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Emergent Literacy

Literacy Portfolio

Kandace Haag

Fall 2011

Carson Newman College

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Table of Contents

Philosophy of Literacy 3-7

Reflections 8-43

Standards 44-70

Self-Evaluation Letter 71-72

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Philosophy of Literacy Education

Becoming literate is a complex step by step process that begins at birth. The National

Association for Young Children explains, “Even in the first few months of life, children begin to

experiment with language. Young babies make sounds that imitate the tones and rhythms of

adult talk; they “read” gestures and facial expressions, and they begin to associate sound

sequences frequently heard - words – with their referents” (p.1). The English language is not

merely a written language, but also a spoken language and children’s exposure to language

begins at birth. Infants and toddlers need to be spoken to regularly using whole language and

complete sentences. Communicating with young children through spoken language will allow

them to increase the amount of words that they can understand and that is available for their

future use in speaking, reading, and writing. Infants and Toddlers learn to produce the sounds

required for their spoken language, increase their vocabulary, and learn the rules of conversation

through interaction with the adults around them.

The skills of reading develop slowly and in a predictive pattern. The International

Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998)

share the belief that reading and writing acquisition is best conceptualized as a developmental

continuum. This continuum begins with speaking and moves slowly through learning about print

concepts, letter recognition, phonemic awareness, recognizing phoneme-grapheme relationships,

blending, word recognition, word decoding, fluency, and comprehension. Young children are

continuously making progress on this continuum through a variety of sources. One of the most

beneficial activities for young children to participate in is being read to. The IRA and NAEYC

(1998) state, “The single most important activity for building these understandings and skills

essential for reading success appears to be reading aloud to children” (p. 32). Children need to be

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read to from an early age so that the skills and concept knowledge required when formal

education begins are present. Parents need to be cultivated to be their child’s first teacher. The

general public needs to realize that learning to read and becoming literate is a process that begins

long before a child enters a school building. Grover Whitehurst and Christopher Lonigan (1998)

state, “The term “emergent literacy” is used to denote the idea that the acquisition of literacy is

best conceptualized as a developmental continuum, with its origins early in the life of a child,

rather than an all-or-none phenomenon that begins when children start school” (p. 848). The key

to gifting every child with the ability to be successful at reading and writing is to expose them at

a very early age to an environment that is filled with language, both spoken and written.

In an early childhood education setting, such as Head Start, Prekindergarten, or day care,

young children need to be exposed to literacy and language in a variety of ways. In this

environment, children need to develop the concepts that print has meaning, reading moves from

left to right, and books should be read from front to back and one page at a time. They also need

to begin to recognize and label letters, become aware and skilled at separating and blending

phonemes, relating letters to the corresponding sound, and recognizing environmental print, such

as their name and signs and symbols. The majority of this education needs to be informal. Young

children learn best through play. A dramatic play area that includes books, paper, chalkboards,

and other reading and writing materials should be offered where students can explore literacy

and storytelling through the use of their imagination. Kathleen Roskos (1988) shares that,

“Children who actively and frequently participate in pretend play episodes as a kind of story

making may have a “leg up” on literacy learning as they enter the school doors” (p. 563).

Teachers need to read aloud to students frequently while questioning and encouraging student

comprehension and discussion and also need to create an environment that is full of print and

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symbols. Students should participate in a multitude of games that involve rhyming, blending,

segmenting, and separating sounds and words. Echo and choral reading of nursery rhymes is an

activity that will improve students’ phonemic awareness and reading readiness. Very little formal

reading education belongs in a child’s world prior to their entrance into a formal school

environment.

Children need all of the activities that have been listed to prepare them for when their

formal education begins. Unfortunately, some children do not receive the opportunity to

participate in these informal activities that prepare them for formal literacy instruction.

Kindergarten teachers need to be prepared for a variety of literacy skill sets and knowledge to

come through their classroom door each school year. One of the most important tasks of the

teachers that begin children’s formal literacy education is to make it a positive experience in an

environment where children feel safe to take risks and be courageous in learning to read.

Dorothy Hall and Elaine Williams (2000) believe that, “If the introduction is a pleasant one, then

the child will develop an attitude toward school and learning which can carry her through the

occasionally difficult situations that everyone is bound to meet in the climb up the educational

ladder” (p. 6). Learning to read is a complex difficult process that takes years and in all honesty

is never finished. I still constantly learn new words and techniques to improve my reading and

writing. Teachers need to help students develop a love of reading and writing so that when

difficulties arise, because they often will, children will want to persevere because they

understand what reading and writing can offer to them in the present and in their future.

Due to the variety of reading knowledge and skill sets found within a classroom, when

formal literacy education begins, it needs to include a balanced, multilevel approach. Inside of

the school, literacy instruction needs to include direct, multilevel instruction in phonics, reading

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whole words, fluency, and comprehension. Along with reading instruction, students need direct

instruction in learning to write. Reading and writing are interrelated. Adding a word to a

student’s vocabulary means that not only can they read and comprehend that word, but that they

can now use that word to make their written creation even more detailed and flowing. Learning

to write a word means that when a child comes in contact with that word in text, he or she will be

able to fluently read and comprehend it. A student who is exposed to a new text structure, such

as poetry, or a new genre through reading opens up the student’s mind to now be able to write in

that structure or genre.

Once the foundation of reading fluently with high levels of comprehension and basic

writing skills has developed, children will continue to improve their literacy skills throughout the

rest of their life and into adulthood.

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References

Hall, D. & Williams, E. (2002). The Teacher’s Guide to Building Blocks. Greensboro, NC:

Carson-Dellosa Publishing Company, Inc.

International Reading Association and National Association for the Education of Young

Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for

young children. Young Children, 53(4), pp. 30-46.

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2005). Learning to read and write:

what research reveals. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/4483/

Roskos, K. (1988). Literacy at work in play. The Reading Teacher, 41(6), 562-566.

Whitehurst, G. & Lonigan, C. (1998). Child development and emergent literacy. Child

Development, 69(3), pp. 848-872.

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Reflection One – August 28, 2011

The greatest strength that I have as an educator is the passion and desire that I possess for my

career. It allows me to get up each morning and pray for the guidance that I need to make a

difference each day. I became a teacher to make a difference. I have always loved to learn and I

want to instill that same desire in every student who comes into my classroom. As with many

teachers, I work extra hours and spend my own money in my classroom and on my students. I do

my best to connect with the parents of my students and create a cooperative partnership to

increase the potential for success for each student. I try to get to know my students and

understand their interests, needs, and personalities. Along with this strength, I have the ability to

show students that I care. I am affectionate and warm. This allows students to trust me and

confide in me.

I am a very creative teacher. Currently, I teach preschool. I often create manipulatives,

games, and props for students to use during free time and to be used during direct instruction.

For example, last winter I created a rebus story on poster board of The Night Before Christmas

and the class read it chorally for a large group lesson. I frequently use the internet as a resource

for ideas on how to make topics interesting and engaging for students. I create very thorough and

engaging lesson plans. At Head Start, the supervisors review the lesson plan books in detail

during the summer vacation. My lesson plan book contained the least errors found in any of the

teachers’ lesson plan books, only two.

I collaborate with my peers. I discuss lessons, strategies, and interventions with my peers.

I offer advice and seek advice when necessary. I understand that I do not possess all the

knowledge in the world and that seeking advice and input from other teachers can make me a

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better teacher. I love to learn. I love to read and soak up knowledge. I always have and I always

will.

I reflect upon my teaching practices. I use student assessment data and feedback to

evaluate and improve my teaching strategies and lessons. I, also, use my evaluations and

feedback from my supervisors to improve my practice and become a better teacher.

My biggest weaknesses as an educator are also my biggest weaknesses as a housewife

and a student. I have horrible organizational and time management skills. I often get so wrapped

up in creating a wonderful prop or lesson or researching new ways to help a student who is

struggling that I lose track of time and do not accomplish what was on my to do list for the day

be it grading lesson plans or cleaning the classroom. My desk is often a mess, an organized mess

where I know where everything is, but a mess none the less. I have to make a very concerted

effort to stay organized.

In my father’s opinion, I have one more weakness. He thinks that I care too much. I have

great difficulty coming home and leaving work behind. I think that this goes back to my greatest

strength. I love my students and I love making a difference. If the day comes when I can leave

my work at work, I will have to find a different career. Teaching is not an eight o’clock to three

o’clock job like so many people think it is. It is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week job. A good

teacher is constantly looking for ideas and materials to use in his or her classroom, wondering

how his or her students are doing, and trying to make a difference. As cliché as it sounds, for me

teaching is not my profession, it is my calling and my passion. If that ever changes, the only

thing to do for myself, my happiness, and my students would be to get out of the classroom.

