Writing Experiences

I have really enjoyed using writing to learn strategies as an adult. I thought it was also challenging to use the GIST strategy because I was limited to 20 words.  I believe that I often have a lot to say about what I read and write and this helped me focus my attention to the 20 words. Luckily, I was able to break the article on Writing Next into the four different sections so I had 80 words to work with. For example, for the recommendations part on page 11 I wrote, “There are 11 elements to effective instruction- Writing Strategies, Summarization, Collaboration, Goals, Word Processing, Sentence Combining, Prewriting, Inquiry, and Process Approach.” I also really enjoyed using the metacognitive journal because it really helped me check to make sure I understood what I was reading in the Vacca and Vacca chapter (two different links).  I used the “Something important I learned today is…./ It is important because…” sheet when reading this chapter.  It was a good use of my metacognition because I had to give evidence on why certain points were important.  With the new changes in the CCSS, I think metacognitive journals would be so helpful because it requires the reader to use textual evidence to support what they are thinking.

Many times I have my students use strategies similar to the GIST and metacognitive journal with my students.  In Kindergarten, the students are learning how to support their answers through textual evidence.  I would like to implement something similar to the metacognitive journal with my students.  I believe they would be able to use something like this even at their age.  I did do something similar a few weeks ago when my students were researching animals.  When they were done reading about an animal they had to write what they learned and what evidence they found that said why that was important.  This really taught my students to think about what they were writing and how they can support their statements.

Overall, I have always really enjoyed writing and I find that I enjoy teaching writing.  In the past, I have had some great teachers who have supported my growth in writing and would like to extend the same support to my students.  My teachers would challenge me in an appropriate way, so that I wanted to make my writing better.  They also found ways to keep me engaged by letting us pick topics and do our own research about topics.  After reading about various ways to keep students engaged at middle and high school levels, I can see that my writing teachers all did a great job with my engagement and growth as a writer.

Encouraging Content Area Discussions

Students will learn more about a disciplinary topic when they are given the opportunity to discuss the new learnings in class.  According to the Vacca and Vacca article (located here), students need to be able to have student lead discussions in the classroom to help with comprehension.  They also state that many times, the teacher does more of the talking, which is not necessarily helping the students.  Due to this, it is important for teachers to encourage discussion around a topic.  I believe teachers can do this through scaffolding instruction on discussion as well as setting up an environment that is conductive of discussion.

The Vacca and Vacca article as mentioned above gives some tips to encourage discussion.  The first activity that is mentioned is scaffolding discussion through activities like turn and talk.  With the new Common Core Standards, we are even doing turn and talk in my Kindergarten classroom.  The article mentioned how many students will try to guess what is in the teacher’s head during discussion.  The turn and talk allows students to only speak to one other partner and not be put on the spot for any answers.  In my current classroom, we use the turn and talk as a way to discuss various topics and subject areas.  I find a lot of success with this type of classroom discussion because as I take anecdotal notes, I listen and see that every student in my classroom is partaking in the discussion.

I also found the Vacca and Vacca article had many beneficial tips for encouraging discussion as well.  Some of the tipcs that were included were arranging the classroom in a specific way, teaching students how to listen, and establishing goals for discussion.  I believe these are all aspects that can be taught at the younger grade levels, and build on as the students grow older and more versed in language.  I previously had not thought about how the way a classroom is set up and how that can help discussion.  Students should be able to see one another and have easy access to sit by one another for discussions.  In my room, I try to set it up so that students can simply turn in order to have a discussion.  I also found this packet online that gave a whole list of other activities that can promote classroom discussion.  I really liked reading about the picture making activity as I could see that working in a Kindergarten classroom to help facilitate their discussion on new learnings.

I think that between the article from Vacca and Vacca and from the article I found online, that students can learn how to discuss topics in the classroom. Students need to have ample opportunities for discussion to foster their growth and understanding in a topic.  I believe that if students start discussing content areas at a young age, they can only grow and become more inclined to learn from their discussions

Multiple Texts in a Kindergarten Classroom

Currently I am using multiple texts as a way to teach my Kindergarten students about the inquiry research projects about animals.  The students were expected to pick any animal that they wanted and they have to present 3 facts that they researched about their animal in the mode that they pick.  There were many formats of texts that I made available for my students but, before allowing the student to dive in I had to teach them how to read across the multiple texts.

Before beginning this unit with my students I worked with our librarian to ensure that students were able to access information about animals across various texts.  We decided to pick-

Easy informational readers like this

Pebble Go
YouTube videos

I was beyond excited that I was able to find all of these great readable sources for my Kindergartners and I could not wait to dive into the project with them.  I then had the realization and reminder that “wait, these students may not even know what to do with this information.”

After realizing that the students did not necessarily know how to read information to learn, I had had to take a step back.  I knew I needed to teach the students lessons and model how to read this text to learn new information.  I explicitly taught the students how to get information from the sources and record it to learn new information.  I had models and graphic organizers to help the students understand how to take information from the text and write it down.

