than ever before, but from all the media that schools and teacher receive from the public eye you would never have guessed that. There is just so much controversy within the education field and Allington really hits on these in his article, mainly focusing on literacy in the schools. He states, "it is time to reject the notion that only few children can learn to read and write well." When children begin school with little to no experience with books they are generally classified as at risk. Basically everyone confuses their lack of experience with lack of ability but he is so right, this doesn't hold true. We must educate the teachers and society that this doesnt mean the child has to fail, it just means we need to help them even more. I think if you could only take one important aspect away from his article it would be don't believe everything you hear or read. Allington's article is probably one of my most favorite articles that we have read during this class. He just provides so much information on the obstacles that teachers face and really breaks down the components that are layed out in the education feild. The things he says is very true, we hold literacy to be the upmost importance but yet we provide little opportunity for children to actually read or write throughout the day. I think he makes an excellant point by addressing the fact that we need high-quality expert teachers in our schools. Let me just say, I didn't choose to come to UT to become an ok teacher, I am preparing myself to be a high quality teacher. I really enjoyed reading these articles and feel like i gained a lot of information that will help me as a teacher.
I agree with the quote, "story text should be easy enough to develop students confidence and facilitate comprehension, but difficult enough to provide a challenge and require the reader to do some "reading " (Clay, 1991a)." The article discusses the kinds of texts that are appropriate for students at various stages of their reading development and share our criteria for determining the difficulty levels of early reading materials.This article was really interesting to read because it gave a lot of in-depth information on leveled reading. Here again in this article it states that appropriate reading materials for readers should contain meaningful and natural language patterns. It talks about how the leveling system is based on 5 considerations, vocabulary, size, and layout of print, predictability, illustration support, and complexity of concepts. I like how the article talks about the leveling system continues to be a work in progress because teachers are constantly collaborating to identify ways to match texts to an increasingly diverse population of readers. Later in the article is compares and contrasts the leveling system compared to other leveling systems. I really like that that it includes how to use leveled reading materials in a section. Because as teachers we do need to keep in mind that there is no single text that is appropriate for all students, just like there is not on single teaching method that works for all teachers and students. We need to also keep in mind that leveled books are only one type of reading resources available to students. There are lots of resources available to use when teaching students to read. The article also hits on the main points that interests and background knowledge will have a significant impact on the readability for particular students. Students learn to self-select reading materials based on their interests and accessibility. Teachers need to know their students, the books, and the reading process when making decisions on appropriate books for students to read. The Rog and Burton article had a lot of great and useful material for us soon to be teachers and i really learned a lot about leveled reading.
In the other readings, reflecting on how as well as what for effective reading instruction was really interesting to see the data. It wasn't surprising to see that whole group instruction was seen more in the observations because in my observations i noticed a lot more whole group too. However, I saw quite a bit of small group instruction, at least more than what i remember doing when i was in student in school. I learned that effective direct instruction includes clear goals, asking students questions to monitor understanding of skills and content knowledge. I have also learned that more effective teachers use modeling, coaching, and scaffolding techniques in the classroom. Teachers who also stressed a higher level of thinking skills were found to be more effective also. We have already learned most of the important components to reading programs and this article really clues in on these things. It also wasn't that surprising to see comprehension seldom observed, especially in the lower grade levels where phonics instruction was the main focus. It is also important to have your students actively engaged in actual reading and writing along with interactive activities that they can benefit from. I really liked how this article provided a back stage look onto each individual grade level and the awesome characteristics that the teachers used to provide effective teaching instructions. In conclusion to this I found that both the "what" and the "how" are two important concepts when it comes to effective teaching strategies. In Allington's article i really enjoyed the beginning where he talks about schools being viewed as not meeting the standards that society has placed on them and therefore that means that they are failing. He also explains that, "children are more likely to learn what they are taught than what they are not" such a simple thing to say but very honest and true. It's also true that our schools educate larger numbers of children to higher levels of proficiency than ever before, but from all the media that schools and teacher receive from the public eye you would never have guessed that. There is just so much controversy within the education field and Allington really hits on these in his article, mainly focusing on literacy in the schools. He states, "it is time to reject the notion that only few children can learn to read and write well." When children begin school with little to no experience with books they are generally classified as at risk. Basically everyone confuses their lack of experience with lack of ability but he is so right, this doesn't hold true. We must educate the teachers and society that this doesnt mean the child has to fail, it just means we need to help them even more. I think if you could only take one important aspect away from his article it would be don't believe everything you hear or read. Allington's article is probably one of my most favorite articles that we have read during this class. He just provides so much information on the obstacles that teachers face and really breaks down the components that are layed out in the education feild. The things he says is very true, we hold literacy to be the upmost importance but yet we provide little opportunity for children to actually read or write throughout the day. I think he makes an excellant point by addressing the fact that we need high-quality expert teachers in our schools. Let me just say, I didn't choose to come to UT to become an ok teacher, I am preparing myself to be a high quality teacher. I really enjoyed reading these articles and feel like i gained a lot of information that will help me as a teacher.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Guided Reading
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4343
The article I chose was titled, Guided Reading in the Primary Classroom, by: Mary Kreul.