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Reflection Two – September 4, 2011

As a Head Start teacher, the mention of early literacy acquisition was a point that stood out for

me. I serve only low income families. Many of the children that walk into my classroom are

unable to count to three or even recognize the first letter of their name at 4 years old. In contrast,

my goddaughter can count to seven and knows that B L begins her name at 2 ½ years old. The

article by the NAEYC states, “high quality book reading occurs when children are emotionally

secure.” Many of the children I teach are not emotionally secure. I would estimate that at least

half of the children I teach come from broken and unstable homes with parents who are often

struggling themselves. For example, I have 1 young boy this year who does not respond to his

legal name, but a nickname that his family consistently calls him. Many of the children do not

have books inside of their house. They come from a cycle of poverty and often a lack of formal

education. The first step for me in this environment as a teacher is to provide a safe, loving,

warm environment. Without a nurturing environment, children cannot learn. The importance of

those first 3 years of development are vital and unfortunately many children from lower income

families do not receive adequate stimulation. The saddest part to me is that the stimulation

necessary is so simple. Young children need to be spoken to and read to and the difference in a

child’s cognitive development when these two things occur is amazingly immeasurable. The

worst part to me is that there is almost no excuse for it not to occur. My mother was 18 when I

was born and my father was 17. They lived with my grandparents and both worked, but they still

knew to read to me and talk to me. I was reading on an 8th

grade level in 3rd

grade. Neither one

had a wealth of education in child development and we were certainly a low income family at the

time. To me, many of the stimulants required to set a young child up to be a successful reader are

natural instincts, but sadly many parents do not follow them.

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The importance of phonological awareness also stood out to me. My younger sister

struggled with reading through much of elementary school. It is probably the most important

reason why I want to become a reading specialist. My mother fought to have her tested and was

often ignored by teachers and administrators. Dr. Long at Carson Newman evaluated her and

found that she was poorly skilled in phonological awareness. She is now in AP English and

Literature at Jefferson County High School. Her reading has improved, but she struggled all

through middle school and finally attained enough practice to become fluent because she found

books that she was interested in enough to struggle through until she became a fluent reader. She

is still a terrible speller. Frequently, she misspells words so badly that Microsoft Word offers her

no alternatives. Learning to read is a process that begins at birth and contains many components

and if one of those components is missing the process becomes very difficult and complicated.

I enjoyed the fact that both authors pointed out that quite often the activities where

children learn the most are indirect instruction. I so often hear that “all my child does is play” or

the wonderful statement from friends “your job is so easy all you do is play with little kids all

day”. Each activity that is present in my classroom is thoroughly thought out and planned to

offer children the opportunity to learn in way that is engaging and fun for them. Environmental

print is spread throughout the room. The library is full of both fiction and nonfiction books that

are bright and interesting to the children. There are board games to encourage conversation and

social interactions. The dramatic play area contains paper and pencils to allow children to act out

the ways in which literacy can be used. We sing Dr. Jean and other songs that encourage

phonological awareness. The art table is continually changing to allow children to create the

things that are contained in their head. I love to look at portfolios at the end of the year and see

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how much their fine motor skills have improved and to see their name printed in their own

handwriting. It is nice to be reminded that there is a research based method to my madness.

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Reflection Three – September 11, 2011

I love read alouds. It is honestly one of my favorite activities as a teacher and it was when I was

a student. When I was in 5th

grade, my teacher would allow me to go to the kindergarten

classroom during self-selected reading and read aloud to the kindergartners. I have always

wanted to be a teacher and I have always loved to read. I began reading the Harry Potter series,

because the school librarian read us an excerpt from the first book concerning quiditch in the 8th

grade. I can remember my mom and dad and grandparents reading to me. I loved when my mom

read The Monster at the End of this Book, because she was so animated and playful.

Many of my students sadly, do not get read to at home. Some of them do not have any

books at home. I have one child whose mother cannot read and the only writing she can

accomplish is her signature. For many of the kids I teach, my classroom is their first large

exposure to books, reading, and the world it creates. I struggle with this frequently. One of my

biggest challenges as a teacher, especially in the environment of Head Start where so much focus

is placed on parent involvement, is being non-judgmental of parents and their lack of parenting

skills. I struggled a lot this past week. I had a couple of incidences with unhappy parents. The

weather was so gloomy. My kids have been in the classroom for 3 weeks and I am drowning in

beginning of the year paperwork including LapD assessments, anecdotal records, teacher

observation logs, and beginning portfolio assessments. Friday, I was in such a mood; I was

hardly fit to be in the classroom. Then, story time came around and I had been looking forward

to it all week. We were reading The 3 Billy Goats Gruff and none of my students had heard it

before. When Baby Billy went to cross the bridge, I used my deepest, scariest voice for the Troll

and my highest, squeakiest voice for Baby Billy and every student in my room let out this round

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of joyous giggles. It was all worth it and I was smacked in the face with a reminder of why I

became a teacher. As teachers, we know the importance of read alouds and all of their literacy

benefits, but we often forget some of the wonderful bonuses that they provide. They give us a

time and opportunity to bond and connect with our students and to get insight into their

beautifully amazing minds. Teachers get to provide enjoyment in an immensely productive way

to children who may not get much joy outside of the classroom.

The statistic that 80 percent of fiction was bought by women and 80 percent of nonfiction

was bought by men had me looking at my husband’s and mine shared bookcase and also at my

collection of my personal books that I use in the classroom. The majority of my husband’s books

were comprised of historical nonfiction while mine were mainly fiction stories. My children’s

library is largely fictional with a few theme related nonfiction books spread throughout. I am

going to make it a point to expand the nonfiction section of my library. Maybe, now that I am

aware of my hormonally charged preference for fiction, I can balance out my library. However, I

do not see my personal preference for fiction going anywhere.

I did notice two areas from the interactive read aloud article where I could use some

improvement. I am guilty of often not providing my 4 year olds with a purpose for reading. I

learned to do it in college, but when I began working with preschoolers allowed it to fall to the

wayside. I am going to begin to start every read aloud with a purpose or focus that is given to my

students. I have also allowed my follow up interactions to become diminished since I began

working in preschool. This week I am going to add crayons and white paper to our writing

center. After every read aloud, I am going to encourage students to go to the writing center and

draw a picture about the story that we just read or the way it made them feel. I need to focus with

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my students on the fact that print and pictures have meaning and that they can use crayons,

paper, and pencils to express themselves and share their thoughts.

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Reflection Four – September 18, 2011

I think that one of the greatest steps that could be taken to improve young children’s literacy

development is parent training. Parents need to be educated. As a Head Start teacher, I feel that

many parents bring their children to me with a here you go, do something with my kid attitude.

Society needs to stop looking at teachers as villains and place some of the responsibility for the

education of children upon parents. It has gotten to the point where I spend as much teaching my

students manners as I do counting. Parents need to be educated about early literacy and the

simple things that they can do to help their children and society needs to expect them to complete

these activities. In East Tennessee, every child can receive one book a month through Dolly

Parton’s Imagination Library until they are 5. There is no excuse for why children should not

have books in their homes and why they are not being read to. Many people do not share my

opinion, but as an early childhood educator, I believe that parenting classes should be a part of

the required high school curriculum. Students are required to take sex education in health class,

but are not taught how to care for children. It would be one easy inexpensive step to improve

outcomes for children. Emergent literacy, child nutrition and hygiene, and discipline techniques

could be covered.

The idea of literacy acquisition through play saddened me. My students get to play

throughout the day. They have a literacy center, art table, puzzle table, library, block area,

science and math table, and dramatic play area. I see so much learning and interaction

throughout the day. However, even though the article touted the benefits of play for

kindergartners and first graders, their days now are so structured and include so much direct

instruction and very little play. Society and the education system have forgotten that children are

children. We are placing so much pressure on them from such an early age.

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Children learn in so many varied ways, yet we expect them to fit into a neat little

package. The authors want to develop a specific theory of emergent literacy. This is so difficult.

Later literacy follows a suggested pattern and deals usually with formal schooling, but emergent

literacy develops mostly through informal means and without a structured way of teaching, there

cannot be a structured pattern to learning. There is a typical pattern in emergent literacy, but to

develop a specific theory of how children learn to read seems improbable and almost impossible.