I believe this is one of the first steps in teaching students how to synthesize information across multiple texts. Dr. Manderino talked about teaching students how to synthesize in his video located here.  I agree with him when he stated that students need to know how to synthesize and that we should not wait until the older grades to teach this skill. In order for this to work in my classroom, I had to frame this project to help the students understand the new information. I believe that even in Kindergarten students can be taught how to read for information to create a project.

Further in  the video, the Common Core Standards are discusses as well as the students having the ability to compare texts. I do not think that Kindergarten students are able to do any comparative evaluation other than saying “I got this information from this book and this information from this book.”  I do not think they are developmentally reading to compare these texts any further than that.  However, I would hope that the simple step of teaching to students realize what information came from which book will help students make deeper comparisons as they get older.

I would hope that as the students get older that they would be taught more strategies to understand these texts.  I found this PowerPoint from the National Center for Literacy Education that explained how multiple texts can be used in classrooms.  It was very similar to Dr. Manderino’s video that I referenced in the last video.  This PowerPoint also broke down the understanding of multiple texts and how they can be used in the older grades as well.

Text Complexity

Topic- Photosynthesis

Fictional- Oh Say Can You Seed?

Qualitative-

            The qualitative measure of this book is intended for second to third grade reading levels.  It is developmentally appropriate due to its text structure and usage of rhyming.  It is intended to use fictional characters to help students understand the process of photosynthesis and of the life cycle of a seed.   There are some vocabulary words like minerals and thorn that students may need preteaching of in order to understand the text.

Quantitative-

            The quantitative measure of this book is intended for a high first grade to third grade reading level.  The Lexile level is a 530 due to its use of words and sentence structure.  Most sentences tend to be short since it is in the poem/rhyming type of text.

Reader/Text Factors-

            This story has many characters from the Dr. Seuss’s books that many children would find relatable because they have seen them before. This might help their motivation and interest in the story and help them in reading the text.  The text has many rhyming words which some students may also find engaging and interesting to read.

Informational- The Magic School Bus Gets Planted

Qualitative-

            The qualitative measure of this book is intended for a second to third grade reading level.  It is developmentally appropriate for these grade levels due to the developmental appropriateness as well as the reading difficultly.  There were some higher level vocabulary words within the story that the students may need some frontloading on in order to comprehend the text. 

Quantitative-

            The quantitative measure of this book is intended for a second to third grade reading level.  The Lexile level is a 530 meaning it can be read anywhere from a first to third grade reading level.  The sentences are of varying structure, although most tend to be shorter.

Reader/Text Factors-

            Readers would find this book interesting as photosynthesis is a topic of science studied typically around these grade levels. The book is full of many illustrations and has characters that the students may have knowledge of since the book is a part of a much larger series.  Students may also be motivated to read this text because of the sentence structure and dialogue between the characters.

Informational- Photosynthesis: Changing Sunlight into Food

Qualitative-

            The qualitative measure of this book is intended for a late second to early fourth grade reading level due to its developmental appropriateness.  This text is leveled higher than the other two texts in this blog and I believe it has to do with the higher level vocabulary words found in the text.  Some of these words are evaporate, cacti, shirks, and expand.  Students may not be developmentally ready to understand these words before the end of second grade.  As stated in the quantitative section, this book is intended to be used as a resource and students need to understand how the organization of resource books work as well in order to comprehend this text.

Quantitative- 

The quantitative measure of this book is intended for a late second to early fourth grade reading level.  The Lexile level of the story is a 710.  The Lexile reading system also categorizes this book as an ‘IG’ book meaning illustrated guide.  This means that they recommend that this text is used as a guide for a reference and not meant to read in its entirety.  

Reader/Text Factors-

            Students may have some background knowledge of photosynthesis and plants before reading this book, which may help with their interest level of the story.  There are many real life photographs that students can use as a visual to understand the new concepts.  The text is set up as a true information text with headings, content table and bolded words among other informational text features.  Students who are curious about learning about the process of photosynthesis even further, would possibly be interested in reading this text. 

Vocabulary in these Texts

I believe the role of vocabulary did have a play in the complexity of the texts chosen for this assignment. The topic area that I chose was plants and photosynthesis.  The word photosynthesis alone is such a complex word, even though the mean of the word is relatively simple.  Many of the vocabulary words were also not decodable in the sounding out or chunking strategies, which could also make the texts harder for students to understand as well.

In the article we read for class (here) it states,  “This instruction should focus not just on domain-specific words and phrases that describe the central concepts in the subject area, but also on general academic words.”  I think this is a very important concept to remember as it is our job as teachers to front load these vocabulary terms in the various texts to help students comprehend the material.  I believe that with these specific texts, as long as the new science terms are discussed, students should be able to comprehend the texts.

Comprehension in Disciplinary Literacy

            Comprehension in disciplinary literacy is not something I had really thought of before this class.  As a Kindergarten teacher, I am often focused on teaching students how to decode and comprehend text.  I think sometimes the bigger picture of ‘one day these kids will be 11^thgraders’ gets lost.  Many times as teachers we are focused on the now.  How do I teach my students to comprehend this now? How do I teach my students this vocabulary now?  I think the bigger picture relates back to teaching students how to be strategic readers and to build on that knowledge base as they grow up.  Students should be taught comprehension strategies from an early grade in all disciplinary literacies, so that when they get to the upper grade levels, they will have the skills to comprehend the various texts.

