Week 12

How teachers can try to develop comprehension:

• Motivate
• Encourage their students writing
• Model good comprehension
• Help build their students vocabulary
• Teach the students comprehension strategies
• Teach their students about the passages

Good readers must know how to:

• Apply their background knowledge
• Predict what will happen next
• Ask questions (to teacher and themselves)
• Use the context clues
• Try to make a connection to their prior knowledge

How teachers can help struggling readers:

• Monitor their struggling students
• Practice more with the struggling reader
• Help the student understand how to adjust

The video as shown me a lot of great things I can use in my classroom in order to help my students understand the text better. I learned that the IRE questioning is like having a one on one with the student. When the student gives a right answer to the teacher they receive praise. I think that this doesn’t help the student at all and it does not help class discussion which is really important because it helps the teacher know what the students do and do not understand. I also think that the students prior knowledge is really important because for a student to use what they already know they will better comprehend what new information they are learning. This is why I think that class discussion is extremely important. This video is very informative and helps give teachers ideas on struggling readers.

DIBELS vs. QRI-5

After doing examples from both the QRI-5 and DIBELS, I have noticed that they are very much alike. Both DIBELS and the QRI-5 is a reading and comprehension assessment which are used to asses the students reading abilities. In DIBELS, you use a software in which it breaks down the pronunciation of words and sounds. It also goes over word recognition, as well as understanding what pictures/words start with a specific sound or letter. Where in the QRI-5 you read passages, answer questions, and re-evaluate the passage that was read. Both are very alike, but there are a few differences in each. Both of these assessments are very useful in helping teachers figure out whether their students are low risk, or high risk readers.

QRI-5 Analysis- Brianna

During the lesson of the QRI-5, we watched videos of a third grade ELL student named Brianna. We first watched Brianna read the words off of the primer word list, which let us see what reading level we should begin her on. She confidently and correctly read all of the words off of the first word list, so from that we went on. On the first list she had a hard time with a few of the words. She was given a Narrative story to read, which was called Mouse in a House. She very accurately answered the concept questions and from that she went on to Level two.

In the Level: Two expository writing prompt, Whales and Fish, she was not able to recognize the topic very well. She was not able to answer many of the concept questions that she was asked, also she had a hard time recollecting the main events that had happened in the story, which showed us that she was just reading to try and get the passage  over with. From this, it showed us that we should not move on to Level: Three.

Brianna did very well on the Narrative part of the QRI-5, because she was familiar with what she was reading. She did not do well on the Level: Two reading, because she did not really have any familiarity with Whales and Fish. This assessment is good to help a teacher meet the different needs of the students in their classroom, because every student is different and learns differently. The teacher needs to fix their lessons to help meet the needs of the students in their classroom.

Observations

As I continue my observations, I have been able to seee a lot of the writing and reading lessons that Mrs. Moore does with her fourth grade students. This week when I observed the class had started to write their reports on the series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. The reports are supposed to be about three to four pages long and including pictures. Each student read one of the books in this series and will write a well thought out report basically summarizing th book. This class has a lot of students who like to get up and present, so next time I go to observe they will present their reports for me.

Week 8

• Discuss the components of an effective writing program and why they are important.
• 1. the importance of an effective writing program is where you can get your students to use the proper grammar and fluency.
• How might you rearrange your schedule to create more time for students to write in general and, in particular, for students to write about their personal experiences?
• 2. I would use whatever down town we had in the classroom to help the students.
• How can you create ways for students to make personal connections in different subject areas through writing?
• 3. have the student write why they think they are struggling in and why they feel they are not doing well.
• How can student work help you decide which conventions to teach?
• 4.by looking at the student`s work it will show you what areas they are strong in and what they are weak in.
• When can you promote student inventions and experimentation with different formats in writing?
• 5. I think that it is very important for your students to be confident in their writing skills. When they feel that they are a good writer they will write and write.

COCA

I that this is a great way to assess a student`s reading level. This method, COCA, helps allow you as a teacher to work one on one with a student to get a better understanding on the student`s reading level. There are two different levels that can be used, Salmon and Dragonflies. This is good becasue you can chose which one fits best for all different types of students. Also, by a  teacher asking the students questions it helps the teacher get a better understanding  on what the student`s comprehension level is.

A Writer`s Story

From this video clip, it showed how the author had the students come up with an idea to show his imperfections when he was a child and told his own stories. By doing so, he showed all of the students that it was alright to be different and who you want to be. He made the students come up with their own stories about someone who was an outcast and different from everyone else. I thought this was a great idea to use in a classroom. By doing this it can somewhat have an effect on kids being bullied in school, because it shows the students how everyone is different in their own way and it isn`t “weird” so nobody should be picked on. This video clip shows a lot of positive outcomes.

Question: How would you use an activity like this in your classroom to make the student aware of bullying?