Each child’s experiences varies so greatly throughout this age that trying to box their learning

into nice, neat package just does not seem logical to me.

I was very interested in the commentary about deaf children and read alouds. As an

educator, I would look at a deaf child and think that it was not possible for them to get as much

out of a read aloud as the other students. I was shocked to learn that their interactions could

match hearing children’s. I wonder if this is true of many disabilities. Are disabled children’s

limitations always placed on them by their disabilities or do we as teachers sometimes place

limitations on them that hinder success. This is a very thin line. As a teacher, you want each

child to succeed to the best of their potential, but you do not want to place your expectations so

high that a child fails and is left feeling inadequate. That simple fact has given me a lot to think

on. I had a deaf child in my social studies class when I taught 3rd

grade. Her tests were altered,

because many of the social studies vocabulary words do not have American Sign Language

symbols. Her interpreter would often not sign things I would say in class, because there was no

appropriate symbol. I wonder now if my expectations were not too low for her. This is one

thought that will stick with me for a while and will affect my interactions with special needs

students from now on out.

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Reflection Five – September 25, 2011

I learned about the vitality and necessity of phonemic awareness in an unconventional way.

When my sister was in elementary school, she struggled with speech and was given speech

therapy. Afterwards, she struggled to read and began to hate reading. My mother had her tested

for dyslexia and hearing difficulties and everything else that we could think of. In 3rd

grade, her

reading ability jumped almost 2 and a half grades and she began to enjoy it; however, her

spelling was atrocious and she still had a very slow, broken reading pattern. When I was at CNC

and taking special education courses, Dr. Long evaluated her. She was in 5th

grade at the time.

We found out that her comprehension skills were very good, but that she had no phonemic

awareness which of course makes decoding words very difficult. She is a junior in high school

now and in honors English, but still struggles with spelling and has difficulty decoding words.

She often has to use a dictionary to figure out unknown words and hates to read in public. It was

very difficult to watch my baby sister struggle with something that I loved so much and was so

good at. It is one of the reasons that I wanted to become a reading specialist. I watched my

mother become so frustrated and angry, because she knew that something was wrong with her

child and teachers and administrators were ignoring her pleas. My sister’s 4th

grade teacher told

my mother that it did not matter that she had trouble spelling because computers had spell check

now. My sister had a wonderful kindergarten teacher and I think that her lack of sound

awareness has a lot to do with the speech issues she had and that she could not replicate many of

the sounds correctly at the time.

The position statement mentioned not only teaching children to read and write but also

fostering their enjoyment in reading and writing. This is where standardized education has

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veered us so far off the appropriate path. We teach children how to read and write now, so that

they can pass tests and complete assignments, but we forget to instill in them a love of learning

and gaining knowledge. Actually, teachers do not forget, but we are so busy trying to retain our

jobs and achieve high test scores that this task falls to the wayside. I attended an inservice

training 2 weeks ago and the trainer asked us to pick one of 4 quotes that described our idea of

education. Most people chose a quote that said education was a process where children created

knowledge about their world. This quote is true, but I was the only one that chose a quote that

said my job as a teacher is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. I cannot teach a child

everything that they need to know in a year. I will be able to give some of the children in my

class great gains, but because they were so behind developmentally when they entered my room,

I will never be able to get them to where they should be to enter kindergarten. However, if I can

instill a love of knowledge in my students and a thirst to learn, they will be sponges for every

decent teacher that they come across in the future soaking up every ounce of knowledge that they

can find.

I have 4 Hispanic students in my classroom. Two speak some English, but two speak no

English at all. Last year, I took a Spanish for teachers class at Walters State. I wanted to be able

to communicate with my Hispanic students in their own language. I still feel like I am sorely

lacking, but I can communicate with them on necessary conversation. I can ask if they are sick

and give routine instructions. I often wonder what they are thinking as they set and listen to me

conduct group time in English. They pay attention and do their best to participate, but I know

that they cannot understand what I am saying. The sad part is that I have gone out of my way to

learn what I know. Many of my peers do not even try to communicate with their students in

Spanish. I would be so fearful, if as an adult someone through me into a brand new environment

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with no way to communicate. I can only imagine how they feel that first day when their parents

leave and they have no adult to speak to. Then, as a system we try to take their culture and home

away from them and make them accept ours.

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Reflection Six – October 2, 2011

The supporting phonemic awareness article provided me with so many ideas to use in my

classroom. My students’ favorite song is actually Going on a Bear Hunt and I loved the idea of a

word hunt. We have a clothes theme soon and I am going to create a book with the children

using the Ten Cats have Hats book. During our nutrition theme, I am going to find the Hungry

Thing books and use those.

We use the Tennessee Early Learning Standards and the Head Start Frameworks

Outcomes to guide our teaching at Head Start. It covers a wide range of topics and is very similar

to Tennessee State Standards for the public school system. However, at the beginning of the

year, my teaching assistant and I decided that this year that, while we would follow our

standards, we would place most of our focus on letter recognition, phonics, phonemic awareness,

counting to 20, and number recognition. I am reading a large number of alphabet books and

rhyming books. We play games right now that repeat sounds, rhyme words, and clap words.

Twice a week, we introduce a new letter, read a story from Alphatales that focuses on that letter,

the children cut, staple, and color a small book version of the story at the art table to take home, I

complete a letter activity with the children, and then I send a short homework assignment home

with parents. I knew that when the standards moved down throughout the grades that my 4 year

olds would need to learn a lot more to be ready for kindergarten and be successful in

kindergarten than ever before. I try to remember that I teach 4 year olds and I want my teaching

to be fun and enjoyable, but I often have a lot of ground to make up with the majority of my

students and I want them to be prepared for kindergarten and be successful. After the class has

made its way through the entire alphabet, I am going to begin playing phonics games, such as

creating and manipulating words.

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The examples of multilevel questions were very useful for me. I have a lot of 4 year olds

who are ready to learn, a few 3 year olds who are ready to learn, and a mixture of children who

need to focus only on their social and speech skills. The idea of multilevel questions are

necessary to me, so that I can keep my lower level children interested while providing the best

and highest level of instruction I can for my other children. One thing that I constantly have to

remind myself is that even with the children who don’t seem to understand, if I keep them

engaged and give them the chance to answer questions and participate even if their answer is

wrong, that they will walk away with a small piece of information that could connect to so many

other things in their brains one day. I liked the way Hall and Williams put it. Children learn by

creating patterns. Even with my lower level children, if I cannot lead them to create the pattern,

if I can give them the pieces to the pattern, one day they will be able to order it correctly.

I love watching my students engage in pretend play. I have a kitchen area that contains

costumes and props and always paper and pencil. There is also a chalkboard beside of the fridge,

where I have often caught children creating grocery lists. Theme props are added and taken away

every week. Last week, we were studying exercise. I added a yoga mat and some hand weights.

We learned some yoga poses with a wonderful kit that central office provided to us that included

cards which each yoga pose that included a picture of a child doing the pose, the name, and

instructions. The entire week children would teach each other yoga and although they knew the

poses they would look at and use the cards, because I had used them when I originally taught

yoga to them. In this busy world, parents and sometimes teachers forget how important

imaginations are and we neglect the world that children create for themselves to play in.

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Reflection Seven – October 9, 2011

Big books are so important and such a wonderful way to teach children without drilling and

skilling facts into them. When I receive my classroom money this winter, I am planning on

buying a collection of big books. I currently have none. This year there is a huge focus at Head

Start to teach print concepts, such as reading from left to right, turning one page at a time, and

the types of pages found in a book. I think that big books would be the best way to teach these

skills and concepts.

I love the fact that the textbook for this class is not just full of information, but useful

ideas. I found so many ideas reading the first couple of chapters this week to use or modify

slightly and use with my kids. I am going to make pictures of items and do an interactive reading

activity with my students for Mary Wore Her Red Dress during my theme on clothes. During

transportation, I am so excited to make the yarn necklaces and create a large chart of the song.

I had never heard of the actually teaching children that pretend reading was a way of

reading. I have seen many children do this and I think it is one of the neatest things at see as a

preschool teacher and it makes me so proud. We use dictated stories as one of our portfolio

items. Many of my students go “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell stories yet”. This is a great way to

provide confidence to try to read and a safe environment where children can explore their

pretend reading skills.