It was interesting to read that guided reading is a component of a four-block reading program that consists of self-selected reading, shared reading, writing, and working with words. Guided reading is done on a daily basis and consists of students being put into groups on certain reading levels. I have observed this being done in every grade level. I have even sat with students in their groups and listen to them read the books on their level. It was really interesting the see the different types of books and the different levels for students. In this article it provides steps for doing a guided reading lesson. It shows what to do before reading, during, and after reading. It acknowledges that the steps will vary but they are very interesting to read and see good strategies for teachers to incorporate. It states that flexible reading groups are based on abilities and needs of the student. It provides examples to determine a student's ability level for example, running records, print test, and teacher observations. I have seen running records being done in my observations and teachers are constantly doing running records because students make progress and change levels throughout the school year. I know that we will discuss more about running records in class so I wont discuss it further. I really liked searching and reading this article. I think scholastic has a lot of useful tools available for teachers to use and I am glad that I had the opportunity to find an article and learn about guided reading on my own.
The article I chose was titled, Guided Reading in the Primary Classroom, by: Mary Kreul.
It was interesting to read that guided reading is a component of a four-block reading program that consists of self-selected reading, shared reading, writing, and working with words. Guided reading is done on a daily basis and consists of students being put into groups on certain reading levels. I have observed this being done in every grade level. I have even sat with students in their groups and listen to them read the books on their level. It was really interesting the see the different types of books and the different levels for students. In this article it provides steps for doing a guided reading lesson. It shows what to do before reading, during, and after reading. It acknowledges that the steps will vary but they are very interesting to read and see good strategies for teachers to incorporate. It states that flexible reading groups are based on abilities and needs of the student. It provides examples to determine a student's ability level for example, running records, print test, and teacher observations. I have seen running records being done in my observations and teachers are constantly doing running records because students make progress and change levels throughout the school year. I know that we will discuss more about running records in class so I wont discuss it further. I really liked searching and reading this article. I think scholastic has a lot of useful tools available for teachers to use and I am glad that I had the opportunity to find an article and learn about guided reading on my own.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
June 21st Reflection
Comprehension is the key to our readings. The Gill article gives organized activities into pre-reading, during, and post reading categories. It was sort of unusual to read that comprehension instruction is rarely found in the classroom. It wasn't surprising that research found assessing students as primary means of understanding. We have truly tested for comprehension instead of actually taught comprehension. My biggest struggle in school when it came to reading was comprehension. I remember having so much trouble comprehending what I was reading because I was so focused on the words that I was reading. I think that I had even more trouble because the accelerated reader program was primarily based off of comprehending the books and I always had a difficult time taking the tests for books. I would get to a question and be like whoa, I don't remember that happening, or I would remember only certain areas of the book. I wasn't taught to comprehend the book, I was taught to read books. I also remember my parents drilling me with questions about books that I was reading, but yet they never read the books themselves, so when they asked what the book was about I just whatever to get them off my back, not such a goo idea when your struggling to comprehend. When you are learning how to read you aren't taking in and actually listening to what you are reading. That is why it is harder for beginning readers to comprehend what they are reading. As teachers, we do need to be prepared by designing lessons that help students comprehend and develop strategies that trigger this throughout our lessons. "Designing effective comprehension instruction requires first and foremost an understanding of how readers comprehend" (Gill). I liked that they asked teachers to identify the factors that affect their own comprehension. They stated that they comprehend better when reading books of their choice or topics that they like which is really true. Like I have said before, I hated reading and didn't comprehend well when I was told or assigned to read certain books. But, now that I am older and can choose books that interest me, I enjoy reading and comprehend what I have read better than I even have. I was always given a list of books that had to be read for school. Now I hear about students who get a list of books and get to pick books that they'd like to read and do projects on. I think this would have been more fun for me.I didn't even think that the way i veiwed comprehension could ultimately affect the way i teach comprehension to my students. "Understanding these factors can help teachers design effective lessons that support comprehension." I definitely agree with this statement. Teachers need to understand how their students learn and adapt lesson plans around the criteria that the students need in order to have effective teaching. Our students need to be taught to be effective comprehenders and in both the Gill and Pardo articles, they both stress the importance that teachers need to understand what is involved in comprehending. I like how the Pardo article provides examples for teachers to use when in order to help build student competence. The provide ways to teach decoding skills, build fluency, activate background knowledge, teach vocabulary words, and engage students in personal responses. This criteria is crucial to building students comprehension. I will be able to use these examples in the classroom and really help my students foster the skills needed to be competent comprehenders. Throughout all the readings I came to understand the importance of activating back ground knowledge. I am glad to say that through my observations I have seen this