            In the article written by Lee and Sprately( Article here), they have addressed the differences between elementary reading and high school reading and what they believed was necessary for students to do and possess while reading content area literacy in order to understand it.  One section that really stood out to me concerned the empirical base of comprehension strategies. These included, asking questions, making predictions, testing hypotheses, summarizing, monitoring understanding and deploying fix-it strategies as needed  Then, the article went on to state that students cannot do all of these strategies alone to understand the topic.  Students also need background knowledge to fully comprehend the content areas.  This was a huge ah-ha for me as a primary grade teacher.  It is my job to ensure that students are learning content in addition to strategies. 

        I found this great video on youtube that discusses how it is important to include literacy in the content areas at all grade levels.  It had some good points about viewing yourself as a literacy teacher no matter what you are teaching.  I think this is a good way of thinking as I plan lessons in the different content areas in Kindergarten.

                The PowerPoint posted in class also brought up many good points that were easy to see how as teachers, we can help students grow in their understanding of the content areas.  I think something I would like to try more often is picking out specific pre, during, and post reading strategies that would help my students with the comprehension of the topic. I think that I personally could do a better job of ensuring that the activities relate to one another in order to build a deeper understanding of the topic. This brings me to my next learning from the video that was viewed in class.

                The video located here titled Teaching Content is Teaching Reading made some really great points about going beyond decoding in order to comprehend content area literacy.  The very last few slides really stuck out to me as a Kindergarten teacher.  The slide said that once students can decode, they can decode anything, but if they do not have the background knowledge, then they are not going to understand it. I completely agree with this information and I am looking to add more content knowledge into my own classroom.  For example, next week instead of doing a normal writing center (normal, meaning students can free write), I am going to include an informational text article about penguins in the center.  The students will be expected to read this information and then share the information through a small book that they create.  I believe this will help them learn some of the science language and apply then in their own writing.  I hope that by doing more activities like these in my classroom that I will build more background knowledge as they make their way into first grade.

Finally, I was very interested in seeing how content area relates to Kindergarten and I started to do some research.  I came across this article and found it very interesting.  I would highly recommend reading it as a primary teacher.  The research in this article related exactly to the video mentioned in the above paragraph.  It stated that students performed better when they were exposed to more challenging and advanced content even at the Kindergarten level.  I thought it was very interesting to see a study done on this topic.  

Understanding Disciplinary Literacy in a Kindergarten Classroom

As a Kindergarten teacher in a content area literacy course, I knew I was in for some new learning.  When I first heard the term, disciplinary literacy, I looked over to my tablemates and said “What is that?”  Being as we are all elementary teachers, they shrugged their shoulders and we left it at that, hoping that it would be explained class. Disciplinary literacy is a new concept to me and I am working on getting a deeper understanding and firmer grasp on what it means to me and how I can use it in my classroom.

I believe that my classroom lends itself to the concept of disciplinary literacies.  I teach in a half day classroom which means that I am constantly in the race against time.  After thinking about this, I realize that I am using various types of disciplinary text in my teaching and lessons with my students.  For example, our next science unit concerns taking care of the earth.  Instead of having specific science time, I am using this concept in my literacy time and asking my students to ‘think like a scientist.’  Granted, this is a completely new thought process for them and they may not truly understand what this means yet, but I believe it is so important to introduce these different ways of thinking at a young age. 

This brings me to a huge challenge of disciplinary literacy in a Kindergarten classroom.  Although I am a firm believer in letting students try out new things at a young age, I want to ensure that I am doing it in an appropriate manner and what is developmentally correct for five year olds.  I want to teach my students to think and not to memorize facts.  Although having content knowledge is important, I try to think about what will open the most doors for them as they grow older. I believe that I should take the approach of teaching the students how to read, think, and contextualize the different subject areas, because this will hopefully carry on as they grow up.  I think that my new challenge will be to find a good balance between teaching the kids to be thinkers and teaching them content knowledge.

 I think that Jetton and Shanahan do a great job in their text Adolescent Literacy in the Academic Disciplines of explaining some other challenges of reading interdisciplinary texts.  One of the profound things to me was concerning technical vocabulary in each subject area.  This in general is a very big challenge in Kindergarten because the kids have only been around language for five or six years.  Many times words like above and below which are technical math terms can be a challenge for them to read and comprehend. Jetton and Shanahan said in their text “these words are rarely used in students’ everyday language, they present problems for both decoding and understanding.  I completely agree with this statement in the fact that if I do not use a new technical term over and over again, my students will lose all meaning of the word.  Overall I find that technical language in disciplinary texts can be a huge challenge to students of all ages.

In the future I would like to see the idea of disciplinary literacy utilized in more elementary classrooms.  I believe that as teachers, we can teach students to be critical thinkers of text while building their reading strategies and creating new knowledge.  I think that texts from many different subject areas needs to be utilized in order to achieve these goals for students.  I also believe that we have to educate parents on this new idea as well so that they understand the evidence and practice behind disciplinary literacies.