The authors brought up the many incentive programs that we use to encourage children to

read including free pizza and competitions and that real readers read for pleasure and that praise

is the best reward especially if you want to create lifelong readers. I am torn by this. Some

children do not see adults read for pleasure inside their homes. For these children, the incentive

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programs can provide a reason to pick up a book, when for them pleasure reading is a very

abstract idea. Once the children begin reading, then they can develop a love of reading and the

teacher can help cultivate that love. Praise is an extrinsic reward just as much as pizza and

earning the most points is a reward. I know when I was a child I tried to do and be everything

everyone wanted me to be to earn praise. Intrinsic motivation has to be cultivated and often does

not come naturally. Everyone needs a stepping stone to develop it. It will always vary, too. A

child who will read the entire Baby Sitters Club series in a summer might hate to read her

reading textbook. When I was in my undergraduate program, in some classes I read to get a good

grade and in other classes I read because it was my major and what I was interested in.

Sometimes, rewards are necessary to get children to find what it is that they love to read.

I can remember doing morning messages when I student taught in kindergarten. It was

many of the children’s favorite part of the day. They were so proud when I would share the pen

with them. I had never heard of the daily journal entries completed as a class at the end of the

day. This was a very neat idea. We come together as a class before we go outside and review

what we did during the day. This is a developmentally appropriate version of this exercise for my

4 year olds and helps them have an idea of what to tell their parents when they ask what they

have done at school that day.

I really like the idea of interactive charts and thought that this would be a wonderful

activity to do with my kids after the Christmas break. I would leave out the sentence builder

activity, because I do not think that it would be appropriate for my 4 year olds and too

complicated for them to complete. They would love making a class book that they could look at

in the reading center. I would give them a piece of paper with their sentences written on it,

instead of cutting the words into separate pieces.

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I think as teachers now we get so focused on proving ourselves and our teaching skills

that we often forget to be cheerleaders instead of editors. Stress can easily cause us to become

negative people. In the classroom, we need to remember that you catch more flies with honey

than vinegar and that children always respond better to positivity than negativity.

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Reflection Eight – October 16, 2011

Word walls are wonderful tools that provide a multitude of enriching activities to classrooms for

students. However, they have become abused. I am required to have a word wall in my

classroom full of 3 and 4 year olds. It provides no usefulness. The activities that can be used with

words walls are completely inappropriate for my students. It does nothing, but take up wall space

that I could use for a purpose in my circle area.

When I taught 3rd

grade, the working with words block was my favorite. It was the best

part of our scheduled language arts time. The students enjoyed and so did I. Making words was

always my favorite activity especially with small groups.

I cannot stand ability grouping. I think it is derogatory to students and the same problems

exist in the smaller groups as in the larger group. A group of 6 children never share the same

interests or the exact same ability level. I much prefer the idea of a 3 ring circus, where all ability

levels are spread throughout each group. When I taught 3rd

grade, I had the lowest ability level

for the Excel program, a grade level ability grouped literacy time. It was so hard to watch all the

children struggle and get frustrated with each other because it was taking so long to read a story.

I had some children on a high 2nd

grade level and some on an early kindergarten level. There is

no easy group reading choice for the literacy level. I prefer a 3 ring circus using the basal reading

text for group reading with the teacher and partner reading. This also touches on the repeated

reading mentioned in the fluency article. The self-selected reading group can choose from boxes

of leveled books for their appropriate level. Children will always know who the good readers are

and who the bad readers are. Children are smart and perceptive. When I was in my

undergraduate work, I wrote a paper on birth order and its effect on intelligence. The most

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interesting part of the paper was that older children are benefited not because of more quality

time with parents, but because they get to help teach their younger siblings. To teach someone, a

person has to have a much higher concept of what is being taught. Allowing lower and higher

students to work together in reading groups provides an opportunity for higher level students to

teach their peers and allows lower level students, who I am sure get tired of hearing their teacher

correct them, to learn from their peers. It allows for more focus during group reading time on

comprehension. By the time, the story is complete in a strictly low level group all the children

have stopped paying attention and are tired of listening to each other struggle. In a mixed group,

the pace of the story is much faster and the group as a whole enjoys the story more.

The importance of phonics instruction over whole instruction is that it provides students

with the tools to decode new words while whole words instruction does not. Some words need to

be recognized on sight of, the, and other frequently used words. However, students need phonics

instruction because there are millions of words in the English language that students could

possibly come into contact with in their life and they need the ability to decode those unseen

words. I watch my sister continue to struggle with spelling and reading new words and even with

her fluency because she does not have those decoding skills. She struggles to read the back of

DVDs. We must teach children how to decode words and help them practice these skills until

they are absolutely automatic. It is the only way to create fluent readers that can comprehend

difficult tasks.

I have never watched Between the Lions, but have now set my DVR to record the

episodes next week so that I can watch it. Watching any type of TV in Head Start is not allowed

because so many teachers used to abuse it. I love to watch Word World with my goddaughter. It

is PBS show also. It is about a world where the animals can talk and create the objects they need

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out of letters. The animals are also made out of letters. It is a very neat show. I did like that the

article pointed out for the viewing to be beneficial that teachers had to actively participate with

students. Parents and teachers alike often think that setting a child down in front of an

educational television program will allow them to learn, but they still need outside interaction to

help them connect the dots.

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Reflection Nine – October 23, 2011

The working with words block is my favorite block to teach and the self-selected reading block

contains a skill that is necessary to be a successful adult, but in my opinion the most important

block out of the three reading blocks is the guided reading block. It provides a teacher with the

opportunity to model how a good reader reads. Education is so focused on creating readers

earlier and earlier it is beginning to cost us good readers. Just because a child can open to a page

in a book and fluently recognize words does not mean that he or she is a good reader. Good

readers need to be able to decode unfamiliar words, discover their meaning, make inferences,

and comprehend the plot of texts. After all of those processes are complete, students need to be

able to convey meaning from the text as a whole including the author’s purpose and finding a

lesson from the story. The guided reading block allows teachers to provide students with access

to their thoughts and the processes that occur as they read. Being a good reader is not simply

being able to fluently read a grade level passage. It is knowing how to read a passage that will

challenge a reader and being able to decode and discover meaning from reading. The guided

reading block is an opportunity to develop all of these skills.

Informational texts are often ignored in the primary grades. There is such a focus on

being able to read a story and develop that ability that reading informational texts can fall to the

wayside. Reading a fictional story and reading informational text require to sets of skills. Some

of the skills overlap such as decoding words and fluency, but the comprehension skills required

differ greatly and so does the purpose for reading. Readers need to know that they are looking for

facts and details in informational texts instead of plot and characters. Navigating informational

text is different than navigating a story. The layout of informational text can include text boxes

and footnotes. Informational texts are something that students are going to encounter. As they get

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older and progress in school they will have to complete research for papers and other

assignments. This ties back into the idea of content area reading that was the focus of Educ 621.

Children need to know how to read novels, textbooks, and all forms of print.

Comprehension is the end goal of reading. The purpose of reading is to derive meaning

from print. All of the skills that are taught to students are the foundation of a structure that leads

up to reading comprehension. As an adult, reading surrounds everything I do. I have to read

memos at work, school material, grocery lists, recipes, instructions for many things, and books

for pleasure. I have a parent who cannot read or write anything more than her name. I cannot

fathom how she leads her life and the struggles she must face on a daily basis. The biggest

concern for me as her child’s teacher is the effect that it will have on her child’s future reading

ability. Reading is so vital to leading a successful, positive life in this society.

The idea of the book club was very neat to me. Young children love the opportunity to

talk and share their opinion. It would be a wonderful opportunity to motivate children to read and

write their critique as well. It could also be a safe avenue for students who are hesitant to speak

because of a lower reading level to share their opinions and engage in discussion with the class

where there is no correct answer.

I use KWL charts and webs with my preschoolers. I do not complete KWL charts for

specific books. I would lose their attention in no time. I use them for specific themes. The

students did a great KWL chart when we studied exercise earlier this year. Last week, we worked

to create a web of different types of clothing. My students call it a bubble chart. They enjoy it

and are motivated to create a “bubble”.

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Reflection Ten – October 30, 2011

Head Start used an article called The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap for staff

development last year. The researchers found that in studying poverty stricken families and

professional families that by age 4 the children in the professional families had heard 30 million

more words than their poverty level peers. This is so disturbing when vocabulary knowledge is

one of the best predictors of reading achievement. This is why Head Start and the

PreKindergarten classrooms are such vital programs. Hamblen County has an Early Head Start

program that serves children from birth to age 3. The poverty is such a real, true detriment and it

is something that makes education such a difficult job. How can you bring children that come to

school 30 million words behind up to the level that his or her peers are at? One other statistic that

came from the article was even more disturbing to me. In professional families, the ratio of

positive to negative comments was 6 to 1. In poverty stricken families, the ratio was 1 to 2.