being done in classrooms. More or less when beginning a new topic and dicsussion. Teachers really understand that this is an important concept to allow students to become more engaged in the process that is occuring. Here again we see the importance of providing independent reading time. I have even seen this happen in kindergarten, Even though they are learning sight words or high frequency words, they are building knowlegde and learning how to read and understand what they are reading. I observed one kindergarten classroom that had independent reading time where every student recieved and index card booklet and on every index card was a sight word, they went through each card reading the words, using the decoding skills, and the teacher provided this on a daily basis. The students really enjoyed that time just going through the index cards and reading words that they new. This is something that I could see myself doing in my classroom with younger grade levels. I am interning in a kindergarten classroom so I absolutley loved reading the article, Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! At this age group it is such a crucial time to develop these skills and this article provides comprehension strategies for early readers. Here again you activate prior knowledge, which they call schemas. This is an easy concept for younger students to understand because they love talking and telling you about things they already know, places they've been, and things they can do. They master this skill at such a young age and we has teachers need to utilize this in the classroom to build on comprehension. I learned to use explicit instruction to help students construct meanings from the text. I really enjoyed reading these things about comprehension and how to incorporate them in the classroom and also already seeing some of these strategies implemented in the classrooms through my observations. Which have provided me with handson experiences and activities that I will be able to use in my class.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
June 16th Reflection
The readings for today focused on vocabulary development. I am discussion leader for the Vocabulary Lesson article written by: Camile L.Z. Blachowicz and Peter Fisher. I wasn't surprised with what the research said about students receiving little to no support for vocabulary growth. This is common especially among students in the urban multicultural schools. I have see this first hand with students that come from high-literacy homes have more advanced vocabulary and those from low-literacy homes have little to no vocabulary development. It's really sad because you have students on all sorts of levels and it can be difficult for the teacher, however, research states that high-literacy classrooms may reverse this trend in literacy. So as a future teacher, I have definitely learned that I need to embrace literature in my classroom by using activities, materials, and resources that enable students to play with words. This also allows for exploration of words. I am also big in modeling behaviors for students so I learned that I need to model word learning for students and it would help them to become more intrigued with learning new words. The article also discusses the importance of exposing students to a wide range of literature. When doing my pre-service observation in Elementary schools, I saw this being done in a fourth grade classroom. The students were reading a certain book themselves but then the teacher was reading a book aloud that expanded their vocabulary. It was giving them access to a level of literature that may have been to difficult for them to read independently. The students absolutely loved it and they would really focus on getting their work done in order to be read to by the teacher for 5-10 minutes either before lunch, encore, or going home. I noticed how engaged they were and she also asked them to make predictions on what might happen next in the story. This is something that I really liked and thought that it was pretty easy to incorporate. I also enjoyed reading the other article that gave examples of a kindergarten classroom's circle time and then a fourth grades morning meeting, it was interesting to see the comparisons and the contrast within two completely different grade levels. I was able to observe both grade levels during my pre-service internship this past spring, and I recall seeing this actions occur among the students. Of course, it was the second half of the year so the students were pretty comfortable with one another so their interactions were more engaging. When I was ready the part about the fourth graders, I honestly didn't even understand what some of the words meant. For example, affable or jovial. I myself would have to learn more in-depth descriptive words if I wanted to do this in my classroom. I was also surprised to learn that there are four types of vocabulary, oral, print, receptive, and productive. I thought this part of the article was really important in understanding the multiple dimensions of what vocabulary is and the differenr ways in building vocabulary development. Then when reading the Early Catastrophe article, I wasn't suprised with what the research was saying about children that come from low socioeconomic homes because our programs has really enforced the understanding that these students may not know certain things and may not have the ability to do certain things because of their home life. It's really sad because as teachers we want to limit the gap as much as possible but no matter how hard we try, it may not help every child. Of course, this won't stop me from persuing to change this in my classroom. Just in these readings we are provided tons of ideas that may help conteract the gap and the low vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, we as future teachers shoudln't let statistics or researches keep us from trying our hardest. We can make a difference, even if it's in only one child, that means I have done my job. It's definitely a major challange that we must face on a daily basis and if we are well educated on the best practices/lessons that will help these students, then maybe we can try to lesson the gap. All the readings are really interesting and bring up important, difficult, and challanging issues that teachers have been facing for years and that we will continue to face in the future. I have really enjoyed reading these but I do have to say sometimes its really sad and it makes me think really hard about what I can do to help students dealing with the issues that we've been reading about. It can get discouraging, but then I think about the readings that provide great examples and the in class discussions that are educating us to be effective teachers equipped with the materials and resources available to help our students achieve and then I feel better!