Children in a poverty level family hear 2 negative comments for every 1 positive comment that

they heard. How does a child come out of a home like that and be a positive, hopeful adult? I try

to remember this statistic, because it helps be just a little bit more positive and kind to my

students on a daily basis.

Research has proven that appropriately leveled reading materials are essential to student

success, but administrators and curriculum specialists continue to provide curriculum that use

one central story that many readers struggle with. When I taught 3rd

grade, our reading

curriculum did provide leveled readers to be used with the central story. However, the majority

of our class time was still spent in the main text that was too difficult for many of my students. I

used the leveled readers once a week during small group instruction, but focused on the main

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story, because the 3rd

grade teaching team used the test provided with the curriculum as a weekly

assessment for grading purposes. If the rest of my team had not wanted to use that assessment

then I could have focused on the leveled readers, but unfortunately that was not option. What

confuses me is if research has proven how important it is that appropriately leveled texts be used,

then why don’t textbook companies design reading curriculums, so that they are aimed toward

small group time and include leveled readers as the focus of the weekly curriculum instead of

one main story that is often too difficult for many and boring for some. The stories could revolve

around a common theme, such as bike safety or fall weather and could even provide an

opportunity for the students to jigsaw with each other on what was learned or about the story that

they read.

In the decisions article, one of the things that stood out to me was that one of the most

important things that a teacher must do to be able to make skilled decisions is know his or her

students. For me, this is one of my favorite activities and the thing I love doing most and that

keeps me going at the beginning of the year when it is a struggle to teach routines and rules and

expectations. However, it is something that I at least did not expect coming out of college. In

your practicums and in student teaching, your cooperating teacher is there to fill you in on all of

the students’ quirks and that make them unique and wonderful. Honestly, I never put two and

two together that when it was my classroom that I would have to be the one figuring out all those

little details, but I absolutely love it. Finding out that one student loves cars and another can

build the most amazing things with block and his imagination and another loves to play house

and pretend she is a mommy is so neat. Figuring out who has a stubborn streak and who is shy

and sensitive is vital. Carson Newman gave me all these strategies and techniques and a library

full of knowledge and research, but one of the most important things I do every year is get to

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know my students and solve the puzzle of who they are. It lets me know how to reach them and

teach them. I added Highway Letters that are written with a style that looks likes roadways to my

writing center and a small car so that my fellow who loves cars will practice writing his letters.

Understanding our students allows us to be better teachers not only when it comes to making

literacy decisions, but better teachers in general and allows us to possibly make a life long

difference in our students.

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Reflection Eleven – November 6, 2011

I have never heard the term “driting” before, but I really like it. There is a huge connection

between drawing and writing. One of the most obvious examples of this is when children

proceed from random scribbling to realizing that the marks that they put on paper have meaning

and represent something. It is a very difficult concept for small children to grasp. They see

pictures that have meaning and they have to realize that they themselves can create pictures that

have meaning. Drawing is a way for children to get the ideas and thoughts inside of them out.

One of my students this week drew a picture of her mother in her wedding dress and told me a

story about the day her mother and father were married. I shared it with her mother and she said

that her daughter loved to look at their wedding album and hear about that day. One of the little

boys in my class drew me a picture of Batman, Robin, and the Joker along with an elaborate

story of how Batman and Robin defeated the Joker. For children, drawing is a major milestone

on the path to reading and writing. Children have to become cognizant that print has meaning

and the best way for them to do this is to create and share their artwork. As a teacher, I need to

guide them with appropriate questioning so that their artwork and accompanying stories become

more detailed. If a child can use their imagination to tell a story that corresponds with a picture

orally, then eventually they will be able to write a detailed story. Completing this activity with

drawing as opposed to writing provides children with a better sense of comfort, because learning

to write letters has become a very stressful event in a child’s life in which there could be a fear of

failure hanging over a child’s head. Not to mention that anytime a pencil or crayon or paintbrush

is in a child’s hand they are improving their fine motor skills which can do nothing but improve

their writing skills.

I can believe the article about coloring. I came from a very good program (I’m not just

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saying that because I’m bias) and I felt relatively well prepared, as well prepared as I could

walking into a room full of 8 year olds and having their educational and emotional needs resting

on my shoulders for a year. However, small group time was a struggle. It took a lot of trial and

error as a first year teacher to learn a system that worked for me and my students. It also required

a lot of discipline and a set of well known, well established, enforced expectations to keep

students on task when they were not in my group. I can see how some teachers can result to

meaningless activities to keep students busy. I do not think is acceptable or appropriate, but I

understand why it happens. This is why there is a huge need for high quality teacher education

programs, mentor programs for inexperienced teachers, and high quality professional

development throughout a career in education. This is an example of why formal evaluations

alone do not work as a successful teacher evaluation system. Principals should be required not to

do more formal evaluations with absurdly lengthy lesson plans, (I heard of one acquaintance’s

lesson plan for evaluation that was 26 pages long) but to do informal evaluations and anecdotes.

I write anecdotes 3 times a year on my students to prove growth and progress throughout the

year. A principal should be required to appear unannounced in a teacher’s classroom at random

points throughout the day and year and record short anecdotes about what is seen, heard, and

done. Any teacher with a horrible education can scare his or her students into behaving for one

lesson and plan and teach one creative, outstanding lesson throughout the year. The principal

needs to monitor when a teacher does not know he or she is watching. This would make a much

more profound impact on learning about how a teacher teaches than announced visits that

teachers have days and weeks to prepare for and would also show more than any test score what

actually occurred inside of a classroom.

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Reflection Twelve – November 13, 2011

At Head Start, we use multiple assessments including LapD assessments, portfolios, and

anecdotals. I really liked the anecdotal system that was described in the article. I complete 3

anecdotals on each child and each anecdotal must also have a follow up activity listed with it.

However, I feel pressured to get the anecdotals and in all honesty my assistant and I find it so

interesting that during the time frame in which I have to write the anecdotals the kids give us

nothing, but as soon as they’re done then they say and do such wonderful things. I write

anecdotals for no purpose. The only person that ever sees my anecdotals is my supervisor and

they are never revisited during the year. The anecdotals at Head Start serve no purpose. The

system in the article would be so wonderful to use and provide me with true feedback. One

single anecdotal is useless. Anecdotals need to be done consistently so that a pattern can be

developed and studied. Teachers come to know their students and learn about their abilities and

habitats not in a day, but throughout the year. Completing only one anecdotal is like placing a

teacher in a classroom for one day and then having him or her plan for the entire year and to

expect all students to succeed. Anecdotals should be used to paint a picture and each anecdotal

only puts a stroke or two on the canvas so to create a beautiful, vibrant picture you need quite a

few anecdotals.

The idea of self-created portfolios was very interesting. I have to sneak the really good

pictures out of my children’s art cubbies to add to their portfolios. They do not want to turn over

a picture to me especially if they are proud of it. They want to take it home and show it off to

everyone. The student’s explanation of why they chose what they chose was very eye opening. I

can remember the little boy who put in the book, because the character had a speech disorder like

he did. I struggle with the portfolios at Head Start because we have a list of artifacts that we are

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supposed to collect 3 times a year. Some of my children have only that required list and

sometimes it is difficult to get those items out of them. Each portfolio should include a drawing,

painting, name writing sample, dictated story, self-portrait, a photo for growth along with

recorded height and weight and a photo of their favorite center and a photo showing social

interactions and a list of the student’s favorite things. I feel like I have spent so much of my time

this year on portfolios and it is taking time away from my teaching. This is the first year that we

have used this system though so I am sure I will adapt and get a better grasp on it where it is

more automatic.

I had a colleague this week bring up a wonderful point about assessment and the

contention it creates and the drama about merit based pay. All that we need is a preassessment

completed at the beginning of every year to account for what was lost during the summer. It will

give an accurate base line for what kind of classroom that a teacher is working with. There will

be no need to be angry with teachers in grades below you or to feel pressured by teachers in

grades above you. There is a true assessment of where you have been able to move your students

in 180 days. There are still many complications for this as well. What about students who move

in from other states? There is of course still the opportunity for cheating. However, in college we

learned that one of the most important steps was preassessing student knowledge. A

preassessment would be a wonderful tool for teachers to use to plan.

I do not understand why retention is opposed. If students were retained in the early grades

until they were ready to move on, they would be so much more successful later on in their

education. When I taught 3rd

grade, I had a student who was reading on an early kindergarten

level. He would struggle with simple Dick and Jane style texts. I recommended him to be

retained. At the end of the year, he was reading at a late 1st grade level, but there was no way he

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would be successful in 4th

grade. By refusing to retain students and provide them time to become

the learners and readers they should be we are hurting no one, but the students.

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Reflection Thirteen – November 20, 2011

The first chapter listed what teachers would need to understand and know in order to

successfully teach children to read. The list is long and intensive. The fact is that in no

undergraduate program can any school prepare students for everything that will occur in their

classroom. When I started teaching in Hamblen County, I felt so lost and overwhelmed. I was in

survival mode as Harry Wong would say. There are still some days where survival is my only

goal, but I think that I am moving towards being a masterful teacher slowly. The transition from

student teacher to teacher is difficult and something that I think can never truly be prepared for.

It is a horrible analogy, but similar to going to war soldiers are briefed on what they will see and

what is expected of them, but until they are in that environment the true reality of it cannot hit

them. I find it insane that plumbers and electricians are apprentices for 3 to 5 years and teachers

are true apprentices for 5 months and then thrown into the classroom and depending on which

school and district they are located at could be very much on their own. I graduated from Carson

Newman and feel that compared to many of my peers who graduated from other colleges that I

was well prepared. However, there is so much knowledge to learn and possess about teaching

and students and how students learn best. I chose to return to school for my master’s degree,

because I felt that I could use improvement and more understanding in literacy. I took 3 courses

that closely focused on literacy and thought that I had barely opened the lid. Teachers truly need

to be prepared to be lifelong learners. Education is always changing and if we do not love to

learn and can we expect to instill a passion for knowledge in young people.

The requirements for many preschool positions are horrendous. At Head Start, teachers

are required to have their associate’s degree by October of 2012 due to a federal mandate that is

just now becoming law. If a child’s brain is more than 50% developed by the age of 5, why is the

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federal government just now requiring those teachers to be educated in their field? However, on

the flip side of the coin is the deplorable pay that can make it very unattractive to go into early

childhood education compared to other age levels. As standards and expectations drop

throughout the grade levels, children need to come to school more and more capable of learning.

I believe that prekindergarten should become a universal requirement for all children and that it

should be provided through the public school system with the same requirements as all licensed

teachers. It would be a transition, but so was the move to universal kindergarten. This move

would allow for early intervention for disabilities and for socialization to prepare children to be

ready to learn.

There is a huge amount of turnover in teaching. This is due in part, because it is such a

hard job to prepare for and it is an isolating position. Teachers are part of a teaching team, but

that only meets once a week. On a daily basis it is just the teacher and the students in a room by

themselves. There is no one to ask for help right then. You cannot leave the students to go ask a

veteran teacher the best way to approach a situation or question. Teachers have to make so many

decisions on a daily basis without input from others, because in the classroom problems arise no

matter how much you try to prepare for every possible outcome. Teaching is an isolating job.

I think that education is in a very interesting place when it comes to curriculum standards.

With the release of the common core standards and many states adopting their use, the nation is

starting to move more towards federal standards than state standards. I am a fan of that move

especially in this economy. Families are necessarily relocating to find employment and are often

traveling across state lines. I wonder if part of the reason that China and Japan and other

developed countries that are surging ahead of us in education is that there is not as much red tape

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and separation throughout their educational systems. Would a federal education system be a

better alternative than 50 state ran educational systems?

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Reflection Fourteen – December 4, 2011

Words walls can so easily be transformed into something that is totally and completely

inappropriate. I have one in my classroom, because I am required to have one. However, I easily

confess that I do not use it as Head Start wishes. The only words on my word wall are the names

of the students in the room, which is pushing appropriate at this age. Each theme, I choose 3

words that are challenging and new for students to learn. For example, when we studied exercise,

my vocabulary words were perspiration, repetition, and skeleton. The goal of vocabulary words

is obviously to expand children’s vocabularies and expose them to words that they probably will

not here inside their homes. Now, Head Start wants me to add each of the vocabulary words to

the word wall each week and have the students use the word wall. In my opinion, these two

things have no business working together. The purpose of word walls are to help older primary

grade children to learn to spell and read words. While it is wonderful to expose my 3 and 4 year

old students to complex words, I have no hallucinations that I can have them reading and writing

the word perspiration before they start kindergarten. My goal is to have them writing their name

legibly. Honestly, if there is no other benefit to the vocabulary words it always brings your mood

up a little bit to hear a small child pronounce a long, complex word. Word walls are wonderful

inventions and great tools, but educators need to be aware that not everything is appropriate for

everyone just because it works at one level. I am not going to have my preschoolers listening to

William Shakespeare during read aloud and I would not have high school children dancing and

singing Dr. Jean. Our strategies need to be appropriate to the level of children that we are

educating.

In my classroom, everything is labeled. Environmental print is a large focus for me

especially the student’s names. By this time in the year, most of the children can recognize the

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name of everyone in the classroom. Their name is on that wonderful word wall, on a job tag that

is used daily, on the backs of the chair where they eat lunch and breakfast, and on a play tag,

which is how they claim their spot in a play area. There is a 3 ring notebook in the writing area

with dotted names, so that they can practice tracing their names and their friends’ names with dry

erase markers. Names are such a wonderful tool. Every child loves his or her name. Children do

not pick up a crayon and think that the scribbles that they make have meaning. They slowly learn

that what they draw can represent something or someone. The same is true of letters. When a

child starts writing letters, he or she does not realize that putting those letters together can make

specific words with meaning. Teaching a child how to spell or write his or her name is that first

piece of the puzzle falling into place for that connection that putting the right letters together can

make words that mean so many different things.

I really like 4 Blocks as a program. The reason I like it the most is that it is so multilevel.

The activities can meet so many standards and goals for such a large variety of students with one

activity. Every child is different and 4 Blocks allows the teacher to set realistic expectations for

each student, expectations that are achievable and attainable and that will allow students to be

excited to read and write because they are successful at it. I remember round robin reading. I was

the best reader in the class and I still hated it. I can only imagine what a struggling reader would

feel. It is so painful to sit with a group of low level readers who are struggling to read a sentence

or two and are embarrassed to be reading while the other readers in the group drift off and

daydream. It certainly does not help improve fluency or comprehension. Any program that sorts

students out as unsuccessful and does not offer the opportunity for true growth such as leveled

reading is bound for failure. The 4 blocks program is the best program that offers the opportunity

for true individualization within the constraints of class sizes and time considerations.

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Standard 1: Candidates demonstrate an understanding of theories underlying the reading

process and the teaching of reading.

The process of learning to read is a continuum and each child progresses at their own

level. Learning to read begins at a very early age as children learn the sounds that are used in

their spoken language and build an ever increasing vocabulary. The majority of pre-reading

concept and skill development is informal. The National Association for the Education of Young

Children (2005) states, “The single most important activity for building these understandings and

skills essential for reading success appears to be reading aloud to children” (p.2). Read alouds

offer the opportunity to learn about print concepts, letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and

comprehension skills.

Young children learn about their world through play. Dramatic play areas offer children

the opportunity to explore literacy and its functions using their imagination. Children can reenact

stories that have been read increasing their comprehension abilities. They can also use literacy in

their pretend play in ways that they are incapable of in the real world due to their limited skills.

Children can write recipes, grocery lists, instructions, letters, checks, and many other things

during pretend play. Learning about the functions of print will motivate children to become

successful readers and writers so that they can use those skills in their real life.

Dramatic play is not the only way that children can learn through play. Hallie Yopp and

Ruth Yopp (2000) encourage the use of many play activities to increase phonemic awareness

skills including songs, chants, word sound games, rhymes, and riddles. They explain “that

phonemic awareness instruction for young children should be playful and engaging, interactive

and social, and should stimulate curiosity and experimentation with language” (p. 132).

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In an ideal world, children will have developed all the pre-reading skills necessary to

enter school prepared to learn to read. However, in reality the children who enter a classroom

every year come from a variety of backgrounds and arrive with completely different skills sets

and levels. Due to this, once formal education begins it needs to be multilevel and balanced so

that each student can be taught, encouraged, and reached every day of the school year.

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References

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2005). Learning to read and write:

what research reveals. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/4483/

Yopp, H. K., & Yopp, R. H. (2000). Supporting phonemic awareness development in the

classroom. The Reading Teacher, 54(2), 130-143.

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Standard 2: Candidates demonstrate an understanding of the written language as a symbolic

system and the interrelation of reading and writing, and listening and speaking.