Monday, June 13, 2011
June 14th Reflection
All the readings stated that the basis for learning how to read is being able to decod each letter and sound in a word. In the primary grades, teachers are working in groups with students to teach them these techniques of breaking words down and really looking at the sounds that make the word. A word consists of a sequence of sounds and by teaching this to our students we can build word recognition. It does give "sound it out" a brand new meaning. Teachers need to learn how to give highly effective intructions and need to have the knowledge of stating the right cues in order to foster students' abilities of becoming indepedent readers. In some of my observations I have seen a lot of these cues taking place by the teachers. They are constantly coaching students by using cues that prompt specific actions and I have noticed in the younger grades like Kindergarten, they use cues to prompt thought and discussion more than the older grades. I have also observed in a classroom where the teacher just used the sound it out technique and it was difficult for the students. They were struggling more with their reading and they contunued to raise their hand asking for help. They were not learning effective techniques to being independent readers. I also think that this took a toll on them even wanted to read, they would often avoid it as much as possible or just fly through sentences not making any sense because they didn't want to sound out the words. It shows me how important it is as a teacher to learn how to incoporate these strategies and techniques in coaching our students. It was interesting to see in the Clark articles the different dynamics within mutliple grades on how you would conduct coaching in the reading groups. It helps us as future teachers to understand the conversation that should take place so students can apply their developing knowledge of word-recognition strategies. The article states that "reading is a problem-solving process." I have never thought about it from that point of view and it honestly is. For those who are just learning how to read it is a problem that must be solved by pulling from multiple interacting sources. Students need to be taught mutiple ways for working out problems in learning how to read, and if we as teachers don't teach these techniques/solutions then how can we expect students to read, understand, comprehend, and solve the problem?,,,, Of course that is what our readings are basically answering, we can't just expect students to sound it out and know it. In the Yopp article, they give great activities to do in the classroom to build up phonemeic awareness. It's quite interesting because I have seen these done in some of the classrooms that I have observed in, for example, Mail Package, Going on a Word Hunt, and Find Your Partners. I can remember how engaged the children were and how much fun they were having thinking these were just games, but they were actually learning how to make connections and developing word recognition/phonemic awareness. These are activities that I could include in my classroom because I know how easy, fun, and interactive they are for students to get involved while also learning. I enjoyed the readings for this section and have learned how important it is as a teacher to develop new stratigies and learn how to coach childrent to build an understanding of reading and not just say sound it out!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
June 9th Reflection
Fluency was the main topic for our readings and it really took an indepth look of defining what reading fluency is while also determining which components are assessed in multiple ways. The readings state that a fluent reader is, "any person who reads smoothly without hesitation, and with comprehension." Fluency consists of four main components that is dicussed in the article, "One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction." The four components are accuracy, rate, prosody, and comprehension. The artcile focuses on explaining each individual compenent and then later discussed how students could be assessed along with the misconceptions of instruction. In the article, "Creating Fluent Readers," they talk about how there can be certain students with accurate reading but that sometimes hesitate on words due to vocabulary when reaching higher grade levels. As teachers how do we counteract this in our classrooms....that's the answer that we must figure out in these readings. It's surprising to me to read these atricles and the book on fluency and to see how important it has come, "taking front seat in discussions." However, I have heard more about the teachers and reading coaches losing their jobs because there is not enough money in the budget to afford the programs they offer. Fluency is what leads students to read successfully, so why are schools not approaching this concern more intently. As teachers, we aren't instructing students how to read fluently. The articles discuss ways of assessing and teaching fluency. One of the best ways to encourage and teach fluency is model those behviors. We as teachers need to understand and read fluently ourselves before we can expect students to gain the knowledge and become fluent readers. I agree that we should pursue this and allow children to have the opportunities to understand what it means to be a fluent reader. Being able to read fast doesn't mean your fluent, you have to have processed the text and comprehended the text. As a future teacher, I have gained information that I need to understand the important topics in education and model those in the classroom. The word fluency can be very misleading when you don't understand all the components within it's meaning. We not only need to educate our students on these issue but also make sure that teachers know and understand issues like fluency, in order to be better prepaired in the classroom.
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