Children’s first exposure to language is through speaking and listening. Infants and

toddlers develop an awareness of the sounds that are used within their spoken language and the

words that compile a language through speaking and listening. Slowly as they grow, children

come to realize that the symbols around them can have meaning. Stop signs, traffic lights,

bathroom signs, and logos all become a source of meaning for children. The National

Association for the Education of Young Children (2005) explains that “Children learn to use

symbols, combining their oral language, pictures, print, and play into a coherent mixed medium

and creating and communicating meanings in a variety of ways” (p.1). Eventually, children learn

to recognize and label letters as specific representations of the sounds that they use to

communicate.

Once these concepts are developed, children can begin to read and write slowly

improving their ability. Speaking, reading, and writing ability are skill sets that develop

simultaneously. Amy Evers, Lisa Lang, and Sharon Smith (2009) encourage the use of alphabet

books to improve all three skill sets. They believe in “providing varied opportunities for

conversation, reading, and writing through alphabet books during writing workshop centers on

the reciprocity of all three of these aspects of literacy” (p. 461).

Becoming literate is a process. It requires the ability to speak eloquently, read fluently

with high levels of comprehension, and to write detailed texts that are informational and

pleasurable to read. None of these abilities develop separately from the others. Increasing one’s

vocabulary offers the opportunity to understand new words during reading, use new words in

conversation, and write new words when composing text. Discovering new information through

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reading provides the opportunity to pass it on through conversation. Literacy is a concept that

includes all modes and manners of communication.

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References

Evers, A., Lang, L., & Smith, S. (2009). An abc literacy journey:anchoring in texts, bridging

language, and creating stories. The Reading Teacher, 62(6), pp. 461–470.

National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2005). Learning to read and write:

what research reveals. Reading Rockets. Retrieved from

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/4483/

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Standard 3: Candidates demonstrate an understanding of how literacy development differs from

learner to learner.

While reading and writing skills progress on a predictable continuum, each child

develops at their own pace and in their own way. Literacy skills develop as children age and

continually improve, but this improvement is dependent upon each child’s specific

characteristics and background to dictate the pace at which children develop. The International

Reading Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998)

found that “because of these individual and experiential variations, it is common to find within a

kindergarten classroom a five-year range in children’s literacy-related skills and functioning” (p.

31). This variation in skill level calls for a curriculum that is multilevel and tailored to individual

students. For instruction to be optimally effective, the texts that are being used need to be chosen

based on student’s reading level and interests. “A text in which a child can read 90 – 95% of the

words easily is considered to be at that child’s instructional reading level – where instruction will

be most effective” (Rog, L. & Burton, W., 2001, p.348).

Not only do the required texts need to be multilevel and tailored to student’s needs, but so

does direct instruction and the other literacy activities that are used to improve student

performance. Every activity needs to be able to increase the skills of each child in the room.

Patricia Cunningham, Dorothy Hall, and Cheryl Sigmon (2008) offer an immense amount of

activities that can be tailored to suit the needs of a wide variety of students in their Four-Blocks

Literacy Model. The teacher can touch upon and model a variety of reading skills and strategies

during guided reading. During self-selected reading, appropriately chosen texts can be chosen so

that each student can make the most progress possible on a daily basis. Students can be

encouraged to improve their writing and share their published work with the class no matter what

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level they are writing at without being compared to other students at different skill levels.

Working with words activities provides students with the opportunities to learn phonemic

awareness, decoding skills, and improve their spelling depending on what their current reading

level is.

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References

Cunningham, P. M., Hall, D.P., & Sigmon, C. M. (1999). The teacher's guide to the four blocks:

A multimethod, multilevel framework for grades 1-3. Greensboro, NC: Carson-Dellosa.

International Reading Association and National Association for the Education of Young

Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for

young children. Young Children, 53(4), pp. 30-46.

Rog, L. J., & Burton, W. (2001-2002). Matching texts and readers: Leveling early reading

materials for assessment and instruction. The Reading Teacher, 55(4), 348-356.

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Standard 5: Candidates create an environment that fosters interest and growth in all aspects of

literacy.

The walls of my classroom are peppered with environmental print. Young children can

gain a vast amount of knowledge from environmental print. The International Reading

Association and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (2005) explain,

“Children learn a lot about reading from the labels, signs, and other kinds of print they see

around them. Highly visible print labels on objects, signs, and bulletin boards in classrooms

demonstrate the practical uses of written language” (p. 33).

Inside my classroom is a comfortable corner with beanbags surrounded by books on

shelves. Many of the books in the reading area are exchanged weekly for a different set of books

that align with student interests and the theme of the week. A few favorite stories are left on a

special shelf throughout the year. Linda Clary (1991) supports the development of an area

specifically designed to encourage reading. She found that in her study of adolescents and their

teachers that a comfortable area designated for the purpose of reading increased student interest

and motivation.

The dramatic play area is filled with props that encourage story-telling and the use of

pretend literacy. A child can usually be found writing a grocery list or a customer’s order on the

pads of paper inside. A writing center is filled with paper, writing tools, stamps, doodle boards,

and a dotted, laminated copy of each student’s name that can be traced with dry erase markers.

The most important aspect to creating an environment that fosters literacy growth and

exploration is to create a place where students feel safe exploring and growing in their literacy

skills and where literature is valued. I often visit the reading area to read aloud to one or two

students at a time. I express my love of stories to my students. I often share my favorite stories

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with my students and tell them why the story means so much to me. I share with my students all

of the wonderful avenues that reading and writing can open to them and how valuable literature

can be.

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References

Clary, L. (1991). Getting adolescents to read. Journal of Reading, 34(5), pp. 340-345.

International Reading Association and National Association for the Education of Young

Children. (1998). Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for

young children. Young Children, 53(4), pp. 30-46.

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Standard 6: Candidates teach word identification strategies, assist students in building their

vocabularies, and guide students in refining their spelling.

The first step in teaching students to read and spell is to ensure that they are phonemically

aware of the sounds that are found within their language. Priscilla Griffith and Mary Olson

(1992) explain that “phonemic awareness skill enables children to use letter-correspondence to

read and spell words” (p. 516). Once the students are aware of the sounds that compile a

language and the letters that represent those sounds teachers can assist children in beginning to

decode words through “sounding out” and also comparing and matching letter patterns in similar

words such as duck and truck. Steven Stahl (1992) explains that “effective decoders see words

not in terms of phonics rules, but in terms of patterns of letters that are used to aid in

identification” (p. 622).

The eventual result of decoding strategy should be a student who is capable of

deciphering new words and adding those words to his or her vocabulary. The larger a student’s

vocabulary, the more words that a student is capable of reading easily and fluently and the more

words a student has at their disposal to compose written works.

The working with words block found within Patricia Cunningham, Dorothy Hall, and

Cheryl Sigmon’s Four Blocks Literacy Model offers a variety of ways to assist students in

building their vocabularies and improving their spelling skills. During this time, teachers can

introduce new words and add them to the classroom’s word wall. Instruction can also be

provided to show students how to use the word wall as a tool to help them improve their spelling.

Students can work with word families and rhyming words to increase their vocabulary and

improve their spelling. Making words lessons allow students to play with letters and improve

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their spelling simultaneously. Spelling strategies can be taught such as using words you know

and sounding out words.

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References

Cunningham, P. M., Hall, D.P., & Sigmon, C. M. (1999). The teacher's guide to the four blocks:

A multimethod, multilevel framework for grades 1-3. Greensboro, NC: Carson-Dellosa.

Griffith, P. L., & Olson, M. W. (1992). Phonemic awareness helps beginning readers break the

code. The Reading Teacher, 45(7), 516-523.

Stahl, S. A. (1992). Saying the “p” word: Nine guidelines for exemplary phonics instruction. The

Reading Teacher, 45(8), 618-625.

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Standard 7: Candidates provide explicit instruction and model multiple comprehension

strategies.

The first step in developing high levels of comprehension is to develop students who are

fluent readers. John Pikulski and David Chard (2005) encourage a variety of teaching strategies

that increase fluency as a way to improve comprehension. These include teaching decoding

skills, high frequency vocabulary, being able to recognize and use word parts and spelling

pattern, and encouraging independent reading. The easier it is for a student to fluently read a text

the more attention that he or she can pay to the meaning of the text and processing that meaning.

Michael Pressley (2002) reminds teachers that while “skilled reading involves fluent

word recognition, but also much more” (p. 291). Students must also be directly taught how to

monitor their comprehension as they read. Children must use comprehension strategies to make

themselves active readers. Teachers must model for students how to preview text through picture

walks and reviewing headings and bullets and how to connect prior knowledge to what they are

currently reading. Generating questions is a way for students to actively process if they are

successfully reading. Teachers can begin by providing questions for students to answer and

gradually release responsibility for generating questions to the students. Summarizing is a skill

that allows students to compile all that they have read into specific details and plot points. To

teach summarizing, teachers should move students slowly from summarizing paragraphs through

short stories and into book chapters. Pressley (2002) offers six steps for summarizing.

Unnecessary information should be deleted, information that is repeated should be removed, list

of terms should be created when applicable, series of events should be combined, and a topic

sentence should be selected or created if one cannot be found in the passage. Teaching students

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to summarize allows them to review what they have read, compile it into simpler terms, and

decide if their understanding of what they have read is logical.

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References

Pikulski, J. J., & Chard, D. J. (2005). Fluency: Bridge between decoding and reading

comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 58(6), 510-519.

Pressley, M. (2002). Metacognition and self-regulated comprehension. In Farstrup, A. E. &

Samuels, S. J. (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (pp. 205-242).

Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

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Standard 8: Candidates teach students a variety of study strategies to strengthen reading

comprehension.

There are many study strategies that can be used to increase comprehension and the

amount of knowledge that is retained. Studying is not a skill that develops naturally. It must be

taught through explicit instruction. Kathleen Clark and Michael Graves (2004) recommend the

strategy of reciprocal teaching to assist students in learning appropriate study and comprehension

strategies. It is used to teach questioning, summarizing, clarifying, and predicting. In this

strategy, the teacher allows students to take on the role of the teacher and make predictions,

clarify the author’s intentions, generate questions, and summarize what was read.

A useful strategy to increase comprehension is to activate prior knowledge. Jennifer Soalt

(2005) recommends that teachers use a combination of informational and fictional texts to

increase student comprehension. This will slowly allow students to realize the importance of

activating background knowledge and researching a topic to learn more about it.

Students need to be taught about the structure of informational texts. These texts include

footnotes, bullets, headings, and other aspects of text that are not found within fictional works.

Students need to learn how to navigate these texts. Students also need to be taught how to take

notes or highlight while reading so that they can later return to and review what was read. The

skill of being able highlight and take notes requires that students have the ability to separate

necessary knowledge from details.

One of the most important study strategies that can be taught is the use of graphic

organizers. Students can use a variety of graphic organizers to stimulate their comprehension of

texts. A KWL chart requires readers to activate prior knowledge, predict what they will read

about, and summarize what they have learned. Semantic maps will allow readers to organize

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information in an easily visual format. Flow charts will allow students to organize processes into

the correct order in an easily memorable format. Story maps and story boards will allow students

to keep track of the important plot points in fictional text.

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References

Clark, K. F., & Graves, M. F. (2004). Scaffolding students’ comprehension of text. The Reading

Teacher, 58(6), 570-580.

Soalt, J. (2005). Bringing together fictional and informational texts to improve comprehension.

The Reading Teacher, 58(7), 680-683.

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Standard 9: Candidates emphasize the interrelationship between reading and writing.

Reading and writing are concepts that are interrelated and that children learn

simultaneously. It is almost impossible to improve a student’s skill in one domain without

improving it in the other, which is one of the wonderful things about teaching literacy.

Introducing children to new text structures through reading increases the assortment of structures

and styles that are available for their writing compositions. Janine Certo (2004) recommends

exposing children to a variety of poetry to improve their writing of poetry an their ability to

evaluate their poetry and that of their peers.

Throughout Patricia Cunningham, Dorothy Hall, and Cheryl Sigmon’s (2008) balanced

literacy framework known as the Four Blocks Model the interrelationship of reading and writing

is displayed. During guided reading, students are provided mini lessons concerning graphic

organizers, story maps, story components, predicting, and sequencing. Compiling graphic

organizers and story maps will lead into turning information into persuasive articles and

informational paragraphs and even into outlines for stories. Learning about the components of

stories, such as characters, setting, and plot, will allow students to improve their own fictional

writing by ensuring that they know all of the elements that need to be included in their story.

Predicting what will happen next and sequencing the plot of stories will allow students to learn

that the plot in their own stories needs to progress in a logical order with a beginning, middle,

and end. The writing block can include many lessons that will improve students’ vocabulary and

expose them to a variety of words and spelling patterns that will improve reading fluency and

comprehension. Thinking about why they are writing will also provide them insight into possibly

why the author of their story chose to write.

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As a teacher the connectedness of reading and writing is a blessing, because it means that

every spent teaching one improves students’ skill levels in the other domain.

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References

Certo, J. L. (2004). Cold plums and old men in the water: Let children read and write “great”

poetry. The Reading Teacher, 58(3), 266-271.

Cunningham, P. M., Hall, D.P., & Sigmon, C. M. (1999). The teacher's guide to the four blocks:

A multimethod, multilevel framework for grades 1-3. Greensboro, NC: Carson-Dellosa.

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Standard 10: Candidates use a variety of evaluation tools and techniques and provide ongoing

assessment to diagnose individual learner strengths and needs, recommend effective strategies,

make decisions about instruction, advise classroom teachers, parents and students, and make

referrals to other professionals.

Evaluating and assessing student progress is vital to creating students who are successful

at reading and writing. Assessment allows teachers to discover where their students have

progressed developmentally, what skills are missing, and develop a plan to proceed with helping

each student become successful.

One of the most vital areas of reading assessment is fluency. I have used running records

and the Dibels assessment to assess fluency. Roxanne Hudson, Holly Lane, and Paige Pullen

(2005) recommend using running records to assess student fluency, because they provide

additional information about exactly what miscues students are making. Being knowledgeable

about students’ level of fluency allows teachers to choose appropriate texts that will allow them

to improve at the fastest rate possible. Monitoring fluency presents the opportunity to observe

student progress and ensure that students are making progress and that the teaching techniques

and strategies being used are beneficial. If students are not making progress then teachers need to

reevaluate their technique and monitor students to ensure that there are no disabilities hindering

students’ learning and that intervention is not needed.

As a classroom teacher, I used the weekly reading assessments to ensure that students

properly comprehended the text. I used the knowledge gained to influence and direct my

teaching strategies for the next week and to monitor student progress.

At Head Start, literacy progress is monitored through anecdotal records, student

portfolios, and the LapD assessment. Paul Boyd-Batstone (2004) describes anecdotal records as

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an authentic literacy system, because it draws on authentic moments inside of the classroom

environment. Portfolios and anecdotal records allow me to monitor a child’s progress throughout

the year and to ensure that they are making progress. I use the LapD assessment to guide my

instruction and set goals for the children throughout the year.

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References

Boyd-Batstone, P. (2004). Focused anecdotal records assessment: A tool for standards based

authentic assessment. The Reading Teacher, 58(3), 230-239.

Hudson, R. F., Lane, H. B., & Pullen, P. C. (2005). Reading fluency assessment and instruction:

What, why, and how? The Reading Teacher, 58(8), 702-714.

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Self-Evaluation

I feel that this course has improved my understanding of how children learn to read and

the stages that children progress through. I can now decipher more easily where my students are

at individually in the process of learning to read and can better individualize their experience in

my classroom to gently push them toward becoming literate. I am more cognizant of the literacy

environment that I am creating for the students in my classroom including conversational

language, environmental print, my attitude toward reading and writing, and the tools available

for students to practice their developing literacy skills and knowledge.

This course has improved the amount of teaching techniques and strategies I have

available to me. I have become more familiar with the Four Blocks Literacy Model and all of the

benefits that it can provide to students who are learning to read and improving their literacy

skills. I have a greater understanding of how to improve fluency including teaching decoding

skills, increasing student vocabulary, and choosing appropriate texts for each student. Reviewing

the proper steps for completing interactive real alouds has required that I focus on my read

alouds and ensure that I am using that time to offer my students all of the educational benefits

that I can. This course has given me a greater understanding of how to improve student

comprehension through a variety of strategies including questioning, summarizing, and graphic

organizers.

One of the greatest realizations that I have come to through this is course is how

interconnected reading and writing is. Delving deeper into the strategies and techniques used to

improve students’ reading and writing skills has allowed me to realize how students can benefit

in reading through writing activities and in writing through reading activities.

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In general, this course has allowed me to become a more focused and knowledgeable

literacy teacher and has increased my knowledge of how reading and writing skills are developed

and strategies that will allow me to assist students in becoming successful, literate people.